The Legacy of Milton Friedman, Part 1 by Jacob G. Hornberger March 25, 2010 Part 1 | Part 2 It has been more than a year since Milton Friedman passed from our lives. What a world he departed. The desire for liberty burns ever brightly. The forces of statism resist ever strongly. How we miss his presence. Although he has left us, his ideas live on. They remain eternally relevant to the age-old struggle to preserve individual liberty from state encroachment. Milton Friedman was born 95 years ago in Brooklyn. He was the son of immigrant parents — from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Think of the world that he was born into. For a couple of years his family lived in La Belle Epoch, a time of peace, increasing trade, and growing prosperity. People could travel without passports. The great empires were gradually liberalizing. It ...
That Horrible Income Gap by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 Karl Marxs biggest selling point has always been his argument that workers are systematically underpaid under capitalism. They produce value and greedy capitalist owners cheat them out of it. Good economists have understood for centuries that in a free (and therefore competitive) labor market, it isnt possible to underpay anyone for long. That fact, however, has never kept demagogues who need issues that will help them gain political power from telling people, Youre not getting as much as you should. Vote for me and Ill make sure you get your fair share! That political pitch has never gone out of style, but it seemed to fade somewhat during the Clinton era. In 2005 and 2006, however, it roared back to prominence, thanks to some tendentious studies and advocacy journalism. Responding to all the chatter about the increasing unfairness of ...
That Horrible Income Gap by Jacob G. Hornberger March 25, 2010 Karl Marx’s biggest selling point has always been his argument that workers are systematically underpaid under capitalism. They produce value and greedy capitalist owners cheat them out of it. Good economists have understood for centuries that in a free (and therefore competitive) labor market, it isn’t possible to underpay anyone for long. That fact, however, has never kept demagogues who need issues that will help them gain political power from telling people, “You’re not getting as much as you should. Vote for me and I’ll make sure you get your fair share!” That political pitch has never gone out of style, but it seemed to fade somewhat during the Clinton era. In 2005 and 2006, however, it roared back to prominence, thanks to some tendentious studies and advocacy journalism. Responding to all the chatter about the increasing unfairness of ...
Soft-Hearted Economists Need Clear Heads by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 One of the issues at stake in the 2006 midterm elections was a raise in the minimum wage. Voters in six states had minimum-wage increases on the ballot, and unfortunately all of the initiatives passed. This is not surprising, however. On the surface, it appears that requiring employers to pay at ...
by Jacob G. Hornberger March 25, 2010 One of the issues at stake in the 2006 midterm elections was a raise in the minimum wage. Voters in six states had minimum-wage increases on the ballot, and unfortunately all of the initiatives passed. This is not surprising, however. On the surface, it appears that requiring employers to pay at ...
Thank You, Milton Friedman by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who died at 94 last week, told the economics profession and the public many things they needed to hear. After World War II, thanks to the theories of John Maynard Keynes, most economists and policymakers believed that government should ...
Milton Friedman, R.I.P. by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 I will leave it to others to remind people of the enormous contributions that Milton Friedman, who died yesterday, made to economics and liberty during his long life. I thought instead that I would relate three times that my life intersected with Friedman, all of which were big personal highlights for ...
The Separation of Economy and State by Jacob G. Hornberger March 25, 2010 Hardly a week goes by without some free-market think tank or foundation’s publishing an analysis of some government program, pointing out its inevitable “waste, fraud, and abuse” and then issuing what has become a standard bromide: “The system needs reform.” This game is, of course, endless because all government programs ...
The Drug War vs. Public Health and Safety by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 Many Americans recognize that the drug war has jailed hundreds of thousands of people whose sole crime was to possess substances that politicians did not approve of. However, this is only the start of the casualty list of the drug war. Many other Americans have suffered who themselves had little or nothing to do with ...
Freedom, Virtue, and Responsibility, Part 2 by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 The welfare state and the managed economy do more than destroy individual self-esteem. They also destroy hopes of improving one's life. Now, we know that money cannot buy happiness, but certainly the hopes of improving one's own economic well-being provide a stimulus to happiness. That is to say, if a person can engage in the ...
