Channeling Milton Friedman

The great free-market economist isn't around, but his coauthor is. And Anna Schwartz is not happy.

By Michael Hirsh | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jul 17, 2009

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  • Posted By: pseudonym888 @ 09/01/2009 8:47:00 PM

    The Ben Bernanke - Milton Friedman connection...

    http://www.reason.com/news/show/135804.html

    (from America's own libertarian magazine)

  • Posted By: Uyi Omoregie @ 07/20/2009 7:50:21 PM

    It doesn't always have to be an either / or solution ideologically-driven solution, we just need to be pragmatic and simply offer solutions that work.

  • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/17/2009 1:02:17 PM

    There is no such thing as a free market. Never was such an animal.

    • Posted By: timamac @ 07/18/2009 1:47:56 PM

      Then, what is there? Can't believe all the Commies on here-no wonder I don't read Newsweek.

      • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/20/2009 12:40:29 PM

        Communist? Not I, sir.

        You have two choices. You can regulate a level playing field, or you can have monopolies. Decide.

  • Posted By: TokyoStormWarning @ 07/18/2009 3:31:22 AM

    Milton Friedman was dangerous because he was a true ideologue who believed that fidelity to the model was of paramount importance, whatever the human cost. Market fundamentalism has now been fully discredited, but unfortunately, a philosophy that promotes the idea of concentrationg a nation's wealth in the hands of private players will never completely die because it's such a convenient ratioalization for those who lust after wealth and power.

    http://www.squidoo.com/the_free_market_myth

    • Posted By: timamac @ 07/18/2009 1:40:07 PM

      What dumb rubbish! And the left doesn't have a fervent religous belief in the government and state?! The free market has not been discredited; it's like saying the earth is flat.

      • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/20/2009 12:39:31 PM

        The free market is impossible. Either you have some regulation, or you have monopolies hedging everyone else out. In neither case is there economic freedom.

    • Posted By: J Baustian @ 07/18/2009 11:52:16 PM

      Just because Marxism has been discredited has not kept Barack Obama from trying his best to implement it. The Maoists killed up to 30 million Chinese, trying to stamp out free market principles -- but as soon as they stopped killing people or throwing them into reeducation camps, the markets reappeared. You have to force socialism on people at the point of a gun, but when you take away the guns they start trading again, Milton Friedman understood this, so does Anna Schwartz, but not Barack Obama.

      • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/20/2009 12:38:33 PM

        Fortunately, we are not forced to choose between Friedman and Mao.

  • Posted By: thrutheseasons @ 07/19/2009 1:10:17 PM

    Keynsian economics made America the strongest economy on earth. I don't understand people who like to argue with results and try to reinvent the wheel. Taxes recycle money for investment in our country, lower the trade deficit, and allows large needed projects to be built that the private sector cannot build. They restore confidence in the economy. Cutting taxes allows a bubble of spending that quickly goes out the window.

  • Posted By: mark david @ 07/17/2009 10:25:06 PM

    Milton Friedman's economic theory caused more deaths and misery world wide, only to rival his contemporary Robert MacNamarra. If you think he is worth praising you should write about Satin next. Go and get a copy of Naomi Klein's book Disaster Capitalism; and give a copy to Anna Schwartz. Then the both of you book a trip down to South America and discuss with the residents there what Milton did to them. How he had a vison for free markets with American involvement everywhere. Then they can tell you how the dictators crushed unions and disappeared people to keep those markets free for the Americans. Friedman is soul-less and his theories are garbage.

    • Posted By: zz333 @ 07/18/2009 1:18:34 PM

      Prove it, rather than platitudes! You sound like Jesse and Sharpton!

      • Posted By: mark david @ 07/19/2009 11:26:55 AM

        I don't need to prove it just read Naomi's book. Also, I think the model of unfettered capitalism has been shown to be unsustainable in the current economic model. Without government intervention, which is absolutely against what Friedman stood for we would have witnessed the collapse of the entire system like the house of cards that iit is. As far as my comments about South America, I don't know what to tell you. If you are not familiar with their history I would encourage you to study it. It is horrifying what the U.S. did in the name of capitalism; we should be ashamed of ourselves for using a populace for monetary gain. However, I am not advocating that markets should not be open, they should be regulated to ensure non-monopoly business practices. Unregulated markets and all services being made private is not good for the citizens these businesses employ. Eventually you get a populace of misery. A people without health care, jobs shipped overseas in favor of super cheap labor (which is supported by corrupt governments - look at Honduras and how Zelaya tried to raise the minimum wage there). Even handedness over the worker class in just good business and leads to those platiitudes we call family values. Oh, and if you are going to call people names dig a little deeper into the bag please. I could just as easily call you out as a Bush/Chenny neo-con for supporting Friedman. So I guess we are even now.

      • Posted By: timamac @ 07/18/2009 1:34:28 PM

        Klein!! ? Klein couldn't light schwartz's shadow!

  • Posted By: John The Baptist @ 07/19/2009 10:19:23 AM

    How in the world can someone who is supposed to be a journalist write an article like this and not mention Ron Paul's attempt to audit the Fed(H.R.1207)?
    "The power to control the creation of money has been the most sought after monopoly since the begining of mankind and the Keynesian theory(the Fed) makes it possible" - Ron Paul

    He just released a book called, you guessed it "END THE FED"

  • Posted By: gregcovert @ 07/18/2009 12:19:47 AM

    Milton is the man. Obama should have hung around him when he was in Chicago instead of Wright and Ayers

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

  • Posted By: jgsuperpants @ 07/17/2009 5:33:27 PM

    asinine. It's Friedman's fault we're in this mess. The zealots who've religiously clung to his vision of a so-called "free market" (btw - there's no such thing and never has been in the history of human civilization) are the ones that have abused their financial powers to rape and plunder our markets.

    • Posted By: zz333 @ 07/18/2009 1:20:03 PM

      Why don't you actually go work for a living? Oh, I just realised - you are the grasshopper crowd.

  • Posted By: scooterspop @ 07/18/2009 11:42:12 AM

    Wow! All this hatred for Milton Friedman! Does no one in this section know that government regulation and manipulation incentivised over-lending? Friedman argued against the existance of the Fed, the absence of which would have allowed market forces to naturally regulate interest rates and therefore, debt. A true Free Market will not impede the life cycle of capital which creates innovation which fuels economies. Now we have sophomores tinkering like no one has before. UGH!

    • Posted By: catofan @ 07/18/2009 12:46:18 PM

      You want reason? - They can't handle reason!

  • Posted By: askmack @ 07/18/2009 8:07:23 AM

    Friedman is in the process of coming back, he is trying to convince the devil to let him be the Anti-Christ.

  • Posted By: askmack @ 07/18/2009 8:04:52 AM

    Friedman is trying to come back, He is in the process of convincing the devil to let him come back as the Anti-Christ.

  • Posted By: xteeth @ 07/17/2009 5:46:34 PM

    This is phony baloney. Milton Freidman would be delighted in private with what Obama has done. Geithner, Summers, Paulson they are all Freidmanites and should be drawn and quartered. Freidman should be dug up and left to rot in the public square. The evil he has caused from Chile to South Africa, to Poland, to Russia, to Brasil and on and on. The world bank and the IMF continue his policies of fleecing governments to force them to sell what few public assets they have to support their peoples.

    • Posted By: cigi @ 07/17/2009 6:11:00 PM

      • Posted By: mark david @ 07/17/2009 10:41:08 PM

        I totally agree with your statements. The world should blow off all their debts to the World Bank and IMF, take back what is theirs and tell the U.S. to get out of their countries. I especially agree with the letting his dead corpse rot in some sewer somewhere. Kind of like a memorial to the evil amongst us.

  • Posted By: hajiii @ 07/17/2009 9:25:06 PM

    After what Milton Friedman and his followers did to much of South America and other emerging economies, I am surprised he has any credibility left. And if you answer "What about Chile?", they onlysucceeded because even Pinochet knew better than to privatize the copper mines, very much against the Friedmanites' (the "Chicago Boys") advice. The rising price of copper is what saved Chile, not Friedman.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/17/2009 9:24:00 PM

    Friedman was thinking of different people than the ones who screwed up the world's economy. His philosophy opened the door for them to come in and plunder. He should have added some ifs, ands, and buts, to give an opening for decent regulation before the hounds were loosed. His bare philosophy was thusly incomplete. Sort of like E=MC squared, without the E.

  • Posted By: peten @ 07/17/2009 8:49:35 PM

    We are still taking Milton Friedman seriously? Since when?

  • Posted By: bighappy @ 07/17/2009 8:41:47 PM

    "opponents of their policies don't have a leader???especially on the right" -
    Yes they do, his name is Mr. Common Sense.
    On individual level Americans already learn hard way that borrowing money beyond your means will leave you with foreclosed house, but some idiots in White House still think that on Government level it is acceptable.
    Individuals, who advice people to buy more expensive cars to make them cheaper, most likely will end up in mad house. But those who want to do the same with health care - end up in White House.
    It is not economy, stupid, it is mental deficiency.

  • Posted By: CaptainVideo @ 07/17/2009 7:39:24 PM

    The fundamental problem with people like Friedman and Schwartz is that they do not understand that real world market economies only have an invisible paw, rather than an invisible hand. The market mechanism is very powerful and works reasonably well much of the time, but can go very badly wrong, as it did in the early 1930s and in 2008. If this is not to lead to economic disaster, the government has to intervene.

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