Economist Friedman dies aged 94 (Was he a great thinker or a libertarian hack?)

[BurtWorm]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6156106.stm



Milton Friedman
Friedman was seen as the leader of the Chicago school of monetarism
Nobel prize-winning US economist Milton Friedman has died at the age of 94.

...

The Cato Institute - a free market think tank in Washington that Mr Friedman advised - added that Mr Friedman had "revolutionised" economic thinking.

"If (John Maynard) Keynes dominated economic thinking in the mid-20th century, Friedman dominates economic thinking at the end of the century, and well into this century," an institute spokesman told AFP news agency.

And Ben Bernanke, the head of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, said in a speech in 2003 that "his thinking has so permeated modern macroeconomics that the worst pitfall in reading him today is to fail to appreciate the originality and even revolutionary character of his ideas."

Libertarian


...

However, his work was not just limited to the economic realm. He was also a libertarian campaigner who supported home schooling as well as the decriminalisation of drugs and prostitution.

As part of his campaigning Mr Friedman advocated the abolition of the military draft in the US after the Vietnam War, something he said was one of his proudest achievements.

[depakid]

1. He failed to see the big picture

He was the quintessential neoclassical economist who was so absorbed in the "cult of growth" and "supremacy of markets," that he failed to grasp even the most fundamental principles of the natural sciences and ecology.

Like his friends at CATO, the vast majority of his ideas have left the world a much poorer place....

[BurtWorm]

3. That's a very perceptive criticism.

That is precisely what's wrong with right-wing economics. It is all about an ideal, which is why it creates such misery when they try to apply the theory in the real world.

[GoneOffShore]

31. Except for those who profited from his theories

So, the rich got richer(Much richer) and the poor got poorer (much poorer) thanks to Friedman.

[Greyhound]

2. JACS, just another corporate shill. n/t

:kick:

[Joanne98]

4. May he rot in Hell!

[TahitiNut]

6. He can test his 'free market' theories there - in air-conditioning, maybe.

He was a appalling prostitute - selling his morally bankrupt garbage to the high bidders.

[devilgrrl]

5. Hell isn't hot enough for that prick!

eom

[malaise]

7. Good fugging riddance

He created enough mess along with Hayek.

[arewenotdemo]

8. (cough) (cough) {HACK} (cough)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

16. I think I'm coming down with something, too.

[Ellis Wyatt]

9. heartless

The guy won a nobel prize. It's not like he's some evil fraud criminal. Disagreeing with his politics or opinions is fine - but joy that he's dead? Wishing he "rots in hell"? What is wrong with you?

I am very surprised at the amount of outright hatred and lack of tolerance for other ideas by some people on this board. It's very unbecoming of progressive ideals.

I can disagree with his politics, or his ideas, but to hope someone burns in hell (or worse) is just extremely callous, and very poor form; classless in my opinion.

[niyad]

22. I strongly recommend that you read, "the best democracy money can buy" by greg

palast, who talks in there about being in the group of students milton taught, and just who they were, and what they have done to our world. might make you rethink a couple of things.

[upi402]

43. he is the ultimate scum shit

fuck him in hell

[Odin2005]

10. The problem with Neo-Classical Economics is that is is based on unfounded assumptions.

Most of these assumptions ignore the historical basis of Capitalism's origins and instead use ahistorical "just-so" stories about why the assumptions are universally correct.

[depakid]

23. One of these assumptions

is that the laws of thermodynamics (conservation of energy, and entropy) do not apply to economics. To these folks, the circular flow of the general equilibrium goes on and on and even grows, irrespective of energy and material inputs, externalities, waste out of the system into limited sinks- and depletion of natural capital.

It's like they're completely divorced from the fact that human economics is a subsystem of the larger ecological system. When viewed in this respect, one see that their basic assumptions look like little more than perpetual motion machines.

:crazy:

[Odin2005]

27. another crap assumption is the "rational actor" asumption.

It says that humans are rational actors and that we will do things in our self-interest as long as we have enough information. That assumption is based on the Enlightenment intellectual atmpshere Adam Smith was raised, we now know that assumption to be incorrect, humans are often very irrational (that's why the advertisement industry exists and why political spin works) and rarely, if ever have enough information.

[depakid]

46. Yep- Herbert Simon & Daniel Kahneman

pretty well smacked that notion down- although because they lack "popular" notoriety, folks like the ones at CATO still seem to sound persuasive, and they still gain influence for their dysfunctional theories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Simon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman

[lovuian]

11. he was a corrupt economist

who preached Capitalism

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. You sound as though you believe

that supporting the most succesful, in terms of creating desirable societies to live in and reducing poverty, economic system the world has ever known is a bad thing.

Blanket attacks on "capitalism" are foolish.

[Phredicles]

13. Attacks on radical, unregulated capitalism are spot on.

Even Adam Smith recognized the system isn't perfect and that, left to its own devices, it will foster corruption and monoplism. So why couldn't Friedman and his acolytes figure that out?

[Odin2005]

19. Capitalism should be attacked, it IS the problem

People who think they can create a "kindler, gentler Capitalism", or that Capitalism has some good qualities either don't understand class warfare or don't understand capitalism.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

25. And your alternative to the private ownership of property, and free trade, is?

All the societies that have succeeded in producing the highest living conditions in the history of the human race have done so under capitalist economic systems.

Anyone who attacks "capitalism" doesn't understand either economics or politics.

[Odin2005]

28. Capitalism is only necessary to start the process

Capitalism is mainly responsible for breaking down traditional societal structures, allowing inventiveness and entrepreneurship to flourish; it is the inventors, entrepreneurs, and government intervention in the economy that created our high living standards. Now Capitalism in unecessary and parasitic; in many cases it can even become counterproductive when Big Business supresses small-scale intventors and entrepreneurs (and entrepeneurs CAN exist and flourish in a socialist economy as long as it is based on co-ops and not state planning)

[BurtWorm]

21. Capitalism per se does not reduce poverty.

In fact, as the Bush years show, unfettered capitalism often spreads it.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

24. Compared with what?

There has never been a non-capitalist state with as little poverty as America, even under Bush. I suspect the least worst example is Cuba, which, while it has strengths in terms of health care and the like, has more poverty. And it's a) considerably better than the next worst non-capitalist states, so far as I know, b) not as far from capitalism as most other non-capitalist states, and c) has achieved its successes at the cost of massive restriction of individual liberty.

There are certainly many improvements makeable to the current American system, but all of them are still clearly capitalism - the issue is "unfettered".

[Odin2005]

29. Most so-called "socialist" states were/are State Capitalist, not socialist.

A State Capitalist Economy is where the entire economy is run as a state-owned corporation for the benefit of the ruling elities. State Capitalism is far closer to Fascism then actual socialism.

[BurtWorm]

30. Mixed economy states have the very best economies

in terms of across-the-board standard of living. It's the socialism in those systems that make them so well-integrated.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

34. Milton Friedman worshipped the Great Infallible God Market

He was like the sheep in Animal Farm: "Markets good, government bad."

He put a grandfatherly chuckling face on greed and predation.

I'm a small business owner myself, but I recognize that markets are only as good as the participants in them.

[JVS]

14. He was teh suXXor!

[citizen snips]

15. Milton Friedman. . .

:puke:

[MadHound]

17. Friedman's vision of freedom

Was freedom for the producer, the capitalist. For the vast majority of us, his vision meant that we would be plagued with the tyranny of the "free market".

The man and his economic theories have done an incredible amount of damage to this country. Sadly, it won't end with his death.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. I Had To Compare "Free To Choose" With "The Wealth Of Nations"

for a political theory course...

"Free to Choose" is a great read though I disagree with much of it...

[sweetheart]

20. The end of monetarism

Its the ironic end of monetarism, as a philosophy, a practice, an outstanding revolutionary principle indeed,
to bubble out currencies and paper over economic graft, nixon launched usa in to it when he dropped the
gold standard in 1972. When votes are these inflatable slips of paper, a new arisocracy is created, the
printer's (monetarist economists) - 'the chicago school', and the wealth is reallocated to their order
and ratinale. And great was his day, now that it's over, it was a school of its time, where graft and
total US hegemony was the norm, with the now-rising true-multipolar world trading economy, monetarism
will prove too volatile and we'll be back to keynes, back to managed trade and an energy-standardized 'joule'
global currency convertable in to energy.

[hfojvt]

26. What I notice, and wonder at.

Is the attention that his death generates. When the liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith died, it was hardly noticed on DU. We cannot find positive things to say about our heroes, but we love to talk trash about our anti-heroes.

[BurtWorm]

32. I see only this thread about Milton Friedman, who is not exactly an anti-hero.

Villain is more like it. Not to me, necessarily, but to a lot of people in this thread. I also remember just one thread about Galbraith when he died, and it was reverential. But there may have been more of those on Galbraith, just as there may be more of these on Friedman. I don't know, in other words, if your criticism of DU is fair.

[hfojvt]

37. I may be using it wrong

but I thought an anti-hero was just another word for villain.

WilliamPitt had another thread on Uncle Milty that I posted in.

For Galbraith I remembered, and found this using google.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1065166

20 replies, 8 by the OP

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x20510

Although I mistakenly thought mine was posted first, and my reply could sound like 'it's about time he died' instead of what I meant 'it's about time he gets a memorial thread' :blush:

My thread might have done better in GD instead of the economics forum, where I thought there might be more interest.

[BurtWorm]

38. An anti-hero is a kind of protagonist, not unsympathetic, who lacks heroic qualities

It's more of a literary term than one to apply to life. Mersault in the Stranger, for example, or Humbert Humbert in Lolita are classic anti-heroes.

Sorry to be pedantic, but Friedman could only be an anti-hero if he were the subject of a play or novel that didn't flatter him.

Now, as to why more people might be inspired to write about Friedman than Galbraith, I think it's because this is a forum that was formed in response to the rise of a beast (called Bushism) on the American political scene. Friedman's economics had a lot to to do with the rise of that beast.

[hfojvt]

39. all the world's a stage and the people merely players

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of noise and confusion, signifying nothing.

But wasn't Mersault a murderer and Humbert a kidnapping child-molester? And they are not villains? Anyway, if a person is not quite a hero, but not a villain, why wouldn't you call him/her a quasi-hero or a pseudo-hero or even a nearo? Don't English majors know the meaning of the word "anti" as in "opposite of" and my dictionary feels the need to include a 5th definition "unlike the conventional form (antihero)". Better examples of that might be The Incredible Hulk, Wolverine, and Guy Gardner - heroes with attitude, maybe even The Punisher. Kinda wyldheroes or newwaveheroes. We can't all be Steve Rogers or Henry Pym.

I just worry that we are too focussed on negative, and without an enemy to attack, we will create one among our allies. Maybe that's okay, like Marx's college gang, we practice 'ruthless criticism of everything existing'. But at some point, something's gotta be built. It cannot be all tearing down.

[BurtWorm]

40. A villain is a character who is an enemy of a story's hero. You're not supposed to like a villain.

An anti-hero is a flawed character you sympathize with, even if only because you've been tricked into it by a wily author or by the conventions of novels with first-person narration.

[hfojvt]

44. I understand, I just think that

a) it does not fit the traditional meaning of the prefix 'anti', and
b) Humbert is a bad example, because I wanted to smack him after the first thirty pages or so. I could not finish that book I hated him so.

Next I suppose you will tell me that hero means "main character" in English class, so the MC is either a hero or an antihero.

For example, in Piers Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" serious, Satan was the villain. Then book six was from Satan's POV and Piers made Satan a hero. I thought that was lame. I wrote him "what happened to the evil Satan of the first five books?" He said he tries to write from the MC point of view, but I do not think he did that, because in book 6 Satan was a hero, he was not a villain trying to rationalize his crimes, he was a hero just like the other five - a somewhat ordinary person trying to do a difficult, and extraordinarily important, job. He blames some of the evil actions of the first five books on subordinates acting without his knowledge or permission. That's the only one springing to mind with a likeable villain, because the author cheated. Maybe, like Lolita, I would give up on a book written from a villain POV.

[BurtWorm]

45. But an anti-hero isn't a villain.

He's a hero without what are thought of as traditional heroic qualities--particularly the qualities of the classic hero of ancient drama and epic poetry, meaning chiefly aristocratic breeding and nobility of character. A hero is a defender of the social order. The anti-hero is usually against the social order.

Coming full circle, if the social order in question is the New Deal, I guess a case could be made that Milton Friedman is indeed an anti-hero.

[ck4829]

33. Don't know who he was. Keynes will be the only economist for me.

[mitchum]

35. He was a slightly prettier Ayn Rand

[leftofthedial]

36. as an economist, he was an ideologue

whose ideas have been shown to be utter crap

[BurtWorm]

41. The Guardian's Richard Adams says Friedman was Big Government's best friend

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_adams/2006/11/post_650.html

Of course Friedman is greatly respected for his theoretical work as an economist, especially on his analysis of the role of money, the importance of inflation expectations in wages and employment, and perhaps his most lasting contribution (it could be argued), the permanent income hypothesis, which suggests that households take a longer view of anticipating their past and future income than previously thought. His award of a Nobel prize in economics was richly deserved - even if he was churlish in accepting it (he said after winning: "I would not want a professional judgment of my scientific work to be those seven people who selected me for the award").

In terms of the policies he inspired or influenced, however, the report card is not so glowing. His great claim, the idea that "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" may have set off the Monetarist versus Keynesian "econ-wars" of the late 1970s and 1980s. But Friedman's ideas of directly targeting the money supply were tried and rejected as a failure, in both the UK and the US, and Friedman himself backed away from his dogmatic earlier positions. Today, no major central bank directly targets money supply data in setting monetary policy - instead they are far more pragmatic. Even Friedman's great admirer Alan Greenspan never tied himself to the monetarist mast, preferring to keep his options open.

Friedman also railed long and hard for school vouchers to be adopted, to little avail, and his libertarian leanings provoked him to call for recreational drugs and prostitution to be legalised. He lobbied against environmental protection and regulations of all kinds, the vast majority of which were happily ignored by his friends and enemies. Even the economic reforms in Pinochet's Chile he is said to have inspired have run into trouble.

Friedman's first big role as a policy advisor came in 1964 to Barry Goldwater - the least successful Republican presidential candidate in the last 100 years. His next gig was for Richard Nixon - an unsuccessful president in a different way - although Nixon ignored him when it mattered, except when he could use Friedman as cover for politically difficult decisions, such as ending compulsory military service.

And Friedman's one success? In 1942, during world war two, Friedman actually went to work for the US government. While there he helped design the payroll tax that in Britain is known as PAYE, Pay As You Earn, and in the US as withholding tax, the system that allows the government to administer the taking of income tax directly from salaries and pay packets. Unlike everything else he argued for, withholding tax was withstood the test of time and is in use all around the world. It was the best thing that Keynesian-style government could ever have wished for, and Friedman bitterly regretted it. In his memoirs he wrote:

"It never occurred to me at the time that I was helping to develop machinery that would make possible a government that I would come to criticize severely as too large, too intrusive, too destructive of freedom. Yet, that is precisely what I was doing. Rose has repeatedly chided me over the years about the role that I played in making possible the current overgrown government we both criticize so strongly."

Rest in peace Milton Friedman, big government's best friend.

[upi402]

42. Rot in hell Milton Friedman you miserable fuck

Where is he buried? I have to pee.

PBS aired his "free trade" propaganda in the 80's and he tainted the Nobel Peace Prize (economics). He stained both, and neither is held in as high esteem as they once were.

links in this article to some details;
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_adams/2006/11/post_650.html

[ProfessorGAC]

47. Austrian School Dullard!

His "theories" have been proven to be essentially incorrect in the most fundamental ways, and every one of his prediction models failed miserably. His first published model is now considered the primary "don't" in econometric modeling. His models and his theories included all kinds of unsustainable assumptions, based upon an overly rigid reading of Austrian school dynamics. (Most of which have also been proven to be non-applicable in the modern economies.)

Remember, that this "genius" was among the first to set off alarm bells every time the unemployment numbers fell too low. And every time, inflation did not increase, low wage jobs did not evaporate, and upward wage spirals did not occur. He was also among the "gurus" who advised the Norquistian small-gov't types that Clinton's tax increases would lead to the worst recession since the Depression. Ooops!

He was probably the most overrated economist or theoretician in the 20th century. He's up there on the all-time overrated list with Von Hayek.
The Professor