This is what I've been waiting to hear.

Mainstream propaganda will do that to you. Happens to me all the time - until I balance with alternative sources, which are in most cases much more reliable.

I guess the dosage of main-stream anti-Chavez propaganda that I've been receiving had some effect. That put Chavez's 'faults' in perspective.

You make a point that is often overlooked. We gravitate toward those ideas that work for us or our country of residence. For many reasons, it is not safe to assume that such ideas work elsewhere.

Milton Friedman was one of the biggest scientists in the world. His economical researches were reflected in his book "Capitalism and Freedom" (1962) and other books. He was the founder of as known Chicago economical school with it's free market ideas. These ideas are very difficult. But so-called "chicago boys" - group of Chileans attempted to build free market in Chili in conditions of Pinochet's dictatorship. As a result - disbalance of the personal incomes grew rapidly, some difficulties in new pensionary reform appeared.

I want to say, that it is very serious to blindly copy the economical experience of one country to another. 

 

 

I believe this is likely the ZNET article I read. I would be most interested in what you think. Venezuela's Path by Michael Albert November 06, 2005 I realise he is essentially a social democrat, but I think his vision is different than European social democrats.

Suyi - I believe I read an article published online by ZNET some time ago about this. I will try to locate it for you.

"Look at what Chavez in Venezuela is trying to accomplish - an extremely de-centralised control mechanism"

Could you tell me where I can find out more about that? My impression was that he was going towards a social democratic model, albeit with more direct democracy than is usually found in such economies. And, of course, that model is a lot better than libertarian (anarcho-capitalism) of Friedman.

Still, I've been looking for info on this de-centralization, could you provide some links, please?

I don't believe anyone has yet advocated either centralised or de-centralised control of the economy here. That wasn't even the issue on the table if you read the comments with anything other than a predefined agenda. And leftist economic models don't necessarily imply centralised control anyway. Look at what Chavez in Venezuela is trying to accomplish - an extremely de-centralised control mechanism (if I understand his theory correctly). The point I would make is that the power to make informed decisions, economic or political, should rest with the people, not some elitist group who control most all wealth and political power. I don't believe anyone should be allowed to accumulate capital beyond that of their own needs. But that is just my opinion. As to your point about the World Bank and the Federal Reserve, I think that you and I actually share a common belief. But you must understand that it was the capitalist elite of the USA who lobbied for both those organisations and created the rules by which they operate, all part of a rather obvious ploy to ultimately transfer the control of all world economies into the hands of the central banks and the multi-nationals. And if you control the economy of a country, you by default control its politics as well. The USA just happened to be the first victim. So you may talk all you want about democracy v communism, central v decentralised control, but in the end what you are faced with is today's gloomy reality - and the reality is that you have none of these. The US and the world are falling under the control, both economically and politically, of this elite group of central bankers and multi-nationals, and that control is tightening daily.

Greg Capitalism will indeed "raise all tides", figuratively and literally. You must understand that capitalism is already having great impact upon the world and if left unchecked will certainly result in disaster for all. Thanks in large part to advances in medicine, agriculture and technology - all very much encouraged by capitalism - the human race has increased its size beyond the ability of the planet to sustain it on a long-term basis. Why? Because, the same capitalism is responsible for market globalisation which, whilst raising the tide for a relative few of the masses, is in fact through enormously growing demand, placing huge and unsustainable pressures on the planet's limited sources of cheap energy to fuel all that. There exists nothing on the horizon at this time that has the potential to replace those sources of energy to a degree that will sustain further growth - in fact, quite the opposite will likely occur if capitalism and global markets remain in place. And whilst we are using up these energy sources at an exponential rate, we are pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, poisoning the planet and threatening life as we know it through the threat of massive climate change which will surely as a direct result of unchecked capitalism "raise all tides", as you put it, threatening the world economy and 60% of the world's population who live at sea level. We need to be taking a hard look at where we are going, what we are doing to ourselves long-term and what we are doing to this planet while we satisfy our collective greed through consumer-driven capitalism. We cannot afford to "raise all tides", not for the developed countries, not for the developing countries, not for anyone. We need to be cutting back - severely - replacing capitalism with other non-growth-based economies that will encourage sustainable living. Your view of the world represents a view straight out of 50's America when we actually thought that America and its "free" market system would be good for the world. Instead, America and its G-8 minions have done more to ravage this world and its people than any other country in history. But don't despair! Other countries like India and China are coming up right behind the G-8 to even exceed our raw hunger for resources. And the human cost of all this greed is inestimable. The billions of lives that have been negatively affected by corporate greed and power hungry governments who sell themselves as whores to the market, repressing their own peoples, placing their countries under the burden of debts that can never be paid off and removing what few freedoms their people had through fear-mongering, intimidation, economic enslavement and extortion, roaming death squads and resource wars - all to keep the impoverished people in line, to clear the way for "free" markets, to "raise the tides" of a relative few, to provide open and unobstructed access for multi-national junkyard dogs to be let in and ravage to their content. Do you truly believe that you are in a fight with communism and leftist ideology here? Do you truly believe you are doing the world good by advocating an economic system based upon unchecked greed and whoring governments? Do you truly believe that officially sanctioned greed will "raise all tides"? Do you truly believe that natural resources, and thus time, will never run out on you? Do you honestly believe that greed will reverse the tide of CO2 emissions, reduce arable land degradation and replace the disappearance of fresh water for a human population growing out of control as a direct result of that free market growth system? Nature has limits. We are approaching them at our own peril. We change now, or we either die, or worse (and there are worse things than dying). It's really that simple, and is founded upon a set of principles as reliably true as.... well....the tides.

A widely held belief that allows the great destroyer -greed- to control governments and the people.

One hundredth of 1% - read 1/100 of a % -  or 13,400 families / households in A Mare Ika made on average $23,969,767 in 2000. 558.3% more than in 1970.

The bottom 90% made on average $27,035 in 2000 $25 less on average than in 1970 

http://www.perfectlylegalthebook.com/Chapter3.pdf

Ignorance of the truth behind Capitalism is a social reality, witnessed over and over again by wannabe Elitists.

Government is about who gets the money. Labor begets capital/wealth - labor throughout all of history has never been allowed its just reward! 

Liberty and Justice for the Rich and that's the reality.

Of the Rich by the Rich for the Rich.

Freidman led the charge, a purveyor of injustice.

Amen to that Asil.... ;-)

There is an alternative...and a God!!! May the rest of his kind follow...

Friends:

Though the corpse has yet to be interred and the encomiums are red hot still (a "revolutionary thinker…whose work helped advance human dignity and human freedom," a White House Press Release affirms, adding " champion of limited government" right after it--the BS only gets thicker as we move toward more thoughtful sources), it might be worth pondering the correlation between Milton Friedman's work (including his work as an adviser to specific kinds of states), on the one hand, and the processes of capital accumulation, the concentration of ownership, and the neocolonial realignments since the Second World War.  Particularly since the 1970s.

Notice that one term frequently used to describe Friedman's work is monetarism.   (And, stooping towards metonymy, Thatcherism or Reaganism.)  Friedman's work ran counter to Keynes's, goes this refrain.  (Charles Goodhart, The Guardian, November 17.)  Also the business about "unfettered free markets" and "laissez-faire policy."  (Patricia Sullivan and Carlos Lozada, Washington Post , November 17.)

So-called monetarism--the notion that prices rise or fall or stabilize because there is either too much, too little, or just the right amount of money in circulation--is a intellectual's con. If every dollar Bill Gates owns remains untaxed and safely tucked away in his bank accounts, this is fine.  But were Gates's wealth redistributed to people without any, they'd spend the money (hopefully) to buy what they really need. This might put upward pressure on prices, if everybody tried to buy (say) bread, milk and eggs at the same time.  It has nothing to do with the amount of money in circulation, and everything to do with real people making real purchases.  And it is the latter that the monetarist con attempts to discourage. 

What monetarism really is all about was once summed up in rather stunning fashion by Harry Dexter White, the chief American negotiator at the Bretton Woods conference.  "To use monetary arrangements as a cloak for the enforcement of unpopular policies, whose merits or demerits rest not on international monetary considerations as such but on the whole economic program and philosophy of the country concerned, would poison the atmosphere of international financial stability."  ("The Monetary Fund: Some Criticisms Examined," Foreign Affairs, January, 1945.  As quoted in "Repairing the Global Financial Architecture: Painting over Cracks vs. Strengthening the Foundations," David Felix, Foreign Policy In Focus, September, 1999.--By the way, none of David Felix's writings on these topics takes second to anyone else's.) 

That is to say, monetarism (i.e., Milton Friedman's work) is a cloak for the legitimation and the enforcement of genuinely unpopular, indeed, anti-populist policies the overall purpose of which is to attack popular forces under the guise of sound monetary policy.  Increased wages and benefits are bad things, the gist of the theory holds.  But not increases in the value of the Standard & Poor's 500.  Much less the profits that follow from corporate "downsizing."  Capital mobility.  Speculation.  Pinochet's "reforms."  And so on.

What Milton Friedman advocated was the "market" for the masses, and a very considerable state apparatus to protect the rich's freedoms, especially the use of force.  Largely, anyway--he still allocated space for sexuality and addictive behaviors inside his notion of "personal freedom."  Though never for food, shelter, clothing, or medicine.  Much less wage increases.   

"Milton Friedman: Nobel-prizewinning US economist whose monetarist analysis dented the Keynesian view but proved difficult to implement," Charles Goodhart, The Guardian, November 17, 2006
"Milton Friedman, the Champion Of Free Markets, Is Dead at 94," Holcomb B. Nobel et al., New York Times, November 17, 2006
"When Canada gave the economist a try," Heather Scoffield, Toronto Globe and Mail, November 17, 2006
"Why Money Matters," Milton Friedman, Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2006
"Friedman Debunked the Gospel of Keynes," Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post, November 17, 2006
 

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Also, apologies for the double posting...

I believe the idea that communism failed because of inherent deficiencies in its economic model are grossly overblown. The fact is that although they didn't live to the same level of the privileged few of the G-7, almost everyone had a job, shelter, free medical facilities, and one of the best educational systems in the world - a society in which the general population, more than any other in the world, had a true appreciation and admiration for the arts, science, and culture. You can't really fault that. And contrary to popular Western thought, the people, as individuals, were not slaves, but enjoyed many of the day-to-day freedoms that you and I used to enjoy when we were free. My understanding is that communism did not stumble of its own accord, but from the very beginnings of its existence in Russia was the vicious target of world capitalists who put the fear of God into the "masses" to protect their own greedy interests. It never really stood a chance in the world markets because of the economic weapons turned against it at every step by the colonial powers that be. Communism was scuttled. It was the ultimate victim of a powerful and ingenious pincer movement involving on the one hand an arms race promoted by Reagan and simultaneously on the other hand a loss of the ability to finance that arms race and its own way of life because of an OPEC/USA alliance to drive the price of oil down through producing an artificial glut of oil on the world markets, thus depriving Russia of its main source of income. While the centralized economic management practiced by Russia was certainly not the most efficient way to manage a country's economy, the worst that could be said of it was that it failed to meet the needs of the country for both guns AND butter, and thus, ultimately failed altogether. But to say that the communist economic model was somehow inherently evil and deserving of whatever we good and righteous individualistic westerners could throw at it, was simply fear-mongering on the part of the rich and the powerful of the world who wanted no part in a system that would not allow them to continue to accumulate massive capital and reduce public spending. The truth is, in my opinion, that it was a dark day indeed, when the Soviet Empire fell. It wasn't a dark day for Russia, however, but one for the Western colonial powers themselves who unwittingly gave birth to a set of economic forces that will ultimately bankrupt the US and create an umbilical cord of high dependence (for the Empire's minion countries)upon a new multi-polar economic alignment of countries who supply both energy and cheap labor for the world - both key ingredients for maintaining Western standards of living. Over the days ahead, watch the progress of the developing alliance between Russia and Germany, as well as the growing ties between Iran, India and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (which includes both Russia and China). While the short-term profit-minded G-7 have been patting each other on the backs and continuing their game of checkers, Russia has been quietly and efficiently playing a master game of chess, putting together a coalition of partners whose objective is to create a "multi-polar" world and drive the Empire into the ground and force its minions into a state of heavy dependence upon its energy and trade. Russia, who has been laughed at and humiliated over the past decade, is back with a vengeance, and turning the West's weapons against themselves. Communism did not win, but somehow I feel that that truth will lose much of its shine in the days ahead. Apologies to all for getting a little off topic, but Greg raised more than one issue that he obviously knows little about.

I believe the idea that communism failed because of inherent deficiencies in its economic model are grossly overblown. The fact is that although they didn't live to the same level of the privileged few of the G-7, almost everyone had a job, shelter, free medical facilities, and one of the best educational systems in the world - a society in which the general population, more than any other in the world, had a true appreciation and admiration for the arts, science, and culture. You can't really fault that. And contrary to popular Western thought, the people, as individuals, were not slaves, but enjoyed many of the day-to-day freedoms that you and I used to enjoy when we were free. My understanding is that communism did not stumble of its own accord, but from the very beginnings of its existence in Russia was the vicious target of world capitalists who put the fear of God into the "masses" to protect their own greedy interests. It never really stood a chance in the world markets because of the economic weapons turned against it at every step by the colonial powers that be. Communism was scuttled. It was the ultimate victim of a powerful and ingenious pincer movement involving on the one hand an arms race promoted by Reagan and simultaneously on the other hand a loss of the ability to finance that arms race and its own way of life because of an OPEC/USA alliance to drive the price of oil down through producing an artificial glut of oil on the world markets, thus depriving Russia of its main source of income. While the centralized economic management practiced by Russia was certainly not the most efficient way to manage a country's economy, the worst that could be said of it was that it failed to meet the needs of the country for both guns AND butter, and thus, ultimately failed altogether. But to say that the communist economic model was somehow inherently evil and deserving of whatever we good and righteous individualistic westerners could throw at it, was simply fear-mongering on the part of the rich and the powerful of the world who wanted no part in a system that would not allow them to continue to accumulate massive capital and reduce public spending. The truth is, in my opinion, that it was a dark day indeed, when the Soviet Empire fell. It wasn't a dark day for Russia, however, but one for the Western colonial powers themselves who unwittingly gave birth to a set of economic forces that will ultimately bankrupt the US and create an umbilical cord of high dependence (for the Empire's minion countries)upon a new multi-polar economic alignment of countries who supply both energy and cheap labor for the world - both key ingredients for maintaining Western standards of living. Over the days ahead, watch the progress of the developing alliance between Russia and Germany, as well as the growing ties between Iran, India and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (which includes both Russia and China). While the short-term profit-minded G-7 have been patting each other on the backs and continuing their game of checkers, Russia has been quietly and efficiently playing a master game of chess, putting together a coalition of partners whose objective is to create a "multi-polar" world and drive the Empire into the ground and force its minions into a state of heavy dependence upon its energy and trade. Russia, who has been laughed at and humiliated over the past decade, is back with a vengeance, and turning the West's weapons against themselves. Communism did not win, but somehow I feel that that truth will lose much of its shine in the days ahead. Apologies to David for getting a little off topic, but Greg raised more than one issue that he obviously knows little about.

Just wish them bon voyage....

to not address any of Paul's points, Greg. Not suprisingly, you don't show in any manner how these supposedly "free" markets "raise all tides", since for there to be an ownership class, there is the need for the insanely high levels of poverty, tolerated in the most savagely unequal, hirearchical country on the planet, "the way life should be"(Kay Bailey Hutchenson). You'd rather ignore the impact of Friedman's neo-liberal economic polices such as the WTO -"free'trade has really worked out well for those "tides" that you assert are "raised", ain't it?.

 

Greg, do a little more research, and less bloviating, and maybe you'll learn something, though I seriously doubt it. 

 

eb

As I get up off the floor from my vicious tongue lashing I have to ask: Paul, in which nation/state has your preferred economic policy sucessfully worked?

Or, is your preferred economic policy nothing more than a pipe dream? 

The fact is, Friedman's free markets raise all tides.  The masses are within the bellcurve. Don't say you want the masses to rule if you only care about the fringes. 

Greg (if you are the same one) let me begin by apologing for systematically devastating your amateurish assault on my own ZNet blog.  Your silence was deafening and understandable.

Yes things were going great in black urban America before big mean LBJ came along to drain all the entrepreneurial initiative and ruin the big party. Bad liberal welfare state!

Please read a serious book..like for example Thomas Sugrue's Origins of Urban Crisis or perhaps Ira Katznelson's When Affirmative Action Was White. My own one on Chicago will make complete mince-meat out of your inane race/"War on Poverty" statement. 

Books by economists I recommend and respect: David Gordon, FAT AND MEAN; Juliet Schor, THE OVERWORKED AMERICAN; Robert Pollin, CONTOURS OF DESCENT; Paul Sweezy and Baron, MONOPOLY CAPITAL; Barry Bluestone and Bennet Harrison, THE DEINDUSTRIALAIZATION OF AMERICA  and THE GREAT U-TURN; Michael Albert, REALIZING HOPE: LIFE BEYOND CAPITALISM; Karl Marx, CAPITAL; Maurice Dobb, STUDIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM; Leo Huberman, MAN'S WORLDLY GOODS.  

Theres more, but that should give you a start. Do yourself a favor and begin with Huberman; it's a marvelous high-school primer from the 1930s.

Sorry, no links on most of these - you'll have to exercise a bit of market-driven personal reponsibility and find those ones yourself.  Get back to Mitchell and/or I with a review essay by...say, next year this time, ok?    

 

Hey Paul, who's the economist that you most admire or think has implemented the best theory that has benefited the most people? 

The masses have most benefited from the free market, and again, you're speaking out against the masses.  Perhaps we should all forego the free market and live as virtual serfs under the yoke of collectivism.

LBJ's War On Poverty and the welfare state did a pretty good job of destroying the black communities that are racked with your white liberal guilt.

You're lack of history is astonishing.  It was the economic failures of communism that brought it down, and yet, you want to bring it back (albiet, some sort of yet to be defined new breed).

Freidman had a lot to answer for. I wish I didn't have to believe in the existence of Hell to think that he will pay any sort of proper price for the misery he helped inflict in places like Chile and also (see below) Chicago. Here's a piece I did (around the time of the TABD protests) on the murderous neoliberalism that that Friedman helped spawn.

To see some of the price paid for Friedman et al.'s doctrine's, some observers haven't had to go the Third World.  They've just gone to Woodlawn, located directly to the south of the Nobel Prize-stocked University of Chicago Econ Department. As that celebrated department's neoclassical “free market” doctrines enjoyed a great heyday, informing and reflecting the “creative [corporate] destruction” of social protections at home and abroad, the 95 percent black neighborhood on the wrong side of the university neighbnorhood's “Midway” bled entrepreneurial vitality, jobs, and population.  To anyone who could bring themselves to look at unpleasant  and heavily racialized social realities beneath the neat theoretical formulations of  Friedman et al., it showed the dark domestic underside of unfettered capitalism within walking distance of neoliberalism's leading white-academic headquarters. The neighborhood headquartered by the formerly lively ghetto commercial avenue of Sixty-Third Street had once boasted more than 800 retail establishment.  By the 1980s, reflecting an ongoing process of disinvestment that went back to the 1960s, it possessed just 100 commercial businesses.  The neighborhood's “once lively streets” had taken on “the appearance of a bombed-out war zone.  The commercial strip,” Loic Wacquant reported in the mid-1980s, “has been reduced to a long tunnel of chained stores, vacant lots littered with broken glass and garbage, and dilapidated buildings left to rot in the shadow of the elevated train line.  At the corner of Sixty-Third Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, the handful of remaining establishments that struggle to survive are huddled behind wrought iron bars” and “the only enterprises that seemed to thrive” anymore were liquor stores and currency exchanges.”

The formerly thriving retail zones of Woodlawn and “hundreds more” ghetto areas” throughout Chicago now struck Tribune writer R.C. Longworth as “as much a ghost town as a wild west set.”  The “overwhelming sensation” on Woodlawn's Sixty-Third Street “and hundreds more” ghetto wraithlike ghetto spaces “throughout Chicago,” Longworth found, was “emptiness….What's left” in the wake of economic disinvestment, he added, “is nothing [emphasis added]. Many of the people who lived off [the] vanished economy” in Chicago “have themselves vanished, gone from the city.  But thousands, most of them black, are still here, as much as the debris of the economic collapse as the echoing West Side factories…their lives as empty as [the closed] International Harvester plan and the stores on Sixty-Third Street.”

Of course creepy Milton Friedman didn't do all this. But he did his considerable and disproportionate share to legtimize, sell,  romanticize, and otherwise further the loathesome, authoriitarian and inequality-generating capitalist social order that destroys lives and communities at home and abroad. That vile and rapacious system has inflicted more damage on humanity and ecology than any socioeconomic order in history.

I'd have to suggest that people write memorial checks to help start a fund for the UC Econ Dept to start paying some reparations for the suffering it has done so much to help advance.