"Free or Equal" with Johan Norberg -- Exclusive Preview Clip

[Buddhamand]

i'm about to puke

[Spjungen]

A free market is the economic equivalent of evolution and natural selection; it is the most scientific solution in many ways, and the facts of history support it.

[beeeefcurtains]

Only free to choose if you have the money and the most amount of people with money buying the same shit as you, which I'm sure this guy has no problem with either proposition.

[SendMeLies]

Freedom is a chinese sweatshop.

[H1TMANactual]

@SendMeLies The alternative being starving, sounds like a good deal.

[SendMeLies]

@H1TMANactual suicidal chinese workers beg to differ.

[H1TMANactual]

@SendMeLies No hundreds of millions of their counter parts who were otherwise starving beg to differ. People don't work in sweat shops b/c they like it, they do it b/c it's their best option.

[SendMeLies]

@H1TMANactual You can rent disposable, untrained kids, work them to destruction for peanuts, and use their very availability as proof that other workers should be willing to accept the same terms. You know, American workers, the most capable, most productive workers on the planet. The people whose efforts and partnership made the corporations possible. Former workers. It’s a win-win.

[jonny282]

@SendMeLies it's sad, but they could also just quit

[SamuelAdams1722]

@SendMeLies The reason that chinese workers are suicidal is because of the iron fisted government that rules over them. If they were allowed to trade freely, in a free market, their economy would be 4 times the size of the US at a GDP of $60T per year

[socratic1968]

Gadgets are cheap!!! THEREFORE you shouldn't complain about the cartels that Friedman doesn't mention.....Pharmacy/Medical/i­nsurance...........defense industry.......University education.......Banking/financ­ial industrial complex......

Where was Friedman when these industries were raping the public in exchange for gadgets?

[Riellysdad]

@socratic1968 ...He was calling for them to be rendered powerless by removing the Government privileges that propped them up....duh!

[socratic1968]

The uncomfortable truth is that banking, medicine, a college education, etc. have little competition and therefore they have enslaved the population.

Sure, computers are cheap, we've done very well reverse engineering the gifts from ET. BUT, the IVY LEAGUE produces the greediest humans to ever walk the face of the earth and they work mostly in the financial industrial complex WITHOUT competition.

Friedman should have given a warning against this industry.

[Dudedubba]

Johan is just sproofing Milton Friedman's "Lesson of the Pencil".

[seppsters]

Why didn't this movie go to the cinemas ?

[seppsters]

@Jclewell3d

You can buy it in the free to choose store:

freetochoose (dot) net/store

[antonphowes]

Really great video. There is an odd clicky noise throughout it - dunno if that's resolvable, or simply something that's inevitable when it's a preview. Big fan of Norberg!

[mitziedoll]

Antidallard, do you really see this as partisan? The hypocrisy of the new right suggests state controlled capitalism or fascism. I think succesful countries that have embraced socialism actually would look at a documentary like this and understand it any apply what works to their private sector. Just as the US can learn from works and what doesn't in social planning. Im a libertarian but I understand and respect my progressive friends.

[mitziedoll]

Ms Sexy socialist? Exactly what point are you making? I see nothing but misplaced adjectives and incorrectly spelled words. Socialism cannot exist in a pure state. By definition is a mixed economy. Capitalism is neccesary to make a generous welfare state possible. This is why Sweden's version of socialism works differently than India's.

[MsSexySocialist]

@mitziedoll

I didn't discover your comment until just now as it wasn't properly linked.

I don't know exactly what you were trying to say but it seems you immediately saw the word "socialism" and made several bogus assumptions about my standpoint. I am an anti-statist left-libertarian and reject the notion that centralized government should even exist.

You also seem to be confusing socialism itself with social democracy (eg: Sweden).

As for India, how is the country in any way socialist?

[MsSexySocialist]

Yet more fallacious claims, out-of-context analysis, and straw man arguments from the Right-wing neo-liberal hack that is Johan Norberg.

As if "Globalization is Good" wasn't bad enough.

[heavym3tal]

@MsSexySocialist What claims are fallacious?

[MsSexySocialist]

@heavym3tal

My expectations for the documentary based on viewing Globalization is Good and reading In Defense of global capitalism; not an analysis of it.

The fallacious claims I referred to in his previous work consist mostly of setting up false choices and false dichotomies:

eg: privatism vs. statism, freedom of choice vs. collectivist bureaucracy, free markets vs. state-socialism.

He also deliberately claims the alter-globalization movement is ANTI-globalization.

His only (outright) lie.

[DyeTyme]

<3 Hong Kong

[flynn2008]

absolutely beautiful. I can't wait to see it.

[670Kiester]

3:45 we have to be creative, yeah like mortage backed securities

[lchaney214]

That's if you believe that there isn't enough to go around for everyone.  As you all obviously do.

[FreeToChooseNetwork]

@lchaney214 The scientific method to allocate resources? Right.

[TheHerrUlf]

@lchaney214

Ah, your leftist professors and the MSM would be proud if they knew how completely they've brainwashed you!

"The earth should be declared the common heritage of all people and the scientific method used to allocate resources." Yeah, that went really really well in Soviet Russia and all other Communist States... "Money and markets will not exist in the future." With friends like you "the masses" don't need any enemies.

[Akatam0t0ma]

@lchaney214:

Since an economy is NOT possible without money and markets beyond primitive bartering,your statement that we should use "the scientific method to allocate resources" is a sick joke. You are a typical economic neanderthal who would have destroyed civilization if he had his way. If economic neanderthals like you had their way,we would have reverted to barbarism. Please, learn some economics before you spew your bullshit.The socialist calculation problem of Mises would be a good start.

[unfad1ng]

@lchaney214

Well who seems more credible when talking economics, a man who won the nobel prize in economics or some random youtube commenter?

On the other hand how exactly is the scientific method supposed to allocate resources?

[SuperGuitarman69]

@lchaney214 Hmmm. Money and markets won't exist in the future? Well then allow me to make a prediction. Such a country will require 3 things. A wall, barbwire, and armed men on a tower.

[mlnorman1973]

@lchaney214 The idea of using the scientific method in order to determine policy and allocation of resources led to never before seen misery, death, and destruction in the 20th century. Beginning with the ideas of Thomas Malthus on overpopulation, leading up to the golden age of eugenics in the early 1900s, we were eventually treated to forced sterilization and abortion of "undesireables" in the United States and the joys of National Socialism in Europe. Be careful what you wish for.

[laborwage]

@lchaney214 "We can thank the monetary system for greed" So the universal human emotion of greed did not exist before the appearance of the monetary system? An interesting claim; do you have any evidence for it?

[donmccracken]

I'm so happy to see that someone is building upon the great works of Milton Friedman. Johan, you're a worthy successor. Keep up the good work. I sincerely hope these ideas will become more mainstream soon.

[NimbleNoddy]

When businesses close people do not become unemployed. If they lost their job when the business had to close as new ones opened up with a better product, the workers of the closed factory can be employed at the new one and employment overall is not reduced, just shifted. And shifted in a way that produces more goods, at better quality, for a better price - leading to actual job creation. It hasn't increased unemployment, and it's certainly not destructive.

[Endstation]

@NimbleNoddy

Norberg forgot to mention the fact that computers, lasers, and the internet etc. were products of government funded research. It had nothing to do with competition. Between the 50s and the 90s the US government paid 50-70% of all research and developement, and then we don't even count government procurement etc. Norberg is a disturbingly shallow thinker who don't know economic and technological history. Please read State of innovation by Fred Block.

[TheHerrUlf]

@Endstation You're the shallow thinker: the government doesn't have any money of its own; it takes it from the people who produce.

[Endstation]

@TheHerrUlf

Yes, to make people produce things that the market would not produce. Like basic medical research, which markets do not produce in the correct amount. If you are familiar with economic, you would know that markets do not produce enough basic research (and too much pollution etc). The government needs to fund basic research etc. to make the research and developement level socially optimal.

[TheHerrUlf]

@Endstation

No, I don't know that "markets" do not produce what you claim they don't produce. "Markets" are thinkers and producers, and, if left free from government force, they will produce what other thinkers and producers are willing to pay for. What is the "correct" amount of something and who has the right to decide that? Also, I don't accept the notion that the Government has the right to decide what is "socially optimal". Every individual has the right to follow his own conclusions.

[Endstation]

@TheHerrUlf

Well, anyone who have studied technological history knows that basic research (which have led to thousands of new medicine, the internet, computers, lasers etc.) would not exist in the same amount on a free market. This because basic research is often a very bad investment if you look for profit.

Arguing that the government does not have the right to collect taxes is an ideological argument, not about economic efficiency. Norberg talks about the latter.

[TheHerrUlf]

@Endstation

I don't see why it must be impossible for people in a free society to take the long-range view and put parts of their savings into basic research. In fact, it has been done before in history; and if free-market liberalism becomes dominant again, people will have no other choice, since government will be required to respect property rights. Do you really think that invention and production will stagnate when productive people no longer have to worry about being robbed?!

[Endstation]

@TheHerrUlf

Now you did not read what I wrote, again. Basic research is very expensive and don't necessary lead to any new products at all. Therefore the market won't produce much of it. Therefore the internet, computers, lasers, most modern medicines etc, are all products of basic research funded by the government. I hope you can read english.

[TheHerrUlf]

@Endstation

I have read what you have written, this time too. I just don't agree with your reasoning (or, perhaps, with your professors reasoning). Yes, "[b]asic research is very expensive" and, yes, "don't necessary lead to any new products at all". But this doesn't mean that thinkers and producers (= the market), left free from government force, would have had to find someone to rob them of their savings in order to keep humanity from stagnating. People are capable of thinking long-range.

[Endstation]

@TheHerrUlf

Apparently people are not enough ''capable of thinking long-range'' when being ''capable of thinking long-range'' will cost them billions of dollars that no private investor is willing to invest if he/she is not even guaranteed that this investment will lead to anything productive. The internet was a good example.

[TheHerrUlf]

@Endstation

No, what people do or don't do when living under a system that plunders them is not a refutation of my view. You imply, absurdly, that (physical) force by non-producers is necessary to make peaceful producers produce.

[Endstation]

@TheHerrUlf

Well, more or less so. I'm saying that (physical) force by non-producers (the government) is necessary to make peaceful producers INNOVATE. Basic research is mainly not about producing stuff.

[17Spartacus76]

@Endstation

I'm a non-producer and I'm going to break your neck if you don't invent me a faster computer.

[endstation2]

@TheHerrUlf

Let's take computers as an example. After the war, IBM began its shift to electronic computers using wartime (government) technology and government funding. By 1952 they were able to produce a digital computer, but it was unusable. Through the ‘50s computers were reduced to usable size (virtually all Pentagon funding, and using the government computers (MIT, Harvard, elsewhere).

[TheHerrUlf]

@endstation2

What "government technology and funding"?? The government doesn't think and/or produce. The government's essence is physical force: legitimally in defense of individual rights; all too often in violation of individual rights. It is individual thinkers and producers that think and/or produce.

[endstation2]

@TheHerrUlf

How is it physical force to collect taxes? Corporations patents, free markets etc. would'nt even exist without the government. The free market is always politically determined. Or do you want to legalise child labor? If not, why not? I thought you were a free marketer.

[endstation2]

@TheHerrUlf

Bill Gates would'nt be rich if he was born in Bangladesh. Why is he rich? Because he was born in a country with a rich techological inheritance and a long history of government FUNDED research (funden means the government PAYS for it). Anyway science is a collective process. 22 persons invented the light bulb. When science reach a certain point of knowledge accumulation, 10 guys see what comes next. Please read some technological history.

[Warzoooooo]

@endstation2 When Gates was young computers were seen as something that only engineers were allowd access to. But the free market had other thoughts, so they assembled theire own computers with innovations from ppl trying to make money. In the process they helped other get along on the way. So if we were depending on govt. research for the computers, we would still not be able to watch youtube or handle most of our communications as we do today.

[Endstation]

@Warzoooooo

Please. Read the famous book by pro capitalist technology historian Vernon Ruttan: Is War Necessary for Economic Growth. As I've repeatedly been saying: The free market spread computers. But it did NOT create them in the first place. Maybe you've heard about the famous quote from IBM that there was a world market for about three computers or something like that. Who paid for the R&D during that period and who guaranteed a market to developers through procurement? The government

[Endstation]

@Warzoooooo

So yes. Bill Gates and others spread computer tech to ordinary people. But without government research and procurement this computer technology would not have existed in the first place. That's the case with most modern technology, from the internet, high quality tranistors, lasers, most modern medicines, nuclear power, the first systems for mass production (at Springfield Armory). The list is very long. The market does not create enough basic research.

[Warzoooooo]

@Endstation Once again you are wrong, as the first computer to be built was built with private money, bacause the govt. didnt think there would be any use for a computer. Again you see centralplaning didnt know, as it allways is. But either way, why would you think that a few people in this world would know more than all the people in the world? The market do all reasearch that is needed, the difference is govt. do research that just wast resources as well, and thats bad for the poor people!

[Endstation]

@Warzoooooo

Anyway, your comment was not an answer to anything of what I wrote.

[Warzoooooo]

@Endstation Ofcourse not, as you are brainwashed to think of govt. like some sort of a god. You said computers where created by govt. while the fact is that the govt. turned down the person who first claimed he had a solution for building a computer like device for calculation. And this person went on building his computer with his own money, and prooved the govt. wrong, again! The same goes for the jet-engine. The govt didnt thinks there was a place fot the jet-enginge in the air,.....

[endstation2]

@TheHerrUlf

By about 1960 one of the lead engineers at MIT’s Lincoln labs pulled out and used this technology to create the first commercial mainframe company, DEC. By the early ‘60s, IBM was able to produce a very fast digital computer (stretch), but it was too expensive for business, so the government bought it (for Los Alamos, I think).

[TheHerrUlf]

@endstation2

Well, since the government doesn't have any money of it's own, it follows that had individual rights been respected, individuals could have used this money to buy these computers.

[endstation2]

@TheHerrUlf

In general, procurement has been one of the main forms of state subsidy; there’s good scholarship on this. Computers couldn’t really be sold for profit until about 1980.

[TheHerrUlf]

@endstation2

In an un-free economy - certainly. So?

[Endstation]

@TheHerrUlf

As I already pointed out:

Markets do not produce enough basic research, so therefore the government pays for it. Thanks to government funded research we have, lasers, the internet computers, thousands of medicines which the market would never produce etc.

[TheHerrUlf]

@Endstation

As I said, I don't accept the notion that people are unable to decide what needs to be done and that the Government has the right to force them. In a free economy, producers produce what other producers are willing to pay for.

[slightlyndifferent]

The smartphone a good example on how competition is a positive force, before the iPhone smartphones were mostly hard to use an unintuitive, and few people used them. When a new or vastly improved product is introduced it forces the competitors to improve, either by lowering their prices or make a better product, in the end it gains the consumer, and even if some companies have to close the growing market results in more jobs.

[corenothing]

Yes.