A Second Hand Conjecture

Jordan Page (who is a kind of Ronpaulist Joan Baez) reflects on the “Revolution March,” a July 12th Ron Paul protest rally in Washington DC, in part organized by Adam Kokesh (who of late believes the Washington police are involved in a clandestine conspiracy against him).

Now, I grew up in the libertarian movement such as it was. Although I no longer consider myself a libertarian out of respect for the philosophy, I think I knew it well. My libertarianism was of the rightish sort, but fundamentally a movement for liberty through reason. A movement of the great economists and political philosophers of the Austrian School and the University of Chicago. The movement of Mises and Friedman. But this paranoid, revolutionary rubbish presented by Page as libertarianism, is utterly unrecognizable to me.

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It is Milton Friedman’s birthday! For all kinds of coverage, go to my Milton Friedman Memorial page. Scroll to the bottom and there is a huge collection of thoughts on his passing. Here is one of my favorite bits:

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Due to free markets, capitalism and freedom in general, the world is getting wealthier.

The last quarter century has witnessed remarkable progress of mankind. The world’s per capita inflation-adjusted income rose from $5400 in 1980 to $8500 in 2005.Schooling and life expectancy grew rapidly, while infant mortality and poverty fell just asfast. Compared to 1980, many more countries in the world are democratic today.

The last quarter century also saw wide acceptance of free market policies in both rich and poor countries: from private ownership, to free trade, to responsible budgets, to lower taxes. Three important events mark the beginning of this period. In 1979, Deng Xiao Ping started market reforms in China, which over the quarter century lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. In the same year, Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister in Britain, and initiated her radical reforms and a long period of growth. A year later, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States, and also embraced free market policies. All three of these leaders professed inspiration from the work of Milton Friedman. It is natural, then, to refer to the last quarter century as the Age of Milton Friedman.

Oh!  The agony of it all!

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That’s part of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ response to the SOTU last night.

Jim Hoft’s reaction: “Huh?” and drawing the obvious comparison to another famous redistributionist.

My first thought was: “Ask? Well I’d be much happier if they’d ‘ask’; that implies I can say no. Instead they all seem to pretty much insist while staring down the barrel of a gun.”

As a bonus, I can pretty accurately predict what Milton Friedman would have said:

President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”… Neither half of that statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society.

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Milton Friedman’s research partner, Anna Schwartz, goes after the federal reserve:

As rebukes go in the close-knit world of central banking, few hurt as much as the scathing indictment of US Federal Reserve policy by Professor Anna Schwartz.

The high priestess of US monetarism - a revered figure at the Fed - says the central bank is itself the chief cause of the credit bubble, and now seems stunned as the consequences of its own actions engulf the financial system. “The new group at the Fed is not equal to the problem that faces it,” she says, daring to utter a thought that fellow critics mostly utter sotto voce.

More thoughts from Anna and my musings on the Fed.

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Happy New Year! To start off the year right, let’s have a look at a mock-up of a debate between Naomi Klein, reporter-activist extraordinaire, and Milton Friedman, king of economic liberty (via Instapundit).

This video was put together by Devil’s Advocate at Copious Dissent, where you can find the others in this series.

This is the fifth, and possibly final, compilation of videos that I titled, “Naomi Klein: Shockingly Ignorant.”

Since she loves to distort what Milton Friedman stood for, I thought I would let Milton debate her in his own words. He makes her look like a fool.

Good stuff, and highly recommended.

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