Why can't you commies go post your own stuff and stop polluting the rest of the internet? Go post to moveon.org or some other marxist website? The self loathing displayed by turban, is exactly what makes independent minded people run away from the left. That and the proof that leftist ideas are all fail. Turban, go pray to a bureau...
LOL the people who made the individual pieces of that pencil probably did it for a very little amount of money that they needed in order to avoid death by starvation. There is no "choice" or "price," they did it because they had to.
These "people" espouse the "free market" while fighting to keep massive subsidies, loopholes and corporate tax breaks in place. Doesn't this dichotomy strike anyone as hypocritical? Or has the term "free market" lost all meaning and relativity amidst the New Corporatism usurping our government?
the free market price system DOES NOT AND WILL NEVER WORK because of human tendencies. stop shaping people around ideologies. shape ideologies around human nature. post-scarcity economy for the win!
@netster007z greed and self preservation makes all systems fail. and as an answer to your second question; there is none. the only thing we could do is limit the effect human tendencies have on the society by taking out the variables that could be automated. the more society becomes automated, the less there is a need for humans to interfere and fuck it up. money is greed materialized in a pure form, we need a system which embraces our tenancies and develops as much as it can around them.
@netster007z we will NEVER have a society that escapes from its imperfections; everything we make at one point or another will fail. what we have to do is use technology in place of where we fail. we cannot do banal tasks repetitively. robots can, without complaining, until the structure of the robot itself fails. that's the beauty of technology, it doesnt have a free thinking mind, self preservation, greed or wants like we do and we could use it to our advantage to improve our lives
@netster007z I like Free Market, BUT there are a few issues. A regular free market would allow competition (removal of federal copyright/patent laws) on ideas like creation of items. A person who makes a living making a parcel for a corporation for example. But said parcel is used for a machine that isn't worked on since it's old, and the corporation threatens to the individual who makes the parcel that it'll make it's own. Thus killing the living of the individual.
@DustyCHK because capitalism only leads to corporatism, and corporatism leads to where we are today. ALWAYS. capitalism, just like communism, is only good on paper. its because instead of shaping the ideology around human behaviour, it shapes human behaviour around the ideology. if you want to get rid of greed, give everyone everything. thats the magic of an automated post-scarcity economy. in my opinion, post-scarcity is the only way we will ever achieve balance.
@dirty1smelly1turban You want us to adopt a philosophy that takes human nature into account, yet you want to "get rid of greed". That's self-contradictory. Human nature includes greed. Giving everyone everything IS communism. Corporatism is result of unlimited government, not capitalism.
@TenseAlcyoneus its not contradictory at all. you took it out of context because i meant "get rid" in a different manner. a better word would be "fulfil", give it everything, cancel it out in a way. just like in math, -5 + 5 = 0, providing material confort, EDUCATION, healthcare, etc to everyone would please people and avoid getting those human tendencies out of hand. and no its not communism, communism completely bases itself on equal work for everyone, which wouldnt be needed at all.
@TenseAlcyoneus "Corporatism is result of unlimited government, not capitalism." what world are you living in? america is the most corporatist country in the world and it also has WAY LESS government for example compared to european countries, which have no corporatism at all. is your name rick santorum by any chance?
"I believe most corporations actually don't mind big government."
@dirty1smelly1turban how about giving a speship to everyone....ok wait you may say thats extreme....how about giving a Lamborghini gallado to everyone.....or maybe a small car to everyone....guitars, gaming pc's , computer tablets, amusement parks, shark fin soup, truffles, orchid flowers, tiger skin, assault rifles, i-phone touch, vintage 1960 maustang..............how far will you go for giving everything to everyone...and how practical or feasible it is to do so....???
@samarthdevendra001 thats not what i meant. add in a little education to the mix and that wouldnt be a problem. in a post-scarcity society, where there is enough for everyone, the feeling of ownership will be only applicable to sentimental objects. not everyone will want those objects, materialism would disappear when everything is available. and obviously there would still need to be a system of reward, only not through greed, through innovative thinking
@bleekblock i dont believe in a socialist utopia. there will never be an utopia. i DO believe in improving everyones lives in the world, not just a few sick fucks who never learned how to share in grade 1. and explain how what i mentioned is socialistic? its a completely new idea and its called REASOURCE-BASED ECONOMY, its NOT communism, or socialism
@bleekblock also, your comment is simply pointless. if you have nothing good to argue with or constructive to say, then dont say it. an american calling me a "socialist zombie" is as stupid as a north korean calling me a "capitalist zombie". ive lived through both systems; ive lived through romanian communism, a romanian revolution, american capitalism, and european bureaucracy. IF ANYONE is unbiased, it would be me. what have YOU experienced? what do YOU have to compare to? nothing? exactly.
At 1:54 "There was no commissar sending out orders from some central office."
What, there's no pencil co. executives saying make pencils? It seems like free market fundamentalists are always trying to obfuscate the human agency involved in the "magic" of capitalism. Could it be because the trajectory of capitalism is towards maximum greed and sociopathy? It's no wonder that he choked on the words as they came out. Capitalism only works with regulation to restrain its destructive tendencies.
@jj79tr His point was, the govt does not and cannot know anything about Pencil making - not the price it should be, nor the number of employees the Pencil company should have.
Only the Free-Market decides that.. the Pencil Co. is a supplier in the Free-Market and adjusts it's # of employees and prices based on the actions of You and Me and the rest of the actions of society.
All the govt can do is attempt to regulate maximum efficiency downwards.
Clever man, great explanation - CRAP SYSTEM! There is no defending the free market in 2011. The free market system is dead, killed by the people that benefited from it most. That's how dumb they are.
The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.
power of the market doesnt work when there is no choice, when people are forced to work in one way or another. I think it is a fallacy to pretend that people in developing countries have the choice and choose to face very harsh working conditions, which is what friedman assumes, but i also think if multinational corporations dont go there it will never prosper. I think its a balance between the huge costs with long term benefits.
@MrBigEnchilada By no choice i assume you mean a bad choice or a much worse choice. While working for these companies is might not be good it is the best choice for most people. If you say the choice not to work is not a choice then who really has any choice in life. Most Americans have to go to work or they will face very terrible conditions. They choose to work in terrible conditions or face even worse conditions. I
a major reason for the economic failures of governments today is their intervention in the markets thru regulation and tax policy. Every regulation and incentive tax policy distorts the market until it no longer reflects true cost at all.
We need a Flat Tax structure and roll all regulation and spending back to 2007 levels...do that and the Economy will fix itself. Continue down the road Obama is on of increased taxes, spending and regulation and it will only get worse...Much worse.
@TheManInBlackChannel Ok...so is MLK Jr. and Thomas Jefferson and Ghandi. They're dead, and so obviously have nothing more of importance to say, through their writings or other media. Clearly we have outgrown them all.
What you describe is thousands of people finding employment. If they chose to work under those conditions willingly, perhaps we can trust the judgement of a competent human being well enough to assume the alternative was even worse. The other atrocities you mention represent a lack of rule of law and rights protections, both of which had Milton Friedman as an avid supporter.
Tell the person that extracts the iron from the mines who works in appalling conditions, inhales toxic air and is paid pennies that he is contributing to world peace and harmony. Or the person that is sent into the dense Congolese jungles to retrieve the rubber, forced to work without any break, receive insulting compensation which probably couldn't even buy that pencil and whose families were massacred by the King Leopold's men from Belgium when they had colonized Congo. Hurray for World Peace
@afgbasit you quiet amuse me i must say....that person who works in appalling conditions.....chose to do so didnt he???...i'll give you examples.....coal is mined in Australia with some of the best practices using huge machine equipment....while in some parts of Africa its still done by hands resulting in thousand's of deaths every year who is to blame..capitalism??..no sir the problem is lack of property rights or law enforcement so large companies never invest there capital thrr
@afgbasit and about king leopolds grab of congo.....sir that has nothing to do with capitalism....that is slavery....and offcource its not humane in anyway...
--> China’s government has subsidized, protected, and goaded its firms to ensure rapid industrialization, thereby altering the global division of labor in its favor. ... Given China’s economic success, it is hard to deny the contribution made by the government’s industrialization policies.
the present-day pencil story would be incomplete without citing China’s state-owned firms, which made the initial investments in technology and labor training; lax forest management policies, which kept wood artificially cheap; generous export subsidies; and government intervention in currency markets, which gives Chinese producers a significant cost advantage.
Agree, the free market does encourage cooperation, but this is also a rosey picture as well. Consider that the impact the free market is having on natural resources, or social inequality and the conflicts that arise out of that. The free market promotes a multitude of conflicts as well. So we must be sure we are blinded by Friedman's great rhetoric and phrasing. It brings us together, economically (not necessarily socially, empathetically, ideologically), but it also encourages conflict.
@mrlancecash why should we be the same socially. We are all different. Celebrate the social and ideological differences. It is what makes the world interesting. We do not need to all be the same.
Gentlemen! /and Ladies!/ This 'free market' have been existing since the Dawn of Mankind - and WE have never felt any need for the Friedman-theories! He wants to say that the Global Market is free - then it is a LIE! The'elite' is the same(Huntington's "Davos Man") everywhere and Earth is not an infinite market! Goods can be cheap or expensive but the Nature pays for it! And WE are the PART of the Nature!/ I love when someone speaks about technical issue and he has not the faintest idea of it/
Milton didn't create this idea about pencils. It was Leonard E Read he copied from Reads work called "I pencil, My Family Tree" from 1958. Check it out on Youtube here. Milton does an afterword in the book. Read was a devoted friend of Ludwig Von Mise and ee helped Mises get is book Human Action published. He gives credit to I Pencil to FA Hayek another Austrian in influencing him to write this piece and Hayeks use 'the pretense of knowledge." Austrians
wow he would have been a great employee at Target. too bad all hes talking about is the operation of manufacturing goods. they had pencils in communist China in the 50s by the way.
“Any society driven purely by market incentives will fail catastrophically, in economic as well as political terms. The freest, most incentive-driven market economies in the world are not in the US or Hong Kong or even in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands but in failed and gangster societies such as Somalia, Congo & Afghanistan.”
Any idea no matter how great and any form of social organization no matter how wise is corruptible. There is no system, communism, socialism, democracy, free market, or anything else that is immune from human nature, and although of themselves, all of these systems are good and could function for the betterment of people, all of them are corrupted by human nature and that is why none of them work.
@reverenceforall Check out the film: "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward", search for it on youtube. The first half an hour focuses on "Human Nature/Human Behaviour" and what exactly it is that comprises of them.
@mba2ceo hahaha. too bad for you (but outstanding for the cause of liberty), Milton's brain and influence are large, whereas your influence and hopes are very, very small indeed.
I usually find Milton to be inspiring but here I find him rather...asinine. The people 'working together' are actually people who are forced to find work in order to feed themselves. They only give a shit about the pencil, the other workers or the customer insofar as it helps them to maintain their living. They'd rather have tangible wealth, so that they could be free from wage slavery, but of course, if everyone actually did then there wouldn't be cheap pencils because there'd be no cheap labor
@acphenom You're phrasing the situation in a wholly negative way. Individuals act to satisfy a need. Individuals therefore work to earn money to survive, to enjoy themselves, to go places, etc. How do you know people only ("only") care about pencil making because it makes them money? What if they enjoy their work? The challenge of coordinating international efforts? You say "wage slavery"--we are similarly "slaves" to gravity, mortality, and oxygen. Be careful with your phrasing of things.
Milton is brutally right. I was born in USSR, a country where even matches were scarce!!! The best gift you could give to Soviet citizen in the 1980s was a bag of potato and a toiled paper,a tragic joke among the soviets.
Imagine a big dictatorial country 1984 style with long lines for bread,matches and toilet paper, a giant military machine with giant parades and aging political leaders. Ronald Reagen was right 100% percent to describe it as a "Evil Empire" with its gulags and repression.
thank you for that statement....I hope that some of the critics of market economics will read what you have said, and consider the misery produced by central planning and the socialist utopia.
@jmsmith363 Good luck with that. They IGNORE the problems. When a reporter visited the Soviet Union admist the starvation campaign happening in the Ukraine, he wrote:
"I have seen the future and it works."
As Rush has stated correctly MANY times;
"Results don't matter to these people, they always come back and say; 'He DID something'"
and that is the bottom line, The two evil rulers:
1) kill those who he dislikes immediately.
2) Keep doing things FOR YOU, because you don't know any better.
@Mishkafofer It's people that have migrated from those areas of the world that truly understand the evils of socialism and the road it leads to. The problem fundamentally is in our schools:
1) Moral Relativism. There is no right and wrong.
2) Cultural Relativism. There is no great culture, and generally America has done more wrong than right in the world.
Both of these ideas are FUNDAMENTALLY wrong. That is what they are stuffing into kid's. Then they prop them up calling them "thinkers".
@mbuel Please elaborate more, you started commenting about my previous remark and then added something new about educational system. I did not understand your remark about education system.
@yuriatayde nope, i implied that in the last 30 years of western history, reforms to the effect of deregulation, of many industries such as the financial sector, despite government influence in allowing the market to maintain inefficiently by saving banks, and various supply side reforms that tend towards a free-market, have occurred.
@neverdat100 Financial deregulation is an myth built upon ignorance of the reality of the situation. Glass-Steagal may have exacerbated the situation but the underlying truth is the same even without it, that our financial institutions, the most dangerous ones, are state sanctioned monopolies that are designed, perhaps directly or indirectly, to destroy the American economy. If you want to blame somebody for our recent collapse, blame the federal reserve. It was predicted by men who believe that
@s0beit Erm, sorry? The American financial institutions are designed to destroy the US economy? The institutions have been built, over the last 40 years, to sustain the American economy - admittedly, through debt-funded growth, to the extent whereby as of this year, the average American held a debt worth 110% of his or her household income. The banks I agree, will ultimately see to the end of neoliberalism, yet at the moment, they're the very thing keeping it going.
@neverdat100 No, they aren't. You can't even call it neoliberalism anymore because it obviously isn't. At the moment it isn't a free market, free marketers DON'T want a central bank because of how damaging it is.
They aren't propping it up, they're tearing it down.
@yuriatayde that's awful reasoning. and no, not everyone is profiting; have a look at income, social and wealth inequality in France, the UK and the US since the 1980s - when governments in these countries decided to try and carry out what Friedman and Hayek advocate. those who benefit are inevitably the resource-owners, those who hold the means of production. those who don't, have become relatively poorer since these neoliberal reforms. so no, not everyone profits from greed.
@yuriatayde 'tis not the matter. friedman admits as i explained, that personal greed and thus increasingly, atomisation form the basis of a market. yet this transpires to other aspects of life as well; people unwilling to share, commit grime for personal gains and what have you, disrupting friedman's promise of 'peace and harmony'. primitive societies, some of which still exist around the world today, worked not for money, but for each other. i know which one i'd prefer.
so basically, friedman admits that the personal acquisition of capital, or in other words, 'greed' made so many people work to make a pencil...and yet friedman tells us the market mechanism is 'essential' for 'harmony and peace'. doublethink.
There is no such thing as free market. There is also no such thing as free lunch. Just like "free trade" b.s. Look at our trade defecit with China not counting many other nations.
@jmkpns That has nothing to do with free markets... we have never never had free markets, just freer markets.... but those are vanishing also as your statistics prove... Hope you check out some of my vids on the subject. Peace and Freedom.
@moccamonster Soviet Russia could make pencils, the government just co-ordinated the industries. The problem with that is that the market forces select the better/most efficient products, and hence once you take out the free-market element, your production quality and efficiency sinks. The reason Soviet Russia collapsed was because the government could not co-ordinate the mass of resources adequately, leading to massive resource misallocation and resulting in economic stagnation.
I've had some pretty boring ass professors, but when Dr. Friedman says something, it's never boring. He could have made a series about the market goods of pencils, paper and staplers, and get millions of people to watch it more than once with amazement every time.
The world has become less bright since his passing.
@Naoyusimi Nonetheless, by workign for their survival it does foster harmony and peace. The spread of markets throughout western europe coincided with massive decrements in violence. As civilization progresses violence decreases. Look at Steven Pinker's lecture on it.
@unfad1ng I agree that wealthy people have to work for their money, there is no question in that. I was disagreeing with the statement that the poor are in a state of poverty because they have not done the necessary work, that is not true. Working class citizens often times put in the same effort as wealthy citizens. I would also disagree that the working class uses the upper class' resources to work. A manager does not supply his/her workers with resources, but instead oversees them.
@unfad1ng I'd have to respectfully disagree. Wealthy capitalists have not only achieved their wealth through their hard work, but others hard work as well. If everyone in a community were given the option to be wealthy businesspeople, they most likely would be. Should this happen, who would be left paving the roads? Putting out fires? Doing the plumbing in your house? Rich people would not get rich were it not for the hard work of those who create an environment that allows them to get rich.
of course everyone is needed. But dont for a second think that rich people have not worked for their money.
They have to work otherwise they cant become wealthy buisness people.
Wealthy people have achieved parts of their wealth by hard work and the rest has been achieved by the hard work of others using the wealthy peoples resources so its only fair.
why are we talking about wasting gas? this is "using" gas. we are using gas to transport the pencil. If you packed a cargoship full of these pencils then the amount of gas each single pencil woulld account for would be .000001 gallons. Id say thats pretty damn efficient. plus corporations would not use the gas if it was inefficient. that is common sense. if you cant understand that you cant understand much else.
Any thoughtful student of economics knows that Freidman's inspiration for this was actually from the first section of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations--there was a similar example where Smith speaks of the many parts necessary for a particular good. Both brilliant men.
@DBCOOPER888 Lets talk about economic efficiency shall we? We transport materials over thousands of miles just to write with a pencil while we over stuff ourselves with food and people starve to death in various places. Economics seeks to satisfy wants with limited resources and the most significant wants are not being met, while resources are simultaneously being wasted on trivial things. This is EXTREMELY inefficient.
@gentzelpwns What the hell do you have against a pencil? It's a useful tool that brings value to the economy. The way a pencil is manufactured now is about as efficient as we're going to get with today's technology. Food? This same economic system is what brings food to the masses all over the world. The U.S. is the leader in the world in food exports. We exports crops all over the place using the same lines of production you're crying about here.
@DBCOOPER888 And we still have far to go. Read about Parecon and you may realize the benefits you get in a society that can innovate and harness the technology we have without squandering scarce resources.
@DBCOOPER888 Not sure If I'm agreeing or not with what you're saying but I'd like to point out that food production in the us is the most heavily government subsidised industry there is besides maybe nuclear power... no actually it IS the most heavily subsidiesed industry. It's the welfare queen of industries.
Innovation: If I were a very large pencil manufacturer and somebody else invents a much better type of pen (eg. ball pen), I could adapt pretty easily and make ball pens myself. Now, if someone invented the type writer, I would have to start pretty much from scratch. Or I buy up the new technology, shelf it and be safe for quite a while. Not?
It's...it's so simple! Dr. Friedman had a knack for making his listeners bop themselves on the head and go--"WOW, why didn't I think of that--it's so SIMPLE, it's like MAGIC!!!"
@Krahl123 Is that a question? Because if there's no incentive to improve your product, keep prices down, or innovate, then there's no improvement in the lives of people.
Look at the phone company monopoly for decades. Look at all the progress the phone industry has made in just a fraction of the time. That's the result of competition.
@jrsub3 The incentive doesn't necessarily have to be money. The greatest inventors and minds of our era have done all their work for very little money. In the fields of science and academics, money has very little influence as an incentive and can actually be more of a hindrance. I suggest you watch this: watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y
Indeed, Nikola Tesla didn't do hi's inventions for money. But what system deemed those inventions as productive to society by beign able to compete and win those inventions that opposed it and by proving it's superiority allowing it to come to the hands of all peoples?
@Krahl123 YES... people don't seem to get that... the greatest achievements of mankind in general had nothing to do with earning a profit.. the space program, getting rid of smallpox, the invention of the laser, the internet all not profit motivated projects... sometimes it's more profitable to keep treatign a disease than to cure it or to make things that break easier to sell more... so the free market isn't the best model for EVERYTHING.
@allmenrcreatedequal I would so vote for friedman for president if he ran with chomsky as VP... damn, imagine the hatred for government. Friedmen getting after free markets, and chomsky hitting up new media to make sure they are reporting truthful news and transparency.
Companies are going to apply more jobs to machines and self operating robots. This is reality. Now as population is so massive that there are not enough jobs for everyone. This is will never be corrected until either companies pay more for more jobs(not gonna happen) or we evolve past this morally unacceptable system. people must understand that bartering is what we have always done. Socialism, fascism, communism, capitalism all are the same rope. The rope is around all our necks.
@Jononutoob Lmao @ Your statement. Capitalism IS bartering bub. That could just about litterally be another term for it it's so close. socialism, fascism and communism are remarkably different fields of thought from capitalism.
@Jononutoob "people must understand that bartering is what we have always done. Socialism, fascism, communism, capitalism all are the same rope. The rope is around all our necks."
I thought that was what you meant by that, If it wasn't I apologize and retract my statement.
@iamnotme123 those American corporations give people with less opportunity than you in third world countries a means to support themselves and make their lives better. i.e. Indian tech support jobs.
@horeslayer While those americans that had those "custmer support jobs" before were told sorry but you are costing us too much money. The people in India will take a lot loss money for their labor? Wow, Lets go Milton, See you later people of Farmington, Maine USA working those customer support jobs for MBNA, we got cheaper labor in inidia good luck with the job search "former" employees of MBNA. I dont know how else to explain it to those people that dont get it. You will have to experience it
@theRevolutionof2012 have you been to India? I don't know how else to explain it other than that finding jobs and improving your is much harder than being laid off here when you live in a harsh caste system. Many of those people at MBNA did find jobs later. e.g. many American car factories exported manual labor jobs, but many foreign car companies that built plants here gave those laid off workers jobs. It sucks getting laid off, but most people will find another job.
@horeslayer Have I been to India? Irrelavant. "I don't know how else to explain it other than that finding jobs and improving your is much harder than being laid off here when you live in a harsh caste system." What? "Many of those people at MBNA did find jobs later." It seems as though you are trying to justify the loss of jobs as not that bad for us? From MBNA to McDonalds, yup things are great. Oh, have you seen Detriot?
@theRevolutionof2012 now, California, but I lived with my wife in India for two years. I was trying to say that improving your life while living in a third world country, especially one with a caste system, is much more challenging than in the U.S. Of course getting laid off is hard, but living in an Indian slum is much, much harder. When they get laid off, they can't fall back on social services like unemployment checks or welfare. It's find a job or die in the streets for them.
@horeslayer you are forgetting to look at history my friend. India was much worse off 20 years back, and it wasn't functioning capitalistically. Back then the chances of dieing in the street were far greater due to lack of jobs, now at least there is that chance. and as it improves, if it isn't mucked up by brainwashed fools that believe gov. assistance is needed, it will become that much harder for people to "die in the streets"
@daPlumber702 I know, I was supporting the outsourcing of labor because it enriches the world and makes peoples' lives better. I completely agree with you 100%
Milton Friedman is both right and wrong. Yes, it is truly amazing that people from all over the world were able to organize to make that pencil. However, the reason was not the "free" price system. The reason is because they are forced to work, often for terrible wages, under either threat of starvation or misery. True freedom revolves around working and being happy with said work. Working for self betterment, not simply for survival. "Work for me or starve." is no more free than "work or die".
@sharperguy The idea is not that people don't have to work in order to create a society, it is that society should not be hierarchical to the extent where people are forced to sell themselves as temporary slaves to survive. To build a society we start from the ground up, based on the individual and the freedom granted to them. We then design the conditions around which the majority of men can live free. The capitalist system does not create those conditions, and hence should be replaced.
Your a jackass & a pessimist. Capitalism ensures freedom in this country & I assume u meant other 3rd world countries by 'work or starve' conditions. So we caused other countries to be 3rd world & should create a new system that will fix the economic welfare of other countries, b/c its our fault right their in turmoil. All we need to do is create a system that ensures economic prosperity for our country & numerous others as well, real practical slick
People choose to work as temporary slaves because it ensures their survival.
What is your alternative to that?
People are free to work as temporary slaves and they are free tostart their own company where others work for them as slaves provided they have the capital needed to do such a thing.
Working as a temporary slave is the wrong description because what they do is they cooparate with each other, one has the capital and the other does favors and gains capital
@ViolentMonopoly, "True freedom revolves around working and being happy with said work." No it doesn't. You can't just redefine freedom and give it a vague nonsensical definition. There are always going to be terrible jobs that people aren't going to be "happy" about doing, but they have to be done anyways. And yes, we all have to work to survive. That's just a fact of life. Capitalism is just about letting people help each other survive.
Why can't you commies go post your own stuff and stop polluting the rest of the internet? Go post to moveon.org or some other marxist website? The self loathing displayed by turban, is exactly what makes independent minded people run away from the left. That and the proof that leftist ideas are all fail. Turban, go pray to a bureau...
antirelic 5 days ago
LOL the people who made the individual pieces of that pencil probably did it for a very little amount of money that they needed in order to avoid death by starvation. There is no "choice" or "price," they did it because they had to.
wangsta25 1 week ago
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These "people" espouse the "free market" while fighting to keep massive subsidies, loopholes and corporate tax breaks in place. Doesn't this dichotomy strike anyone as hypocritical? Or has the term "free market" lost all meaning and relativity amidst the New Corporatism usurping our government?
NotSuchAnEvilBunny 1 week ago
the free market price system DOES NOT AND WILL NEVER WORK because of human tendencies. stop shaping people around ideologies. shape ideologies around human nature. post-scarcity economy for the win!
dirty1smelly1turban 3 weeks ago
@dirty1smelly1turban What human tendencies make the free market price system not work? What system does work?
netster007z 1 week ago
@netster007z greed and self preservation makes all systems fail. and as an answer to your second question; there is none. the only thing we could do is limit the effect human tendencies have on the society by taking out the variables that could be automated. the more society becomes automated, the less there is a need for humans to interfere and fuck it up. money is greed materialized in a pure form, we need a system which embraces our tenancies and develops as much as it can around them.
dirty1smelly1turban 1 week ago
@netster007z we will NEVER have a society that escapes from its imperfections; everything we make at one point or another will fail. what we have to do is use technology in place of where we fail. we cannot do banal tasks repetitively. robots can, without complaining, until the structure of the robot itself fails. that's the beauty of technology, it doesnt have a free thinking mind, self preservation, greed or wants like we do and we could use it to our advantage to improve our lives
dirty1smelly1turban 1 week ago
@dirty1smelly1turban Sounds like you agree that free market capitalism is the best system.
netster007z 4 days ago
@netster007z I like Free Market, BUT there are a few issues. A regular free market would allow competition (removal of federal copyright/patent laws) on ideas like creation of items. A person who makes a living making a parcel for a corporation for example. But said parcel is used for a machine that isn't worked on since it's old, and the corporation threatens to the individual who makes the parcel that it'll make it's own. Thus killing the living of the individual.
kmelfina 2 days ago
Everytime we get Crony Capitalism, Socialism, or perhaps Fascism, Capitalism somehow gets blamed.
DustyCHK 3 weeks ago
@DustyCHK because capitalism only leads to corporatism, and corporatism leads to where we are today. ALWAYS. capitalism, just like communism, is only good on paper. its because instead of shaping the ideology around human behaviour, it shapes human behaviour around the ideology. if you want to get rid of greed, give everyone everything. thats the magic of an automated post-scarcity economy. in my opinion, post-scarcity is the only way we will ever achieve balance.
dirty1smelly1turban 3 weeks ago
@dirty1smelly1turban You want us to adopt a philosophy that takes human nature into account, yet you want to "get rid of greed". That's self-contradictory. Human nature includes greed. Giving everyone everything IS communism. Corporatism is result of unlimited government, not capitalism.
TenseAlcyoneus 2 weeks ago
@TenseAlcyoneus its not contradictory at all. you took it out of context because i meant "get rid" in a different manner. a better word would be "fulfil", give it everything, cancel it out in a way. just like in math, -5 + 5 = 0, providing material confort, EDUCATION, healthcare, etc to everyone would please people and avoid getting those human tendencies out of hand. and no its not communism, communism completely bases itself on equal work for everyone, which wouldnt be needed at all.
dirty1smelly1turban 1 week ago
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dirty1smelly1turban 1 week ago
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@TenseAlcyoneus "Corporatism is result of unlimited government, not capitalism." what world are you living in? america is the most corporatist country in the world and it also has WAY LESS government for example compared to european countries, which have no corporatism at all. is your name rick santorum by any chance?
"I believe most corporations actually don't mind big government."
Rick Santorum
WHAT A JOKE!!!
humans + capitalism= corporatism
humans + communism= totalitarianism
dirty1smelly1turban 1 week ago
@dirty1smelly1turban how about giving a speship to everyone....ok wait you may say thats extreme....how about giving a Lamborghini gallado to everyone.....or maybe a small car to everyone....guitars, gaming pc's , computer tablets, amusement parks, shark fin soup, truffles, orchid flowers, tiger skin, assault rifles, i-phone touch, vintage 1960 maustang..............how far will you go for giving everything to everyone...and how practical or feasible it is to do so....???
samarthdevendra001 1 week ago
@samarthdevendra001 thats not what i meant. add in a little education to the mix and that wouldnt be a problem. in a post-scarcity society, where there is enough for everyone, the feeling of ownership will be only applicable to sentimental objects. not everyone will want those objects, materialism would disappear when everything is available. and obviously there would still need to be a system of reward, only not through greed, through innovative thinking
dirty1smelly1turban 1 week ago
@dirty1smelly1turban Oh God - another zombie who believes in a socialist utopia that has never existed and which never will.
bleekblock 1 week ago
@bleekblock i dont believe in a socialist utopia. there will never be an utopia. i DO believe in improving everyones lives in the world, not just a few sick fucks who never learned how to share in grade 1. and explain how what i mentioned is socialistic? its a completely new idea and its called REASOURCE-BASED ECONOMY, its NOT communism, or socialism
dirty1smelly1turban 1 week ago
@bleekblock also, your comment is simply pointless. if you have nothing good to argue with or constructive to say, then dont say it. an american calling me a "socialist zombie" is as stupid as a north korean calling me a "capitalist zombie". ive lived through both systems; ive lived through romanian communism, a romanian revolution, american capitalism, and european bureaucracy. IF ANYONE is unbiased, it would be me. what have YOU experienced? what do YOU have to compare to? nothing? exactly.
dirty1smelly1turban 1 week ago
@dirty1smelly1turban Yeah, we need to focus on human behaviour! Praxeology's the way to go! ;)
Omotenium 1 week ago
@Omotenium I've done though experiments and determined post scarcity to be impossible due to molecular differences.
Omotenium 1 week ago
Why do you say that?
DustyCHK 3 weeks ago
this vid made me laugh so freakin hard!!!!!!!
zonbielova2000 3 weeks ago
Milton Friedman - The Proud Father of Global Misery
RMJChannel 3 weeks ago
@RMJChannel Why do you say that?
DustyCHK 3 weeks ago
At 1:54 "There was no commissar sending out orders from some central office."
What, there's no pencil co. executives saying make pencils? It seems like free market fundamentalists are always trying to obfuscate the human agency involved in the "magic" of capitalism. Could it be because the trajectory of capitalism is towards maximum greed and sociopathy? It's no wonder that he choked on the words as they came out. Capitalism only works with regulation to restrain its destructive tendencies.
jj79tr 1 month ago
@jj79tr His point was, the govt does not and cannot know anything about Pencil making - not the price it should be, nor the number of employees the Pencil company should have.
Only the Free-Market decides that.. the Pencil Co. is a supplier in the Free-Market and adjusts it's # of employees and prices based on the actions of You and Me and the rest of the actions of society.
All the govt can do is attempt to regulate maximum efficiency downwards.
coupleofpennies 1 month ago 2
Clever man, great explanation - CRAP SYSTEM! There is no defending the free market in 2011. The free market system is dead, killed by the people that benefited from it most. That's how dumb they are.
nowthatsinteresting1 1 month ago
The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.
Inukshuk67 2 months ago
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You were a vicious bastard Friedman, and I'm glad you're dead!
RMJChannel 2 months ago
@TheManInBlackChannel Totally agree!
RMJChannel 2 months ago 2
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RMJChannel 2 months ago
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Google Ron Paul.
petereberle 2 months ago
@TheManInBlackChannel Marx is dead too, Keynes is dead i guess we should not follow any economic system.
Philip88888888 2 months ago
power of the market doesnt work when there is no choice, when people are forced to work in one way or another. I think it is a fallacy to pretend that people in developing countries have the choice and choose to face very harsh working conditions, which is what friedman assumes, but i also think if multinational corporations dont go there it will never prosper. I think its a balance between the huge costs with long term benefits.
MrBigEnchilada 2 months ago 2
@MrBigEnchilada By no choice i assume you mean a bad choice or a much worse choice. While working for these companies is might not be good it is the best choice for most people. If you say the choice not to work is not a choice then who really has any choice in life. Most Americans have to go to work or they will face very terrible conditions. They choose to work in terrible conditions or face even worse conditions. I
Philip88888888 2 months ago
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jumpmanDC 2 months ago
@TheManInBlackChannel
And Johnny Cash is dead. Let's move on.
slowhand1007 3 months ago
Pure genius!
toddweller 3 months ago
a major reason for the economic failures of governments today is their intervention in the markets thru regulation and tax policy. Every regulation and incentive tax policy distorts the market until it no longer reflects true cost at all.
We need a Flat Tax structure and roll all regulation and spending back to 2007 levels...do that and the Economy will fix itself. Continue down the road Obama is on of increased taxes, spending and regulation and it will only get worse...Much worse.
Bravo21 3 months ago
@TheManInBlackChannel Ok...so is MLK Jr. and Thomas Jefferson and Ghandi. They're dead, and so obviously have nothing more of importance to say, through their writings or other media. Clearly we have outgrown them all.
gustjorodedheo 3 months ago
@afgbasit ,
What you describe is thousands of people finding employment. If they chose to work under those conditions willingly, perhaps we can trust the judgement of a competent human being well enough to assume the alternative was even worse. The other atrocities you mention represent a lack of rule of law and rights protections, both of which had Milton Friedman as an avid supporter.
shaverbh 3 months ago 2
Tell the person that extracts the iron from the mines who works in appalling conditions, inhales toxic air and is paid pennies that he is contributing to world peace and harmony. Or the person that is sent into the dense Congolese jungles to retrieve the rubber, forced to work without any break, receive insulting compensation which probably couldn't even buy that pencil and whose families were massacred by the King Leopold's men from Belgium when they had colonized Congo. Hurray for World Peace
afgbasit 3 months ago
@afgbasit you quiet amuse me i must say....that person who works in appalling conditions.....chose to do so didnt he???...i'll give you examples.....coal is mined in Australia with some of the best practices using huge machine equipment....while in some parts of Africa its still done by hands resulting in thousand's of deaths every year who is to blame..capitalism??..no sir the problem is lack of property rights or law enforcement so large companies never invest there capital thrr
samarthdevendra001 1 week ago
@afgbasit and about king leopolds grab of congo.....sir that has nothing to do with capitalism....that is slavery....and offcource its not humane in anyway...
samarthdevendra001 1 week ago
--> China’s government has subsidized, protected, and goaded its firms to ensure rapid industrialization, thereby altering the global division of labor in its favor. ... Given China’s economic success, it is hard to deny the contribution made by the government’s industrialization policies.
lolsih101 3 months ago
the present-day pencil story would be incomplete without citing China’s state-owned firms, which made the initial investments in technology and labor training; lax forest management policies, which kept wood artificially cheap; generous export subsidies; and government intervention in currency markets, which gives Chinese producers a significant cost advantage.
lolsih101 3 months ago
Free to Choose was great
diogotomediogo 3 months ago in playlist Mais vídeos de LibertyPen
Agree, the free market does encourage cooperation, but this is also a rosey picture as well. Consider that the impact the free market is having on natural resources, or social inequality and the conflicts that arise out of that. The free market promotes a multitude of conflicts as well. So we must be sure we are blinded by Friedman's great rhetoric and phrasing. It brings us together, economically (not necessarily socially, empathetically, ideologically), but it also encourages conflict.
mrlancecash 3 months ago
@mrlancecash why should we be the same socially. We are all different. Celebrate the social and ideological differences. It is what makes the world interesting. We do not need to all be the same.
445CR 3 months ago
OK its a pencil, not the space shuttle.
cesar333 3 months ago
Gentlemen! /and Ladies!/ This 'free market' have been existing since the Dawn of Mankind - and WE have never felt any need for the Friedman-theories! He wants to say that the Global Market is free - then it is a LIE! The'elite' is the same(Huntington's "Davos Man") everywhere and Earth is not an infinite market! Goods can be cheap or expensive but the Nature pays for it! And WE are the PART of the Nature!/ I love when someone speaks about technical issue and he has not the faintest idea of it/
ogrelaca 3 months ago
common sence
MrFalconford 3 months ago
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qwerty94376 4 months ago
One of my favorite clips of MF of all time. How much he can demonstrate using just a pencil.
supahsekzy 4 months ago
That's one special pencil.
Just kidding :)
muddywood 4 months ago
the bob ross of economics
DoctorIsSin 4 months ago
So Friedman is influenced by Austrian Economists by using Leonards piece. His brand of capitalism didn't come up with the idea.
dons123111 4 months ago
Milton didn't create this idea about pencils. It was Leonard E Read he copied from Reads work called "I pencil, My Family Tree" from 1958. Check it out on Youtube here. Milton does an afterword in the book. Read was a devoted friend of Ludwig Von Mise and ee helped Mises get is book Human Action published. He gives credit to I Pencil to FA Hayek another Austrian in influencing him to write this piece and Hayeks use 'the pretense of knowledge." Austrians
dons123111 4 months ago
Low price goods are NOT exclusively good for society.
mba2ceo 4 months ago
@mba2ceo why not? please explain.
timex makes a very cheap watch yet some still buy rolex.
ryanburbridge 4 months ago
wow he would have been a great employee at Target. too bad all hes talking about is the operation of manufacturing goods. they had pencils in communist China in the 50s by the way.
LTACS 5 months ago
punch me in the face
xxCCTECHxx 5 months ago
“Any society driven purely by market incentives will fail catastrophically, in economic as well as political terms. The freest, most incentive-driven market economies in the world are not in the US or Hong Kong or even in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands but in failed and gangster societies such as Somalia, Congo & Afghanistan.”
Anatole Kaletsky, Capitalism 4.0
SuperTruth77 5 months ago
Any idea no matter how great and any form of social organization no matter how wise is corruptible. There is no system, communism, socialism, democracy, free market, or anything else that is immune from human nature, and although of themselves, all of these systems are good and could function for the betterment of people, all of them are corrupted by human nature and that is why none of them work.
reverenceforall 5 months ago
@reverenceforall Check out the film: "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward", search for it on youtube. The first half an hour focuses on "Human Nature/Human Behaviour" and what exactly it is that comprises of them.
Many top scientists are interviewed.
You may find yourself surprised :)......
X
brucegalliver 5 months ago
@brucegalliver Wonderful film. Thank you for writing to me.
reverenceforall 5 months ago
@reverenceforall Oh wow, did you watch it all man?
What are your thoughts? Gained any new understandings?
Glad you enjoyed it :)
brucegalliver 5 months ago
And who uses a pencil these days?
KurtBeekeeper 5 months ago
Exploited humans for cheap pencils ... I hope he burns in HELL !!!
mba2ceo 6 months ago
@mba2ceo hahaha. too bad for you (but outstanding for the cause of liberty), Milton's brain and influence are large, whereas your influence and hopes are very, very small indeed.
fzqlcs 6 months ago 2
@fzqlcs ... he is supported ... by the elites to manipulated the stupid. He did a good job.
mba2ceo 6 months ago
@mba2ceo
Your are so dumb it hurts. Read a basic economics text book.
TimeWarp66 4 months ago
@mba2ceo Thats the beauty of the freemarket. Dont like the use of cheap labour. Dont buy the pencil.
445CR 4 months ago
Cheap labour for nice cheap pencils.
Pad856 6 months ago 2
This man is an absolute genius. I don't remember the last time I've literally been in awe at the wisdom of someone's words.
smokenfly514 7 months ago 2
@smokenfly514 ahahahahah ur funny
LTACS 5 months ago
I usually find Milton to be inspiring but here I find him rather...asinine. The people 'working together' are actually people who are forced to find work in order to feed themselves. They only give a shit about the pencil, the other workers or the customer insofar as it helps them to maintain their living. They'd rather have tangible wealth, so that they could be free from wage slavery, but of course, if everyone actually did then there wouldn't be cheap pencils because there'd be no cheap labor
acphenom 7 months ago
@acphenom You're phrasing the situation in a wholly negative way. Individuals act to satisfy a need. Individuals therefore work to earn money to survive, to enjoy themselves, to go places, etc. How do you know people only ("only") care about pencil making because it makes them money? What if they enjoy their work? The challenge of coordinating international efforts? You say "wage slavery"--we are similarly "slaves" to gravity, mortality, and oxygen. Be careful with your phrasing of things.
boredmonkey29 7 months ago
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Milton is brutally right. I was born in USSR, a country where even matches were scarce!!! The best gift you could give to Soviet citizen in the 1980s was a bag of potato and a toiled paper,a tragic joke among the soviets.
Imagine a big dictatorial country 1984 style with long lines for bread,matches and toilet paper, a giant military machine with giant parades and aging political leaders. Ronald Reagen was right 100% percent to describe it as a "Evil Empire" with its gulags and repression.
Mishkafofer 8 months ago 29
@Mishkafofer
thank you for that statement....I hope that some of the critics of market economics will read what you have said, and consider the misery produced by central planning and the socialist utopia.
jmsmith363 7 months ago
@jmsmith363 Good luck with that. They IGNORE the problems. When a reporter visited the Soviet Union admist the starvation campaign happening in the Ukraine, he wrote:
"I have seen the future and it works."
As Rush has stated correctly MANY times;
"Results don't matter to these people, they always come back and say; 'He DID something'"
and that is the bottom line, The two evil rulers:
1) kill those who he dislikes immediately.
2) Keep doing things FOR YOU, because you don't know any better.
mbuel 7 months ago
@Mishkafofer It's people that have migrated from those areas of the world that truly understand the evils of socialism and the road it leads to. The problem fundamentally is in our schools:
1) Moral Relativism. There is no right and wrong.
2) Cultural Relativism. There is no great culture, and generally America has done more wrong than right in the world.
Both of these ideas are FUNDAMENTALLY wrong. That is what they are stuffing into kid's. Then they prop them up calling them "thinkers".
mbuel 7 months ago
@mbuel Please elaborate more, you started commenting about my previous remark and then added something new about educational system. I did not understand your remark about education system.
Mishkafofer 7 months ago
@mbuel Reality is that everyone has their own ideas of morality. They will live by their own ideas and standards. They act upon their own desires.
god0fgod 6 months ago
@Mishkafofer We are moving in that direction. Croony capitalism coupled with surveilance by the government and lack of right.
MikeJacobsJr 2 months ago
'Thousands of (slave) people...' for all I care, human kind was better off using charcoal to write on stones, much more love.
fiiallatere 8 months ago
what did noam chomsky have to do with this?
happyman 8 months ago
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@happyman
"what did noam chomsky have to do with this?"
Nothing, and it's best we keep it that way when looking for economic insight. :-)
TheCapitalistdog 7 months ago
@JakeMansonNYC All great IDEAS are simple!
2dum2getsocialism 8 months ago
@yuriatayde nope, i implied that in the last 30 years of western history, reforms to the effect of deregulation, of many industries such as the financial sector, despite government influence in allowing the market to maintain inefficiently by saving banks, and various supply side reforms that tend towards a free-market, have occurred.
neverdat100 8 months ago
@neverdat100 Financial deregulation is an myth built upon ignorance of the reality of the situation. Glass-Steagal may have exacerbated the situation but the underlying truth is the same even without it, that our financial institutions, the most dangerous ones, are state sanctioned monopolies that are designed, perhaps directly or indirectly, to destroy the American economy. If you want to blame somebody for our recent collapse, blame the federal reserve. It was predicted by men who believe that
s0beit 8 months ago
@s0beit Erm, sorry? The American financial institutions are designed to destroy the US economy? The institutions have been built, over the last 40 years, to sustain the American economy - admittedly, through debt-funded growth, to the extent whereby as of this year, the average American held a debt worth 110% of his or her household income. The banks I agree, will ultimately see to the end of neoliberalism, yet at the moment, they're the very thing keeping it going.
neverdat100 8 months ago
@neverdat100 No, they aren't. You can't even call it neoliberalism anymore because it obviously isn't. At the moment it isn't a free market, free marketers DON'T want a central bank because of how damaging it is.
They aren't propping it up, they're tearing it down.
s0beit 8 months ago
@yuriatayde that's awful reasoning. and no, not everyone is profiting; have a look at income, social and wealth inequality in France, the UK and the US since the 1980s - when governments in these countries decided to try and carry out what Friedman and Hayek advocate. those who benefit are inevitably the resource-owners, those who hold the means of production. those who don't, have become relatively poorer since these neoliberal reforms. so no, not everyone profits from greed.
neverdat100 8 months ago
@yuriatayde 'tis not the matter. friedman admits as i explained, that personal greed and thus increasingly, atomisation form the basis of a market. yet this transpires to other aspects of life as well; people unwilling to share, commit grime for personal gains and what have you, disrupting friedman's promise of 'peace and harmony'. primitive societies, some of which still exist around the world today, worked not for money, but for each other. i know which one i'd prefer.
neverdat100 8 months ago
so basically, friedman admits that the personal acquisition of capital, or in other words, 'greed' made so many people work to make a pencil...and yet friedman tells us the market mechanism is 'essential' for 'harmony and peace'. doublethink.
neverdat100 8 months ago
@LibertyPen
What's the name of the music at the beginning?
CarlosMarti123 9 months ago
faggot
bkphilly69 9 months ago
There is no such thing as free market. There is also no such thing as free lunch. Just like "free trade" b.s. Look at our trade defecit with China not counting many other nations.
jmkpns 9 months ago
@jmkpns That has nothing to do with free markets... we have never never had free markets, just freer markets.... but those are vanishing also as your statistics prove... Hope you check out some of my vids on the subject. Peace and Freedom.
mikeshanklin 9 months ago
now it says made in China, so whats tht tell us?
mc15cp 9 months ago
@mc15cp Manufactured in China the materials don't come from China
bloodhawk122 9 months ago
So Soviet Russia couldn't make pencils? No wonder they went down.
moccamonster 9 months ago
@moccamonster Soviet Russia could make pencils, the government just co-ordinated the industries. The problem with that is that the market forces select the better/most efficient products, and hence once you take out the free-market element, your production quality and efficiency sinks. The reason Soviet Russia collapsed was because the government could not co-ordinate the mass of resources adequately, leading to massive resource misallocation and resulting in economic stagnation.
Darkdude929 9 months ago
@Darkdude929 And THAT is a good argument. Talking about a pencil does not prove anything other then it being a pencil.
moccamonster 9 months ago
I just made a pencil using only a rock and hair, just to prove him wrong.
Vincerama 9 months ago 2
@Vincerama
1. That's not a pencil, that's a a rock and some hair Thomas Edison.
2. He didn't say any supposed degenerate "pencil" like you got there, he said "this lead pencil". Great listening skills.
3. I bet people are running to the store to buy that marvelous feat of engineering. Can I buy some stock? Dope.
Truthman23 9 months ago
I've had some pretty boring ass professors, but when Dr. Friedman says something, it's never boring. He could have made a series about the market goods of pencils, paper and staplers, and get millions of people to watch it more than once with amazement every time.
The world has become less bright since his passing.
groam6666 9 months ago 41
Epic
SuperSneakySteve 10 months ago
lol. when he talks about pencils, it makes it seem so interesting!
ninja221100 10 months ago
They work for their survival, not to cooperate with anyone. "Foster harmony and peace", my dyin' ass.
Naoyusimi 10 months ago
@Naoyusimi Nonetheless, by workign for their survival it does foster harmony and peace. The spread of markets throughout western europe coincided with massive decrements in violence. As civilization progresses violence decreases. Look at Steven Pinker's lecture on it.
darwinkilledgod 10 months ago
@unfad1ng I agree that wealthy people have to work for their money, there is no question in that. I was disagreeing with the statement that the poor are in a state of poverty because they have not done the necessary work, that is not true. Working class citizens often times put in the same effort as wealthy citizens. I would also disagree that the working class uses the upper class' resources to work. A manager does not supply his/her workers with resources, but instead oversees them.
johnfrancisv 10 months ago
@johnfrancisv
If they do not want to work for the wealthy people they can go work in their own factory and manage themselves,
unfad1ng 10 months ago
@unfad1ng I'd have to respectfully disagree. Wealthy capitalists have not only achieved their wealth through their hard work, but others hard work as well. If everyone in a community were given the option to be wealthy businesspeople, they most likely would be. Should this happen, who would be left paving the roads? Putting out fires? Doing the plumbing in your house? Rich people would not get rich were it not for the hard work of those who create an environment that allows them to get rich.
johnfrancisv 10 months ago
@johnfrancisv
of course everyone is needed. But dont for a second think that rich people have not worked for their money.
They have to work otherwise they cant become wealthy buisness people.
Wealthy people have achieved parts of their wealth by hard work and the rest has been achieved by the hard work of others using the wealthy peoples resources so its only fair.
unfad1ng 10 months ago
My pencil was made in China.
petadd 10 months ago
why are we talking about wasting gas? this is "using" gas. we are using gas to transport the pencil. If you packed a cargoship full of these pencils then the amount of gas each single pencil woulld account for would be .000001 gallons. Id say thats pretty damn efficient. plus corporations would not use the gas if it was inefficient. that is common sense. if you cant understand that you cant understand much else.
adulby 11 months ago
Any thoughtful student of economics knows that Freidman's inspiration for this was actually from the first section of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations--there was a similar example where Smith speaks of the many parts necessary for a particular good. Both brilliant men.
MrMustard12345 11 months ago
@gentzelpwns so under communism pencils will grow on trees?
david52875 11 months ago
look how much effort it takes to make this product... the amount of gas involved should demonstrate the inefficiency of such a system
gentzelpwns 11 months ago
@gentzelpwns Why is it "inefficient"? We're not talking about creating one pencil at a time, but mass producing thousands a day.
DBCOOPER888 11 months ago
@DBCOOPER888 and sending things back and forth thousands of miles wasting tons of gas.
gentzelpwns 11 months ago
@gentzelpwns So? It's not that inefficient as you think.
DBCOOPER888 11 months ago
@DBCOOPER888 Lets talk about economic efficiency shall we? We transport materials over thousands of miles just to write with a pencil while we over stuff ourselves with food and people starve to death in various places. Economics seeks to satisfy wants with limited resources and the most significant wants are not being met, while resources are simultaneously being wasted on trivial things. This is EXTREMELY inefficient.
gentzelpwns 11 months ago
@gentzelpwns What the hell do you have against a pencil? It's a useful tool that brings value to the economy. The way a pencil is manufactured now is about as efficient as we're going to get with today's technology. Food? This same economic system is what brings food to the masses all over the world. The U.S. is the leader in the world in food exports. We exports crops all over the place using the same lines of production you're crying about here.
DBCOOPER888 10 months ago
@DBCOOPER888 And we still have far to go. Read about Parecon and you may realize the benefits you get in a society that can innovate and harness the technology we have without squandering scarce resources.
gentzelpwns 10 months ago
@DBCOOPER888 Not sure If I'm agreeing or not with what you're saying but I'd like to point out that food production in the us is the most heavily government subsidised industry there is besides maybe nuclear power... no actually it IS the most heavily subsidiesed industry. It's the welfare queen of industries.
sinistar99 10 months ago
@DBCOOPER888 Was gonna say that but someone already did thanks brother.
ak47523 10 months ago
Innovation: If I were a very large pencil manufacturer and somebody else invents a much better type of pen (eg. ball pen), I could adapt pretty easily and make ball pens myself. Now, if someone invented the type writer, I would have to start pretty much from scratch. Or I buy up the new technology, shelf it and be safe for quite a while. Not?
franzguenther1 11 months ago
It's...it's so simple! Dr. Friedman had a knack for making his listeners bop themselves on the head and go--"WOW, why didn't I think of that--it's so SIMPLE, it's like MAGIC!!!"
RushLimborg 1 year ago 33
@Krahl123 Is that a question? Because if there's no incentive to improve your product, keep prices down, or innovate, then there's no improvement in the lives of people.
Look at the phone company monopoly for decades. Look at all the progress the phone industry has made in just a fraction of the time. That's the result of competition.
jrsub3 1 year ago
@jrsub3 The incentive doesn't necessarily have to be money. The greatest inventors and minds of our era have done all their work for very little money. In the fields of science and academics, money has very little influence as an incentive and can actually be more of a hindrance. I suggest you watch this: watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y
Krahl123 11 months ago
@Krahl123
Indeed, Nikola Tesla didn't do hi's inventions for money. But what system deemed those inventions as productive to society by beign able to compete and win those inventions that opposed it and by proving it's superiority allowing it to come to the hands of all peoples?
Finlandcitizen 11 months ago
@Krahl123 YES... people don't seem to get that... the greatest achievements of mankind in general had nothing to do with earning a profit.. the space program, getting rid of smallpox, the invention of the laser, the internet all not profit motivated projects... sometimes it's more profitable to keep treatign a disease than to cure it or to make things that break easier to sell more... so the free market isn't the best model for EVERYTHING.
sinistar99 10 months ago
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criseldaprangehkg 1 year ago
noam chomsky clicked dislike 31 times
allmenrcreatedequal 1 year ago 85
@allmenrcreatedequal I would so vote for friedman for president if he ran with chomsky as VP... damn, imagine the hatred for government. Friedmen getting after free markets, and chomsky hitting up new media to make sure they are reporting truthful news and transparency.
bluefootedpig 11 months ago
@bluefootedpig not sure i want government making decisions on what's "truthful"
tedwards007 11 months ago
@allmenrcreatedequal Wrong i disliked 1 time. Captalism works, for those who alaywas were in power...
People behavior will always reflect the enviorment they grow. Greedy eviroment will produce....?
vegnagunL 9 months ago
@vegnagunL
Watch Friedman's interview on greed, in the panels on the right.
seeriktus 9 months ago
@allmenrcreatedequal
FUCK NOAM CHOMSKY!
MrDouglasdrew1 9 months ago
@allmenrcreatedequal
ROFL
JordanViewer 8 months ago
Comment removed
allmenrcreatedequal 1 year ago
Companies are going to apply more jobs to machines and self operating robots. This is reality. Now as population is so massive that there are not enough jobs for everyone. This is will never be corrected until either companies pay more for more jobs(not gonna happen) or we evolve past this morally unacceptable system. people must understand that bartering is what we have always done. Socialism, fascism, communism, capitalism all are the same rope. The rope is around all our necks.
Jononutoob 1 year ago
@Jononutoob Lmao @ Your statement. Capitalism IS bartering bub. That could just about litterally be another term for it it's so close. socialism, fascism and communism are remarkably different fields of thought from capitalism.
daPlumber702 1 year ago
@daPlumber702 I know capitalism is bartering. I never said otherwise.
Jononutoob 1 year ago
@Jononutoob "people must understand that bartering is what we have always done. Socialism, fascism, communism, capitalism all are the same rope. The rope is around all our necks."
I thought that was what you meant by that, If it wasn't I apologize and retract my statement.
daPlumber702 1 year ago
@daPlumber702 No it was a simple misinterpretation. My comment could have been more clear so there's no need to apologize.
Jononutoob 1 year ago
Profit over People
theRevolutionof2012 1 year ago
When does he get to the part where American corporations stack us in the back by sending jobs out of the country?
iamnotme123 1 year ago
@iamnotme123 those American corporations give people with less opportunity than you in third world countries a means to support themselves and make their lives better. i.e. Indian tech support jobs.
horeslayer 1 year ago
@horeslayer While those americans that had those "custmer support jobs" before were told sorry but you are costing us too much money. The people in India will take a lot loss money for their labor? Wow, Lets go Milton, See you later people of Farmington, Maine USA working those customer support jobs for MBNA, we got cheaper labor in inidia good luck with the job search "former" employees of MBNA. I dont know how else to explain it to those people that dont get it. You will have to experience it
theRevolutionof2012 1 year ago
@theRevolutionof2012 have you been to India? I don't know how else to explain it other than that finding jobs and improving your is much harder than being laid off here when you live in a harsh caste system. Many of those people at MBNA did find jobs later. e.g. many American car factories exported manual labor jobs, but many foreign car companies that built plants here gave those laid off workers jobs. It sucks getting laid off, but most people will find another job.
horeslayer 1 year ago
@horeslayer Have I been to India? Irrelavant. "I don't know how else to explain it other than that finding jobs and improving your is much harder than being laid off here when you live in a harsh caste system." What? "Many of those people at MBNA did find jobs later." It seems as though you are trying to justify the loss of jobs as not that bad for us? From MBNA to McDonalds, yup things are great. Oh, have you seen Detriot?
theRevolutionof2012 1 year ago
@horeslayer Where do you live?
theRevolutionof2012 1 year ago
@theRevolutionof2012 now, California, but I lived with my wife in India for two years. I was trying to say that improving your life while living in a third world country, especially one with a caste system, is much more challenging than in the U.S. Of course getting laid off is hard, but living in an Indian slum is much, much harder. When they get laid off, they can't fall back on social services like unemployment checks or welfare. It's find a job or die in the streets for them.
horeslayer 1 year ago
@horeslayer you are forgetting to look at history my friend. India was much worse off 20 years back, and it wasn't functioning capitalistically. Back then the chances of dieing in the street were far greater due to lack of jobs, now at least there is that chance. and as it improves, if it isn't mucked up by brainwashed fools that believe gov. assistance is needed, it will become that much harder for people to "die in the streets"
daPlumber702 1 year ago
@daPlumber702 I know, I was supporting the outsourcing of labor because it enriches the world and makes peoples' lives better. I completely agree with you 100%
horeslayer 1 year ago
@horeslayer Very sorry about that, I hadn't read back far enough... I feel foolish
daPlumber702 1 year ago
@daPlumber702 you are forgiven my son lol. no but seriously, you're smarter than all of these socialists flooding this comments page.
horeslayer 1 year ago
@iamnotme123 you realize jobs aren't a zero sum game, right? Job creation is caused by growth. Outsourcing jobs helps companies grow.
Or you can stay in the little world of corporate boogeymen you're in, because they clearly want to just pillage, right? right. /sarcasm
jrsub3 1 year ago
lovely upload...thnk u!!!!
timmonsandco 1 year ago
Milton Friedman is both right and wrong. Yes, it is truly amazing that people from all over the world were able to organize to make that pencil. However, the reason was not the "free" price system. The reason is because they are forced to work, often for terrible wages, under either threat of starvation or misery. True freedom revolves around working and being happy with said work. Working for self betterment, not simply for survival. "Work for me or starve." is no more free than "work or die".
ViolentMonopoly 1 year ago
@ViolentMonopoly Are you saying you've discovered a system where people don't have to work in order to sustain themselves?
sharperguy 1 year ago 2
@sharperguy The idea is not that people don't have to work in order to create a society, it is that society should not be hierarchical to the extent where people are forced to sell themselves as temporary slaves to survive. To build a society we start from the ground up, based on the individual and the freedom granted to them. We then design the conditions around which the majority of men can live free. The capitalist system does not create those conditions, and hence should be replaced.
ViolentMonopoly 1 year ago
@ViolentMonopoly
Your a jackass & a pessimist. Capitalism ensures freedom in this country & I assume u meant other 3rd world countries by 'work or starve' conditions. So we caused other countries to be 3rd world & should create a new system that will fix the economic welfare of other countries, b/c its our fault right their in turmoil. All we need to do is create a system that ensures economic prosperity for our country & numerous others as well, real practical slick
mikedd56 1 year ago
@ViolentMonopoly
People choose to work as temporary slaves because it ensures their survival.
What is your alternative to that?
People are free to work as temporary slaves and they are free tostart their own company where others work for them as slaves provided they have the capital needed to do such a thing.
Working as a temporary slave is the wrong description because what they do is they cooparate with each other, one has the capital and the other does favors and gains capital
unfad1ng 1 year ago
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@ViolentMonopoly, "True freedom revolves around working and being happy with said work." No it doesn't. You can't just redefine freedom and give it a vague nonsensical definition. There are always going to be terrible jobs that people aren't going to be "happy" about doing, but they have to be done anyways. And yes, we all have to work to survive. That's just a fact of life. Capitalism is just about letting people help each other survive.
By the way, your username is pretty ironic.
Houshalter 1 year ago 39