Friedman Part Deux

Klein has no right to make the assertions she makes in this video. Her ability to interpret Friedman in a larger context is shockingly inadequate.

Equating personal liberty and responsibility, as far as Friedman's ideas go, to mass corruption and torture (in but one example) is staggeringly unfair. She asserts he had a direct hand in what happened in Chile. He didn't. For his part, Friedman's explanation of how Latin American students were schooled at the Chicago school is correct. What followed with Allende was a political event; not an economic one. It wasn't about instilling an evil version of liberty with Pinochet at its head to complete a mad economic policy. Friedman never advocated "shock therapy." Rather, to his belief, individual liberty was a natural law of humanity. It rarely, if ever, needs coercing. Why would anyone need to be coerced to be free?

How do I know? I had to present a paper in university, to an expert on South American and Chilean affairs, precisely about this subject.

Interestingly, the theory of "shock therapy" is applied to environmentalism and its policies.

At the end of the day, Klein espouses government intervention to "regulate" and "monitor" corrupt individuals regardless of those who follow the law and enhance the free market system. The base root of the market collapse is a government one in which Wall St. all too willingly supported. But because there were assholes on both sides doesn't mean we should condemn the capitalist system.

Klein is a nouveau-socialist who profits of a capitalist system through the selling of her books. However, there's one thing she fails to mention (or possibly grasp or comprehend) is that greed does have its own kryptonite: it's called fear. That's the secret ingredient to why the free market enterprise survives.

But I want to be careful here. The widening gap between rich and poor is indeed a problem that must not persist - although, more than any point in history, poor people are becoming wealthier. The power of multinationals does threaten democracy. That companies and industries are concentrated into the hand of fewer and fewer people is a phenomena that took place under all systems. Somewhere along the line, capitalism and socialism got their wires crossed and it's time to untangle them.

This is the real challenge of our times (and one Klein to her credit fights) and one I'm sure Friedman would not accept. So there's common ground to be found. The reasons for it (widening gap) are complex - physics anyone?

About the poor getting wealthier. The question is whether they're keeping pace with the rich. Maybe both are accelerating but at different rates? In any event, these are intriguing questions and I just don't see any merit in Klein's approach in dealing with them. No one seems to speak of the Tiger economies of the East who shifted their policies to capitalism. The results have been impressive. Amazing what a little free choice can do.

In any event, Friedman will still be around for posterity. Klein? I'm not so sure.

I thoroughly enjoy how he dissects his opponents.