Steve
Well-known member
I received this from a friend..
I posted the you-tube link and the transcript.
I posted the you-tube link and the transcript.
Capitalist "Greed" vs. Socialist Redistribution of Wealth [1979]
Watch as economist Milton Freidman smacks down Donahue's equating of capitalism with greed. If only Friedman were alive today to take Obama to school. What a debate that would be. Obama would not know what hit him, he would be left in a stuttering, stammering pile of um's and uh's. If only…
Milton Friedman as charming as he is brilliant. As gentle as he is razor sharp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
Transcript:
Donahue: When you see around the globe the mal-distribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed's a good idea to run on?
Friedman: Well, first of all, tell me is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy; its only the other fellow who's greedy.
The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear: that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.
Donahue: But it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system.
Friedman: And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think – excuse me, if you will pardon me – do you think American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout? Is it really true that political self interest is nobler somehow than economic self interest? You know I think you are taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us? Well, I don't even trust you to do that.
Some choice Freidman quotage:
"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit."
"Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property."
"Governments never learn. Only people learn."
"So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not"
"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom."
"Most economic fallacies derive – from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another."
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
"What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system"
"History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition."
"The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both."