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Happy Birthday Milton Friedman
Today is Milton Friedman's birthday one of the greatest men of the 20th century in my opinion
If nobody is aware of his work I highly suggest they watch his documentry series Free To Choose
I hope Gard will give him a mention over the weekend ;)
Sorry Ziggy, Milton Friedman was a Socialist in disguise.
Milton Friedman has done more harm to the Liberty by claiming to be a Liberty lover and pointing everyone in the wrong direction. Yes his free to choose was great, but it was as great is the following idea:
"We need liberty for our kids, and when kids have liberty, the society gets more liberty and becomes prosperous. Whenever someone puts Liberty before kids they get Liberty only for one generation but when someone puts Kids before Liberty they get Liberty for many many generations to come. Therefore we must spend 90% of our GDP for the Liberty of our future generations, and have a Kids Liberty Czar who will plan all the resources in the economy with his 5-year plans and raise our Kids in the most Libertarian way. This my friends beauty of Capitalism".(If you don't understand the economics you might get totally fooled by this Socialist proposition)
What Milton Friedman managed to do was create a whole generation of Socialists who live, fight and die for Capitalism. The correct term for Milton Friedman's ideologies I believe is "Incentivized Socialism".
Mind you the only place where you can actually see this thing is if you see his economics. He does speak pro-liberty viewpoints, but all his economics about how to more efficiently give welfare to people(read Negative Income Tax), what is the right way for government to control the economy(Ans: Keep on expanding the money supply), how Federal Reserve caused great depression by not continuously expanding the money supply.
Sorry Ziggy, Milton Friedman was a Socialist in disguise.
flmao
I thnk they'd be a fair few Marxists who'd disagree
Ziggy I have a question.
If someone supports redistribution of wealth, is he or she a Socialist or not?
If not then who is a Socialist? Someone who supports 100% redistribution of wealth? Then nobody in Soviet Union is socialist because they didn't support a 100% redistribution of wealth, in fact no socialist country in the world has 100% redistribution of wealth.
If yes that anyone who supports redistribution of wealth for any degree, then Milton Friedman (and FA Hayek) are Socialists. If they are NOT Socialists then what is Socialism according to you? Someone who favors redistribution of 51% or more wealth?? Or someone who favors 63.2324555322%(or some arbitrary percentage) of redistribution of wealth? What is Socialism then?
I mean maybe the issue of whether Minarchists are Socialist or not be up for debate, but there is no way someone who actively supports redistribution of CASH(postive income tax), someone who supports govt intervention in education(vouchers) a Libertarian or a Capitalist for any degree.
I mean I can guess pretty accurately(and correct me if I am wrong) that you have only read Milton Friedman's stuff on the glory of choices and freedom. The truth is that people like him(like Alan Greenspan) damage Libertarianism and Capitalism way more than say Barack Obama whom everybody already accuse of being a Socialist. At least if Barack Obama supports nationalized healthcare, people call it a Socialist healthcare system, but when someone like Milton Friedman who swears by Freedom of choice supports a similar Nationalized healthcare plan(I am not saying he did, because I donno, but lets say if he did) then people will consider it as a capitalist healthcare solution.
In fairness, I believe (from reading Ziggy's posts) he would call himself a minarchist.
Well I don't think you can be a minarchist and support govt sponsorship of education, and welfare. That's just statism with lip service to libertarianism.
Well I don't think you can be a minarchist and support govt sponsorship of education, and welfare. That's just statism with lip service to libertarianism.
There is such a thing as being pragmatic
Well I don't think you can be a minarchist and support govt sponsorship of education, and welfare. That's just statism with lip service to libertarianism.
There is such a thing as being pragmatic
How would you describe your position, Ziggy?
Not that you have to, but I'm just curious.
Would you say that you were a minarchist? Would you see any place for taxation?
Again, I'm not being antagonistic - please don't think I am. I really enjoy your calls to FTL, and your posts here, and am therefore interested to hear more about your position.
How would you describe your position, Ziggy?
All I'd say is that I'm not as hardcore idealistic as you but its born out of personal experience
Would you see any place for taxation?
I'm certainly against direct taxation as in income tax but I don't have as much of a problem with indirect taxation as in tax on vices
However I'd prefer if there was just LVT
I'm not sure you know enough about me to call me 'hardcore anything', Ziggy, but there you go...
I'm not judging you, dude. There's no need to be defenisve with me. Believe what you want to and feel free to express it whatever way you like.
It's all fine by me.
I'm just interested to hear about it all. Geolibertarianism seems interesting, although, for me, it misfires on the major point of land tax.
But there you have it - different horses for courses, as the say. And, in my so-called idealistic society, there'd be a place for contracting geolibertarians, along with contracting communists or whatever other ways folks like to live their lives.
Professor Block published this on Lew Rockwell blog:
As for Milton Friedman, don't get me started on him. I've published quite a few articles attempting to call into question his so called libertarian credentials. Let me just now briefly mention the following: Support for educational vouchers (instead of full private schools), the Fed and flexible exchange rates (instead of gold as free market money), anti-trust law, the withholding tax (to be fair to him, he later apologized for this), the negative income tax (a supposedly more efficient welfare system); eminent domain, government roads and highways, "public goods" such as education, libraries, museums, based on his neighborhood effects argument. He too was a conservative with strong libertarian tendencies. But "Mr. Libertarian?" No.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/032986.html
My point is simple, nobody denies the great lip service Milton Friedman has done to the cause of Liberty, but its really a time that you see his policies in detail.
Tomorrow if someone comes out and says 'Hey, do you support negative income tax? Milton Friedman supported it', don't just support it blindly because Friedman supported it.
Well I don't think you can be a minarchist and support govt sponsorship of education, and welfare. That's just statism with lip service to libertarianism.
There is such a thing as being pragmatic
Sure there is. For example pragmatically speaking Lenin is a practical capitalist, and ideologically speaking he is a Socialist. But we don't really call him a capitalist.
Secondly I understand what your point is, but I don't think you understand the situation much.
If I divide the whole socialism/capitalism/fascism/capitalism ideologies based on how conceptual they are.
Economics::Practicality::Ideologically
Then Milton Friedman is:
Uber-Keynesian::Statist::Capitalist
Explaination: What Friedman does is, takes Keynes one step ahead, In fact Keynes is more capitalist than Friedman, Keynes supports at least dollar to be kept on gold standard, and rest of all currencies fiat, Friedman goes a step further and supports every currency to be floated freely(and to make inflating currency easier). Keynes support reducing the govt expenditure in a boom, and increasing it in a bust, Friedman believes that Great Depression could have avoided if Govt had increased the money supply and bailed out all the failing banks(What Obama is doing right now).
Friedman is statist in practical terms because he supports a govt and welfare programs, govt sponsorship of education.
Friedman is capitalist in his ideology because that's what he supports and gives lip service to.
Now as long as you consider his ideology, sure it is Capitalist, his practical or pragmatic approach is to be a statist, but when you look at his economics, there everything is way more darker than Paul Krugman's economics.
Do not forget Keynes gave a lot of lip service to Capitalism too. He claimed to have saved Capitalism from itself.
Make no mistake I am not dissing Friedman because he wasn't an Anarchist, Ayn Rand wasn't an anarchist, Ludwig Von Mises wasn't an anarchist. But you could consider their lack of support to the govt as a glitch compared to their rest of the belief.
BUT, Friedman wasn't right to on a more basic level. You might wonder what difference does that make? The truth is, it makes a HUGE difference. For example Adam Smith supported Capitalism, but since he got the Labor Theory of Value wrong, he gave birth to Marx's beliefs.
My point is, Milton Friedman's defense of liberty is like Alan Greenspan's defense of Gold Standard. A Lip service!
I understand what your point is, but I don't think you understand the situation much.
Personally I find that statement a tad patronising its not that I don't understand the situation, it's that I perceive things differently.
Sure I'm not an anarchist & I'd not call myself a libertarian.
My heroes weren't Ayn Rand or Murray Rothbard
My heroes were JS Mill & Milton Friedman
I'm somebody who believes in small(er) government, lower taxes & far greater personal liberty.
Many would class me as a classical liberal though I'd imagine you're class me as a statist. Yeah well you think me a statist & whatever connotations you might attach because the bottom line is I'm entitled to think for myself & that's exactly what I do.
I do find it ironic with some libertarians that they advocate so strongly free choice yet they get in a tiz when people think differently to them, its as if don't seem to think that free choice applies to people being free to think differently to libertarians or libertarian dogma.
Sure I'm not an anarchist & I'd not call myself a libertarian.
See you still think its about minarchist vs anarchist.
My problem with people like Friedman and Greenspan is, that they support free markets as some sort of magical entities which will work no matter how much you harass them.
Until this recession I too supported Milton Friedman. When I first found out about liberty, it was from 'Free to Choose', I sat down and made my whole family watch it.
But dude that's where Friedman's help to the liberty movement ends. He made a great movie about personal freedom and choices. Beyond that Friedman's thoeries harm liberty.
In America one major political side believes in Keyenes(big govts) and other side believes in Friedman(small govt but big monetory intrusion), then I am sorry to say liberty is screwed in America. I was a Republican at one time, and I can tell you, they are big time Friedman fans, and just like right now liberals believe that all we need to do is to expand the government and we will out of the recession, during the bush years the conservatives believed that all they need to do is introduce free credit in the economy and let free market do its magic.
This free credit just caused so many damage to liberty and capitalism.
According to Friedman(and this is from Free To Choose), the Great Depression occurred because the Federal Reserve refused to bailout the banks of New York City, probably because they were owned by the Jews, and there was a lot of anti-semitism in Federal Reserve at that time.
"Well I don't think you can be a minarchist and support govt sponsorship of education, and welfare. That's just statism with lip service to libertarianism."
I would love to explore the topic of anarchism vs. minarchism. I considered putting "Anarchism/Minarchism," by Roderick T. Long and Tibor R. Machan up for consideration on http://freedombookclub.com . The price of this book is like $80 so I went for a cheaper book by Professor Long. If anyone has a copy of this book, and wants to loan it to me, let me know.
As an asside, Professor Long is being raked over the coals by tax expropriators in Alabama. Consider purchasing this book here: http://sn.im/pn38f
I agree, Renegade. Good point, well made.
I would love to explore the topic of anarchism vs. minarchism.
I am sorry dude but I don't think you read my comment properly, I wrote 'you are not a MINARCHIST if you support welfare and govt sponsored education'. I wasn't talking about Anarchism-minarchism, forget Anarchism for a minute. My point is, you aren't even a minarchist if you support these statist measures but give lip service to the virtues of Capitalism.