Capitalism and Freedom

First time posting on Sup Forums. Looks like a great community to me. I was wondering what you guys think about Milton Friedman. The man is very smart when it comes to the economy, but some of his ideas like Free Trade are nearly impossible to have lasting benefits because of uneven playing fields between countries (taxes and regulations and such). Let me know, and thank you for your time.

Other urls found in this thread:

mises.org/library/case-genuine-gold-dollar
pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f823/f9f1ffdc0076640016201d493fdcc652e681.pdf
youtube.com/watch?v=7kL4p3llmHk
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

>but some of his ideas like Free Trade are nearly impossible to have lasting benefits because of uneven playing fields between countries (taxes and regulations and such)

The funny thing is that he knew that. However he defended it by claiming that it wasn't his problem and that it was the "political class's" responsibility to make sure that wealth was evenly divided and that trade deals were properly enforced. In other words his ideas were utopian garbage.

Nice.

But he never advocates for equal distribution of wealth. In a capitalist society, that's nearly impossible. He wanted corporations to invest their money to create more jobs for the people at the same time help stem the creation of new innovation to make the lives of people better.

His policies are good for short term growth and economic recovery...
Not really sustainable long term

He lacked basic understanding of economics.. my college professor says milton friedman was never taken seriously outside of right wing capitalism. my professor said milton was laughed out of alto of big time colleges

He's always defended himself well. I like monetarism better than keynesianism

Friedman's basic economics books are routinely recommended, along with Sowell and Hazlitt, in our Book Threads.

Your professor needs a helicopter ride.

He's dead. F

...

Even PInochet realized his ideas were awful. Learn history.

I'm sorry. What was your professor's name again? Exactly.

>my professor
kek. their beloved Allen Greenspan was a proponent. Was your professor Paul "can't make up mind on qe" krugman?

Dude, America is a second world country, they ain't doing this primitive shit ....

And because of that, their society was almost destroyed from decades of neo-marxist social engineering and indoctrination.

You have to look at how they bought the assets. They bought it with money they never owned in the first place. Too much debt will lead to the downfall of any business, institution, or society.

>I was wondering what you guys think about (((Milton Friedman))).
A dirty Jew promoting the degeneracy of greed, which in a way legitimizes jewing.

The market works if people have souls. Jews, like Friedman, don't have that.

>Degeneracy of greed.
And name me one society in this world that does not run on greed. You think Russia doesn't run on greed. How about China? Money is our tool for survival in the modern society. If you don't have greed, then learn to survive off of fucking plants you fucking degenerate.

I like you newfag. You're alright.

>An actual relevant discussion

You're the kind of new fag we need around here. Please feel free to keep posting good threads with actual topics

Free to choose episode 2 and 3.

What are you talking about? Chile has been implementing Friedman's ideas and they have had gradual economic growth the past two decades

>Let's have free market but keep (((central banking)))

A very smart guy that managed to sell a controlled economy as true free market. Friedman was just a very smart kike and found a subtle way to please specific interests just like Keynes.

He won a Nobel Peace prize in economics. Read his article on Encyclopedia Britannia.

Friedman late in his career advocated for abolishing the Fed.

He he wanted to abolish the federal reserve. Secondly, what private bank could sustain itself without gold back currency or not having the support from the federal reserve on the flip side?

Free To Choose book is coming in Tuesday. Is it the same as TV shows?

One thing I cannot wrap my head around is that Friedman's call for less government regulations in the voluntary exchange between individuals contradicts his view as government serving as an enforcer of the exchange. He says the government should enforce the contract between two consenting individuals or businesses. But couldn't the government abstain from doing that too? If one party chooses not to fulfill a part of their contract, other individuals will know and choose not to do business with them in the future, eventually leading to their demise. The incentive comes as the culture of business grows over time. I am merely applying Friedman's logic of Free Trade in the same way he applies it workplaces that want to discriminate against blacks. Some places won't hire blacks, and some places won't hire whites, and some places will be mixed. Eventually, as people travel and communicate and such, the workplaces will all gravitate towards a mixed setting.

fuck off nigger (((Friedman))) was a kike. In all seriousness though I think his criticisms of communism and planned economies were far superior to his reasons for supporting complete free trade with no restrictions.

They abandoned his ideas after a while. The (((Chicago boys))) got kicked out by Pinochet himself.

Don't get too far into "redpills". Never take anything here seriously, and in all honesty I would try not to come here much because it is extremely addictive.

The free market does not end at imaginary lines.

If you have free trade, deregulation will follow.

The only reason regulations exist is because countries don't have to compete.

Otherwise you might as well say California should stop trading with Alabama, because Alabama has too few regulations and artificially low wages.

>what private bank could sustain itself without gold back currency

Gold backed currency will never ever work again. There is a complete monopoly on gold. U.S. gold reserve act of 1934 required everyone in the U.S. to surrender their gold. Whoever controls the gold (Federal Reserve, IMF, etc.) will continue to control the money supply and nothing will change if we move to gold standard. Not to mention that gold is a very scarce elements. How would you keep up with the growth in production? You would have to mine more gold. That would cost more money and the return is not absolutely guaranteed given its scarcity.

> not having the support from the federal reserve on the flip side

Wrong again. The constitution bestows the power of printing money unto our government. It should never have been placed into the hands of private bankers.

Why is looking after one's self interest considered a heinous act of greed? By that definition, it would most likely be doing so as well.

>The only reason regulations exist is because countries don't have to compete.

Capitalism survives off competition. Competition provides the incentive to produce and grow as a society. Regulations exist not because countries don't have to compete. Countries can't compete because regulations exist.

You would*

The tariffs and trade barriers existed before the regulations buddy.

Get rid of them and deregulation will happen automatically, as every country races to make the most money.

whats your opinion on Austrian economics, specifically hayek?

The economy would be too high friction without law and order. Law and order takes so much of what would be inherent risk in doing business with someone out of the equation so in that sense by being an enforcer the gov facilitates business. They dont even usually have to enforce most of the time, they jsut have to be there as a disincentive to cheat on the deal


it weeds out phonies and scam artistis, or at least it tries

Even taking you response at face vaule. Chile is the has the most free economy in South America. That may sound like such an achievement, but Chile is globally ranked 7th in economic freedom.

I understand your point. But look at it from this perspective. Would a country whose majority of corporations are already located outside of our borders seriously be better off than the country who advocates for production and continued investment in its society in the midst of free trade? It would cost our government as well as our businesses that are overseas more money to bring them back home, and then to start deregulating, however long that takes.

What I am saying is, if we were to open up borders suddenly, those countries that have fewest regulations and fewest corporate taxations would have a huge advantage in coming out on top. But I hope understand your point.

>If one party chooses not to fulfill a part of their contract, other individuals will know and choose not to do business with them in the future eventually leading to their demise

Yeah, that's the problem. If "eventually" doesn't come before they make a mint, you're fucked. For instance, we learned during the primary that Trump constantly refused to pay his contractors after the work was done. If people don't believe that the scam happened, or it never gets out, then they keep doing business with the person.

Worse, if people trying to scam other people gets too common, then no one wants to trade because getting scammed it too likely.

Government enforcing is a necessity in my opinion because of what was said here: Without at least the threat of force for default on a contract the incentive to cheat and scam and default is increased significantly.

Government, ideally, would act as an impartial judge and mediator to enforce contracts. I do agree with the government getting their hands out of business for the most part, there should be regulation to ensure certain practices are not implemented (e.g. environmental protections, consumer protections, etc).

Those regulations shouldn't be intrusive or detrimental, and certainly not used to stifle new businesses.

I would also like to add on your statement of tariffs and trade barriers existing before regulations. If you have a problem after two or three steps, you investigate your most recent step (the third step) because logically, the problem did not exist until you took the third step. You would have to correct the third step, and if the problem still persists, correct the second step. The most recent event has to be corrected first before taking on the problem that has came before it, is how I see it.

We are at a disadvantaged position to start free trade.

>What I am saying is, if we were to open up borders suddenly, those countries that have fewest regulations and fewest corporate taxations would have a huge advantage in coming out on top.

But that's true for everything. You could say there is no point in deregulating the insurance industry because the giant insurance companies would benefit more than the tiny ones.

That's the state of nature, some people are ahead, some are behind.

It will all equal out in the end if you just stop trying to control it.

hence the disincentives in society (laws) that we have set up to facilitate seamless commerce

Exactly

>it will all equal out in the end

But is that desirable? Do we really want authoritarian regimes that run the countries we trade with to benefit from mutual exchange? Even in the long run ( the only metric that matters), I don't see how that is beneficial.

Edit:
Chile is ranked the most economically free country in SA. You might think that isn't saying much, but if you look at where their country ranks globally, it's 7th most free economy in the world.

You are right that gold is not sufficient for the economy we have now. There simply isn't enough gold and even if we factor in silver eventually the tangible assets will not be elastic enough to support the economy.

I like you user, your arguments are solid.

I agree with what you're saying. But there are proper steps to take in ensuring our equality. Just dropping all regulations, in my opinion, I do not think it will work.

I was about to say that the authoritarian regimes will always fall, but then I realized there are multiple threads going on right now where people are actively trying to push fascism in their countries.

I must think on this. Though perhaps, using tariffs as a punishment, instead of default behavior, might still work. Multiple free market countries can refuse to do business with authoritarian regimes until their economy collapses.

Friedman was a monetarist shill. His economics are fatally flawed because of this.

>How would you keep up with the growth in production?
Through the price mechanism. You do not need an ever-increasing supply of money to keep up with economic growth. Deflation is a leftist bogeyman.

Your average middle-eastern shithole does not have Thomas Jeffersons and James Madisons running around sowing the seeds of revolution towards decentralized societies. I suspect that unregulated trade with these kinds of countries will just bring legitimacy to the despots in charge in the eyes of their unsophisticated masses. Not all cultures are equal.

This was a very nice conversation for many of us. I thank you for your time Sup Forums. I haven't stayed up this late in a while and I'm tired out. Goodnight.

take for example the economy of saudi arabia. How diverse is it? not very. To paraprhase something I saw a saudi royal say on tv once "my grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a bmw, my son will drive a bmw, maybe my grandson will drive a bmw, but his son will again ride a camel"


Meaning when the world stops needing cheap oil saudi arabia, a regime, no longer has any sort of international authority. same thing will happen to china when world stops needing cheap labor. you must have diversity in your economy if you are to survive as a country, authoritarian or otherwise

What if you determine the actual value of global wealth back it with whatever we can back the majority of it with, and then substitute the difference with other metals?

>isn't enough gold
This is a nonsensical argument that ignores the point of hard money in the first palce.

That depends on the total net worth of all of our tangible metals.

An ounce of gold could easily cost $5k-$7k if we just backed the economy with gold, even with silver the spot price could, and probably would skyrocket.

There definitely has to be a tangible asset to back the economy, fiat currencies are susceptible to manipulation. That's also why we should get rid of the private federal reserve and establish a national bank that spends money into existence instead of loaning it, as the current system is set up.

When I say there isn't enough gold I mean that there is far more money "on the books" than the spot price of gold would tell us. That means the price would skyrocket and every day people would be essentially blocked from being able to buy it for the most part. Gold is already a savings investment that takes a good amount of money to purchase, if the price quadrupled without the purchasing power of the currency doing the same average people would not have access to it.

this man gets it

I'm not sure if the jury is out on them, but could cryptocurrencies someday help to move us away from fiat ( in conjunction with gold and silver )?

Run out of here, before your brain are broken. There is no good here! There is no Hope. Here is Hell! Run! Run, before You can...

Damn, you smart.

Can you propose an economic model that is not fatally flawed?

He is a crook, globalist and subversive agent.
He was damn honest in his talks though, but that was just to garner support for his commie ideas from conservatives.

Also this, unless you are here to shill you really should leave. You cannot untake the redpills ever.

When you say diversity in the economy you mean diversity of industries correct?

If that is the case then I wholeheartedly agree. The reason the Middle East has any power on the global scale is because of a few commodities like oil, lithium, and aluminum, among others. They will cease having actual say on the global stage when the rest of the world is not so dependent on oil.

I don't know about cryptocurrencies being used as a national or international currency but I know that the thing that makes them strong is also what limits tangible assets. Bitcoins, and others, are valuable because there is a finite amount of them that is divied out over time with a certain amount that will ever be in the system. That means it is inelastic after a certain size of economy. However, they are great because of the fact that they can't be printed or fucked with really, and they have some other traits like hiding information in transaction details (wikileaks).

Friedman still argued about the Federal Reserve and how fears of deflation resulted our current banking system.

I had a few good teachers in my life that helped me understand what is going on.

The true redpill is to realize that you, as a person with your experiences and skills and knowledge, are the source of money. You create value in exchange for money or goods or whatever.

When people realize that currencies are just tokens of exchange and they themselves are the money, we will have a shift in consciousness.

>every day people would be essentially blocked from being able to buy it for the most part
But the purpose of this is not to buy gold, but to establish a metallic backing for the dollar, so that it cannot be magicked in and out of existence.

Rothbard (and later Ron Paul) suggested a possible transition approach for this, to minimize a shock to the price level:
mises.org/library/case-genuine-gold-dollar

I have read some of this so far and will continue to do so. Thanks for the read user.

(You)

>Libertarianism is Communism

Love the guy. In so few words, he can succinctly explain to even the most ignorant of economics and indoctrinated in liberal ideology the largest flaws in their views.

I just wonder if the invisible hand of the market works in a completely globalized economy where US businesses have to compete with literal slavery. Consumers can't be expected to look up the human right's record of every nation involved in the production of the goods they're purchasing. At some level I think protectionism is justified when it is for the sake of restricting trade with a nation that is at odds with our values.

bump for interest and so I can read more.

Milton Friedman is a poor man's Murray Rothbard.

Free trade=globalism. Freeman was a kike

>Milton Friedman is a poor man's Murray Rothbard.

You've got that backwards.

>>explain to even the most ignorant of economics and indoctrinated in liberal ideology
>Neoliberalism
>not a liberal ideology

First off "neoliberalism" is a deeply flawed buzzword.

Second of all, you know damn well the word liberal means different things across the globe. You're right that in the classical sense of the term Friedman was a liberal, but was obviously using the term in it's modern American/British sense.

all liberalism is cancer even the non anglo ones.

>First off "neoliberalism" is a deeply flawed buzzword.
how?

Friedman is still palatable for pro free market normies wanting some government interference in the economy. Rothbard doesn't equivocate, he calls for the removal of government altogether.

That said, Friedman was a far better speaker than Rothbard. Rothbard's forte was writing, his lectures (at least, the ones I can find recordings of) sucked in comparison.

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f823/f9f1ffdc0076640016201d493fdcc652e681.pdf

>This paper is a critical exploration of the of the term neoliberalism. Drawing on a wide range of literature across the critical social sciences and with particular emphasis on the political economy of development, it evaluates the consequences of the term's proliferation and expanded usage since the 1980s. It advances a case that neoliberalism has become a deeply problematic and incoherent term that has multiple and contradictory meanings, and thus has diminished analytical value. In addition, the paper also explores the one-sided, morally laden usage of the term by non-economists to describe economic phenomena, and the way that this serves to signify and reproduce the divide between economics and the rest of the social sciences.

Example of how meaningless the term is:

youtube.com/watch?v=7kL4p3llmHk

Rothbard was a writing machine. There was some contention a while back between Mises and groups like Cato because Mises gives out all of Rothbard's and Mises' books for free and others charge for Friedman's, etc.

Mises are doing it right. Austrian economics carries with it a socio-political ideology as well, and charging money for works that promote it is a great way to severely reduce its spread. Not a whole lot of people who are ignorant, or on the fence, are going to dump hard-earned dollars on some economic and political books they may not even like.

> The constitution bestows the power of printing money unto our government. It should never have been placed into the hands of private bankers.

What changes if that happens? Everything govt touches turns to shit. How would letting them directly control printing be better than now?

>He fell for the Friedman as champion of the gold standard meme
I don't know, that's probably why Friedman persuaded Nixon to dissolve Bretton Woods, take us off the gold standard, and usher in an era of Keynesian monetary policy.

I love Friedman. there are however two aspects where I think he is not entirely right, and he also tend to be binary in his thinking - either it is good for the economy or it is bad, whereas a lot of policies that have a negative impact on the economy only have a minor impact and the non-econ benefits may be significant.
but my two disagreements are 1. his ideas around free-trade. which have already been outlined in this thread.
2. regarding his view on social-benefits and public health care. I don't think private charity in a free-market society will be sufficient to provide the poor a somewhat acceptable life. They won't starve, but they will live in abysmal poverty. As he presented the argument against social-benefits, he did it by expressing the inefficiency of the state - that a large portion of the money will go to bureaucracy etc.
which I agree with him, but I still think that it can be acceptable, if its the only "certain" way to avoid people living in deep poverty.