Ayn Rand on Milton Friedman

[henher3]

Ayn Rand was very critical of Milton Friedman (for example in the q&a session in this YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoeOAxFcLbg).Does anyone know why she was so harsh when it came to Friedman?

 

I have seen some interviews with Friedman and to me he seems to be in favour of a system resembling laissez-faire capitalism. Thus I wonder why Rand seems to have seen an enemy in Friedman.

[Pepin]

I really don't know much about Rand, but based off the tone of the clip, it seems like she feels "betrayed" by his position of ethics and the rest of her criticism is vacuum of spite. Perhaps she could back up her other points well enough, but I feel like she'd like Milton quite a lot despite some large disagreements if he agreed with the ethics.

 

In case what I am saying is not coming across, I'm detecting the over-reaction to someone who is more similar to you as opposed to someone who is far worse. I think we all experience this, and it is pretty common in the liberty movement. To make a metaphor, if there are sheep, wolves, and Shepherds, we don't feel much rage against the wolves for wanting to attack the sheep, or the sheep for being unable to guide themselves in any sort of non-random manner. Yet, if there is a shepherd that knowingly leads the sheep toward the wolves, another shepherd is likely to have a visceral reaction. They are not a wolf in sheep's clothing, which makes them far more dangerous.

 

Again, I'd say Rand is over-reacting. This kind of reaction to people who actually aren't that bad is pretty common. I see it happen with Hayek quite a lot.

[Hannibal]

Ayn Rand was very critical of Milton Friedman (for example in the q&a session in this YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoeOAxFcLbg).Does anyone know why she was so harsh when it came to Friedman?

 

I have seen some interviews with Friedman and to me he seems to be in favour of a system resembling laissez-faire capitalism. Thus I wonder why Rand seems to have seen an enemy in Friedman.

 

Friedman was a good economist, but he was definitely not a free market man. Apart from that little bit of commonalty with regards to at least some market freedom, I don't see why people would suppose that they should be friends. I would think that Milton Friedman would have stood for an awful lot of what Rand despised.

[LovePrevails]

Milton Freidman got all anti-drug war after he was no longer in power

he was right on a lot of issues buy why didn't he speak out earlier?

 

for all the sentimentality Reagan was a war criminal in Nicaragua and other places

 

the sooner Libertarians and Conservatives stop glorifying this era the better it was horrid in terms of foreign policy and military spending

[henher3]

Thanks for the replies!Any examples of how Friedman was NOT a free market man?

[Mike Fleming]

I was, if not a fan of Milton Friedman, reasonably supportive of him and thought he was smart, well-intentioned and all that.

 

Then I listened to Stef's podcast on Friedman, one of his early ones, where Stef puts forward the case, I think persuasively, that he was a bit of a hypocrite.  Basically that he spoke the Free Market but defended the state and it's actions when he was involved.   That he made the case that he had lessened the impact of the state on the market even though the state grew and grew and became worse and worse.  The podcast is well worth a listen if you are interested in Friedman.

 

At any rate, I try not to get too caught up in personalities.  We're all human and we all make mistakes, it's the ideas that are important.  

 

His son David Friedman, is one of my favourite anarchists to read and listen to.

[Rollout]

Thanks for the replies!Any examples of how Friedman was NOT a free market man?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0bFP5WhYcQ

 

Rothbard sums it all up here.

[Josh F]

I have to agree with her, whenever I watch Friedman I get this big asshole chill down my back.  He does this smile at you while saying a hard cold reality thing that just makes him seem like a real abusive guy.  The way he defends his students, who worked for Pinochet, is incredibly callous.  That being said, I don't dispute any of his economic theories.

I was, if not a fan of Milton Friedman, reasonably supportive of him and thought he was smart, well-intentioned and all that.

 

Then I listened to Stef's podcast on Friedman, one of his early ones, where Stef puts forward the case, I think persuasively, that he was a bit of a hypocrite.  Basically that he spoke the Free Market but defended the state and it's actions when he was involved.   That he made the case that he had lessened the impact of the state on the market even though the state grew and grew and became worse and worse.  The podcast is well worth a listen if you are interested in Friedman.

 

At any rate, I try not to get too caught up in personalities.  We're all human and we all make mistakes, it's the ideas that are important.  

 

His son David Friedman, is one of my favourite anarchists to read and listen to.

ooooo id love to hear it, have a link or remember the name?

[vivosmith]

Well he was the guy that came up with the with holding tax, his monetary theories are why helicopter Ben is printing billions a month, the voucher system is flawed since it put stipulations on receiving it (as contrasted to Ron Paul's tax credit, which does not put limitations on anything), and his support for the establishment makes his credibility questionable. He did have some good parts to him though. His son and grandson are both ancaps.

[Vuk11]

Interestingly enough David Friedman has a great defense of his father I've recently read.

Basically Milton had these policies/ideas such as negative income tax and state control over the money supply, just generally ideas that make libertarians/ancaps/minarchists scratch their heads. What David was saying is that Milton at the time was looking at ways of making the present at that time less bad. So the policies he advocated weren't necessarily his end view of society rather just trying to improve the issues of the time. 

 

I remember watching Hayek on youtube where he says the real difference between him and Friedman was that Friedman advocated a single government controlled currency and Hayek advocated multiple competing currencies. But David has said that it's sort of like a scale and he proposed to his father multiple competing currencies creating equilibrium etc as well as Anarcho-capitalism and he basically said yeah that would be great if it were possible. Basically: Multiple competing currencies > State controlled constitutional currency > Fiat private central banking by the FED. So while be might think the first one is most desirable he advocated the second as a more desirable than what we have, 

 

By the end of his days he (according to David) was on the fence about being a full blown Ancap, only the usual worry about collective services and courts/police/defense etc, you have to remember he came from the eras where people experienced world wars, so the idea of a stateless society brings up all sorts of fears.