In about half an hour, 1.2 million American's will lose their unemployment benefits. Beginning March 1, 2010, the benefits will cease for these 1.2 million, and it's a grim prospect for most. Although there is talk of a temporary support program, the probability of the men in DC actually helping those in need in America is far fetched.
Given this situation these Americans will be in, Friedman would claim that the government never should have been giving people money in the first place, and that these people now have no freedom (without income). His idea of freedom is warped because it is defined by dollar signs. The people losing their benefits will lose the power to support their children. Friedman doesn't believe that the government should stick its hands in the economy.
The problem with Friedman's theories is that his version of freedom is not that of civil liberties but of economic freedom. His theory is precisely what gives way to the power of Rockefeller, Exon, and Water companies selling water they pump out of the ground at outrageous prices. Without the support of the federal unemployment program, 1.2 million will lose their "freedom".
Freedom should never be about how much money you have. Freedom should be free. Freedom should never have a price tag.
His theory leads to a large class gap, the abuse of the poor (the powerless), and to a profit minded nation. As you well know, when a company is focused on profit, wage labor workers suffer. The richer you are the more you control, which is not equivalent to freedom. Friedman's theory of freedom is based on the assumption that the laborers working are employed and are receiving enough pay to live off of. That assumption is what makes his argument useless in my book. Absolute non-sense. A theory for the rich.
say... how much do you have to pay to win a Nobel Prize?
Source: http://www.fox17online.com/news/fox17-news-unemployment-benefits-expire,0,1482578.story?track=rss
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I’m not going to pretend to agree with everything that Friedman says, because I don’t, but I think that before you even tried to understand what he was saying or investigated potential positive results of his economic theory, you had your mind made up that he, or anything that could be classified as today’s conservative thought, was pure evil. And when you read anything with such a bias, it prevents unprejudiced consideration of the issue at hand. In other words, it’s not hard to find examples to support your point. So let me play devil’s advocate here. I actually found an article online at the Wall Street Journal that was published yesterday, March 1, titled “How Milton Friedman Saved Chile”. The article talks about Pinochet seizing power from Allende, and details some of the points made by Naomi Klein in “The Shock Doctrine”. However, the article also makes some other interesting points, and here are some of them,
ReplyDelete“Saturday's earthquake in Chile measured 8.8. That's nearly 500 times more powerful than Haiti's, or about one million Hiroshimas. Yet Chile's reported death toll—711 as of this writing—was a tiny fraction of the 230,000 believed to have perished in Haiti...It's not by chance that Chileans were living in houses of brick—and Haitians in houses of straw—when the wolf arrived to try to blow them down. In 1973, the year the proto-Chavista government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Chile was an economic shambles. Inflation topped out at an annual rate of 1000%, foreign-currency reserves were totally depleted, and per capita GDP was roughly that of Peru and well below Argentina's” (WSJ online).
“As for Chile, Pinochet appointed a succession of Chicago Boys to senior economic posts. By 1990, the year he ceded power, per capita GDP had risen by 40% (in 2005 dollars) even as Peru and Argentina stagnated. Pinochet's democratic successors—all of them nominally left-of-center—only deepened the liberalization drive. Result: Chileans have become South America's richest people. They have the continent's lowest level of corruption, the lowest infant-mortality rate, and the lowest number of people living below the poverty line. Chile also has some of the world's strictest building codes. That makes sense for a country that straddles two massive tectonic plates. But having codes is one thing, enforcing them is another. The quality and consistency of enforcement is typically correlated to the wealth of nations. The poorer the country, the likelier people are to scrimp on rebar, or use poor quality concrete, or lie about compliance” (WSJ online).
For these reasons, I believe your assertion that, “His theory leads to a large class gap, the abuse of the poor (the powerless), and to a profit minded nation. As you well know, when a company is focused on profit, wage labor workers suffer. The richer you are the more you control, which is not equivalent to freedom. Friedman's theory of freedom is based on the assumption that the laborers working are employed and are receiving enough pay to live off of. That assumption is what makes his argument useless in my book. Absolute non-sense. A theory for the rich” is completely off base and not in touch with some of the actual facts of the world today. The reality of Chile’s current situation proves that Friedman’s theory can give rise to the betterment of the majority’s situation in a country – both the “rich” and the “poor”. This is evidenced by South America’s richest people, the lowest number of people living below the poverty line, the lowest infant-mortality rate, the lowest level of corruption. If you ask me, Friedman’s theory provided a world of difference for everyone in Chile. The recent mega-quake in the country, and the astoundingly small death toll associated with it, simply further support this fact.
*The article referenced was written by Bret Stephens at WSJ online
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703411304575093572032665414.html
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