Milton Friedman

Pure brilliance

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Milton
• Friedman
• libertarian
• free
• market

[TheBalancedAmerican]

@JoshMan522 I'm a small business owner. I'm not rich, but I earn more than my employees. I earn more because I created the functional system and worked 70hour weeks for 6years. My effort and risk now provides the opportunity of 40 jobs. Incentive and huge risk, has expanded the economy, and everyone is granted more opportunity.

How else does job creation happen?

Open your own business, you would learn that "the rich" do not prevent you from succeeding, the government does =)

[TheBalancedAmerican]

@MrJarth I don't see a problem with large companies. We need industrial sized organizations to produce the needs of society, energy, communication, research and technical manufacturing. I do have a problem with monopolies and crony capitalism.

I'm sympathetic to your perspective, but remember to look at human history on a continuum rather than in a moment. America went through the same stages that India and China are going through now. Developing nations are catching up very fast. =)

[TheBalancedAmerican]

@panayiotisdemopoulos All of that being said, modern capitalism isn't perfect, and will probably evolve. I agree that Gov has a roll to play in regulation and entitlement, but we must not fall into the folly of allowing Gov to consume everything in the name of "fairness", as it has in Greece and others. No one wins in that scenario. =/

Place equality before freedom and you will have neither; Place freedom before equality and to will have a great degree of both. - Freidman

[TheBalancedAmerican]

@panayiotisdemopoulos Humans still have a lot of room for growth, so i sympathize with your perspective, but don't make the mistake of believing that ethics & equality can be legislated. =/

In just 200 years free markets have delivered doubled-lifespans, elimination of most major diseases, indoor plumbing, innovations in technology, logistics, and a respect for law and individual rights.

Things that were once afforded only by the wealthy, are now the purview of everyone.

[panayiotisdemopoulos]

@TheBalancedAmerican

Hello. My main objection is that other people end up working 70 hours a week for 40 years in order for a privileged (or lucky, risk being the key word) few to enjoy life to the fullest. I expect that if we all work 40 hours a week and live respectable lives, that would lead to the fairest distribution of wealth in the world. Of course, those who offer more, or work harder should earn more. But some moderation is required and who better to moderate than elected statesmen?

[Welsh77]

@FuckPropertyRights lol your name is fuck private property rights, it sounds like you're the one divorced from reality. not one society in the world's history has been politically free that hasn't protected private property and established markets.

[kitesurf4life]

@FuckPropertyRights may i ask you what your assumptions about human nature are? i do share his assumptions, so i am curious to know yours. thanks.

[ProtonStalker]

Amazing the amount of maleducated folks around. I guess they are too young to remember the bread lines in communistic societies, much less the amount who starve. Not to mention the degree of freedom these societies had. I.E. Your free to stand in front of your own countries' tanks, and get imprisoned. Stop trying to reason with them. Call them what they are: Totalitarians. They seek control over you while calling your ideas of freedom, "Warped".

[zackhanscom]

this philosophy has mainly been lost and overshadowed by renewed faith in the welfare state after reagan. it's a shame that the most recent age of american prosperity lasted less than a decade.

[FuckPropertyRights]

@kitesurf4life I'm not the one supporting an ideology based on nothing but philosophical conjecture, false axiom systems, & fundamentally flawed a priori assumptions about human nature. Milton Friedman is! That makes him divorced from reality, even though he's pretty good at demeaning all the "do gooders" who create market distortions (as he defines them). In reality, the kind of individualism he speaks about is based on an over-glorified myth or an outright lie. He has a warped idea of freedom

[kitesurf4life]

@FuckPropertyRights definitely not... so you are

[kitesurf4life]

@TheBalancedAmerican Man, i agree with you 100%! I haven't started any company yet, but the reason why i would do so is because of the opportunity to get richer. So i think that those systems who want to put everybody at the same level are just the worst thing that could happen.

Congratulation for your company btw, we need more businessmen to create jobs.