Capitalism and individualism Book

This book is an interesting case of modern day sophistry - where the worse argument is made to appear the better. If one needed proof that much of modern economics is an exercise in ideology and self-interested appeals on behalf of the obscenely wealthy then this book provides ample evidence.

The French Revolution was fought under a flag of three colours and for three causes, Liberté, égalité, fraternité - Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood. Friedman is only interested in what he refers to as freedom. He rails against equality as all liberals (in the traditional definition of that term) tend to. It is hard to imagine anything more mean-spirited than such a person. Naturally, this freedom he is so fond of generally equates to a freedom for the majority to have less while the few are given much more. He says the opposite, of course, but decades of the applications of his prescriptions have turned America into a grossly and increasingly unequal society. Should a theorist be held responsible for the consequences of their theories? If Marx is to be held responsible for Soviet Russia then Friedman is much more responsible for the state of current day America. Even the so called 'left' - as in the Democrats in the US, the Labour Party in Britain and the Labor Party in Australia all look to 'market-based' solutions to problems.

Neo-liberals and neo-conservatives will complain that Friedman's ideas have never been fully implemented and that this is why we have so much trouble today - if you ever want to create a utopian vision splendid my suggestion is to follow Plato's example in the Republic - make the society you envision so impossible to implement that your followers can always claim some vital element has been left out and so never properly applied. Here we have a government whose sole role is supplying the police and army - both mostly to protect the interests of property. All other government activity (even printing money and registering doctors) is either fundamentally wrong and needs to be done by the private sector or should be presumed dangerous and in need of constant vigilance.

I was keen to see what he might say about monopolies - given he appears obsessed with 'competition' I thought he might discuss the benefits of anti-trust laws, for example. But how foolish of me. The only monopolies he was actually concerned about are those of trade unions. Individuals are all that matter, while trade unions are an example of 'collectivism' and therefore enough to have him fuming and spitting fire.

It is remarkable how rarely he supports any of his assertions with anything other than the boldness of his claims. One of my favourite examples was towards the end where he discusses the effect of government subsidies in the US on cotton growers overseas - I won't go into the details of the argument, it is even one of the few I would tend to agree with him on, but he says, "The list of similar cases could be multiplied." Well, yes, obviously - given that he gave but one example they could hardly be divided.

Here is yet another commentator who presents himself as a scientist and his social theories as self-evident truths, rather than the ideological sophistry they really are. I hadn't realised just how radical this guy was - no wonder he disliked being called a conservative. There is little he is seeking to conserve and much he is seeking to overturn.