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Milton Friedman Presents a Strong Case Against Government Interference With the Free Market

Capitalist in Chief — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:19:41 +0000

In the video segments below, famed economist Milton Friedman explains why people gravitate toward collectivism and sway from the preferred state of liberty and personal freedom. He then goes on to explain the raw deal people get when they turn to government to establish fairness and solve their problems:

People think that when you argue that way, you’re arguing for selfishness, for greed. That’s utter nonsense! The people who are in positions in a political hierarchy, are also selfish and greedy. Man kind is selfish and greedy.

Friedman then concludes with some insightful thoughts about government waste:

Thank god for government waste. If government is doing bad things, then it’s only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater. And the waste in government has two very important elements. Number one: If government were now spending the amount it now spends, which is 40% of our income (governments federal state and local in the United States have total spending which equals 40% of total national income) if they were spending that efficiently, we’d be slaves now. And in the second place, the waste is so obvious that it arouses a counter movement in the population at large. People are disillusioned by government and it increases the change that they will recognize where this road is taking them and get off that train before it goes all the way.

Part 1

Part 2

Milton Friedman Explains the Virtures of “Greed” on the Phil Donahue Show Back in ‘79

Capitalist in Chief — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:30:42 +0000

In this video, one of our favorite guys here at SocialismDoesntWork.com explains on the Phil Donahue show why so called “greed” (a term commonly misused to describe self interest) is not the evil that socialists make it out to be. As Milton so eloquently puts it, “the world runs on individuals pursuing their own self interests.” Milton Friedman then points out one of the fundamental fallacies of socialism: “Just tell me where in the world you find those angels who are going to organize society for us.” Or in other words, even the socialists themselves are very busy pursuing their own self interests, while telling everybody else to knock it off. Unfortunately, ’till this very day Phil Donahue hasn’t learned a thing.

New York Times Article About Health Care Rationing Overlooks Reality

Capitalist in Chief — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:25:59 +0000

In a New York Times article entitled “Health Care Rationing Rhetoric Overlooks Reality” published on June 17, 2009, David Leonhardt writes the following:

Today, I want to try to explain why the case against rationing isn’t really a substantive argument. It’s a clever set of buzzwords that tries to hide the fact that societies must make choices.

In truth, rationing is an inescapable part of economic life. It is the process of allocating scarce resources. Even in the United States, the richest society in human history, we are constantly rationing. We ration spots in good public high schools. We ration lakefront homes. We ration the best cuts of steak and wild-caught salmon.

Leonhardt further goes on to quoting the famous economist Milton Friedman, who is a proponent of the free market system:

Milton Friedman’s beloved line is a good way to frame the issue: There is no such thing as a free lunch. The choice isn’t between rationing and not rationing. It’s between rationing well and rationing badly. Given that the United States devotes far more of its economy to health care than other rich countries, and gets worse results by many measures, it’s hard to argue that we are now rationing very rationally.

Yes, it is a fundamental fact of life that every scarce resource is being rationed somehow in the sense that someone doesn’t get everything that he might possibly want or need. Otherwise we’d all be driving Ferraris, flying private jets, vacationing on our own private yachts, etc. I totally get that because it’s obvious.

However, not all mechanisms of rationing are equivalent. Those opposed to health care rationing, don’t mean they oppose to just any old process of allocating scarce resources. They are specifically opposed to rationing by a governmental central authority, i.e. central planning.

Leonhardt quotes Milton Friedman, but somehow fails to mention that Friedman would be the first one to argue that central planning leads to the worst kind of allocation of resources possible. We need to introduce more free market forces into the health care industry to reduce costs. And let’s not pretend that the high cost of health care is somehow a failure of capitalism in this highly controlled, regulated, and litigated industry.