Milton Friedman Explains Free Markets
Via Rebuildtheparty.com comes this fascinating, almost 30-minute video, of Milton Friedman explaining the virtues of the free market and the vices of government intervention in the economy. The video truly is required watching material for all interested in this specific subject.
That does not mean, of course, that I endorse Friedman’s views wholly. One of my caveats with him is, for instance, that he did not truly seem to understand what conservatism is. He described modern day liberals as ‘conservatives’ because they want to keep the system as it is: with a big, intrusive government actively ‘helping’ people.
Friedman came to the above conclusion by arguing that conservatism is about ‘conservatism the present state society is in.’ Although that is correct to a degree, it misses the larger point that conservatism teaches that human nature and the universe itself are governed by certain rules, which we can discover by studying the past. Conservatism teaches that breaking with these rules will prove destructive.
This means that conservatives can very well argue that, if these rules have been ignored for the last 50 years, change has to come. This change is not radical change, however, in so far that it is nothing more than practicing the rules mankind has always been governed by and that our forefathers adhered to, consciously or subconsciously.
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-->2 Responses to “Milton Friedman Explains Free Markets”
Comment from John Lofton, Recovering Republican
Time December 15, 2008 at 6:02 am PST
Forget “conservatism,” please. It has been Godless and thus irrelevant. As Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
“[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It .is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
Comment from Andrew
Time December 12, 2008 at 11:37 pm PST
About “Liberalism” and “Conservatism”: Dr. Friedman often referenced himself as a Classical Liberal in the vein of Adam Smith. It is more of an economics label. Smith argued for a move toward a free market from one regulated by the British Empire. At the time, he was a true liberal.
Also, generally speaking, a group that expresses the desire to “return” to a former status quo (status quo ante) are more accurately labeled reactionist.
Modern labels of “liberal” and “conservative” are decades old political terms, referring to long passed political directions and definitely not to be applied as economic labels… even though the media often does.