"You never let a serious crisis go to waste." Rahm Emanuel, Barrack Obama's Chief of Staff

@MA-go7ee

2 жыл бұрын

Because only when a system has categorically failed do people actually agree that change is necessary. Otherwise the status quo is almost impossible to shift because those who benefit from it understandably do not want it to. There's a reason why almost all major reform or change happens after a crisis. Whether it is the french revolution (after a financial crisis) or Britain introducing the NHS (after WW2) or india ditching fabian socialism (balance of payment crisis) and dozens of other inbetween. Change happens because a crisis is when no one can deny that the system has failed. It is nothing sinister.

@themovingkitchen5238

4 ай бұрын

@@MA-go7ee It becomes sinister when people start using disasters to implement change as a way to further their own interests at the expense of others.

If Milton is her radical, apparently she's never heard of Murray Rothbard.

@Godzilla52

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I figure that the people who go after Friedman for being radical (when he was quite centrist) probably never listened to Rand, Rothbard or Mises before in their lives or are so far left that they think anything right of centre is radical.

@stella3265

Жыл бұрын

@@arpitakundu8133 Yes. She most defiantly did. Jeffrey Sachs did as well. Sachs has become an outspoken critic of the Chicago Boys. Both Klein and Sachs agreed that massive aid packages and debt forgiveness were needed to stabilize the shock therapy policies in Russia. The US officials Clinton Administration disagreed.

5:42 So according to Norberg, Freedman visited Chile during Pinochet's regime, gave lectures in the country about his economic policies to private universites and institutions with the regime's approval (Becuase, indeed, nothing was done without the brutal regime's approval), met with Pinochet in person, wrote him a personal letter telling him the bad job he was doing with economy (Since the Chicago boys, that he taught as well, weren't pushing neoliberal policies hard enough, as Klein explains in the book) and ADVISED him what to do in order to fix it in the same letter. But he wasn't an economic adviser to the Pinochet regime since he wasn't paid for it and declined a honorary degree that would have publicly put him more in evidence of that controversial support at the time. And since Friedman loved democracy, he though the best way to restore it was not by restoring the democratically and overwhelmingly-elected goverment brutally ousted by the regime, but to maintain the regime and applying these economic policies that the absolute majority of the population would've rejected if it wasn't by the regime's violence. Got it.

Host and guest in agreement. How charming and wonderful. very insightful, i'm coming back, not again

...and when he's featured in another video where he presents tangible evidence to back up his claims as opposed to the sheer conjecture and intellectual dishonesty exhibited in this one, I might take him more seriously.

If Naomi Klein ever debated Milton Friedman it would be the equivalent of a 6 year old trying to fight Mike Tyson. She has no clue about economics or history.

@QUABLEDISTOCFICKLEPO

8 жыл бұрын

+Joey Long John , She did, and KZread has it

@yeahyeahyaha2

7 жыл бұрын

No clues about history? That exaggeration shows that either you haven't read any of her books or you're the one with no clues about about anything in here. Klein is not an economist, she's an activist/journalist, so your comparision between her and Friedman would need an explanation if you wanna say something more than gibberish, for she could crush Friedman in a debate about social movements, history and many others (Which is pointless, btw.) If you read The Shock Doctrine, you should know how she acknowledges Freidman being a "brilliant mathematician", as well as acknoweldging how the neoliberal policies applied in Bolivia after the 70's led to a "by any means impressive result" on hyper-inflation reduction. What Klein's essay demostrates directly is how, during desastrous events, neolibral policies have been forced into popultations that would otherwise reject these economical policies, and how, as in most cases, economist have no interest into putting their field along with social justice or ethics, for that's the WRONG way in which economics have been taught for more than a century. Persons are not just numbers you can add or substract from.

@matrixman8582

6 жыл бұрын

Martin Dekker His policies were never fully implemented anywhere

@IIIMajesty

6 жыл бұрын

+Marten Dekker Is that even an argument or were you just throwing insults? I think it's the latter. What specific policies and problems were you talking about?

@masoudsalehi2564

5 жыл бұрын

she would never debate him,because she would not stand a chance agaist him. that is why she wrote her book and made her documentary after Friedman passed away. to show the difference of level between Friedman and klein, I'd like to state this quote: A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of a sheep.

Go Johan! From a fellow swede

@fikamonster2564

2 жыл бұрын

hejsan!

She took a quote from Friedman in which he basically said that alternative solutions need to be explored so that when economies decay, new ideas can be tested to rescue the economy. However, Naomi Klein implies that Friedman believes that markets have to fail through coercion so that his ideas replace current systems. Correct me if I am wrong.

It’s true that Pinochet employed some of the econ. policies Friedman had been advocating for decades, that some of Pinochet’s advisors had studied economics at the Un.of Chicago, and that Friedman subsequently cited the success of those policies. But just as Michael Moore’s endorsement of Cuba’s health care system doesn’t constitute endorsement of Castro’s dictatorial rule, so Friedman’s endorsement for Chilean tax or pension policies don’t constitute an endorsement of coups, purges, or torture.

@fadelapouit I'm sure I've read Adam Smith as I am sure you have not. "A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." -- Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations.

@jathan : where'd you get that from? Point out one thing Norberg says that's a fair counterargument against Klein.

@Wraith23 I meant replacing the currency of escudos for the peso. In his book Two Lucky People, he then says that it wouldn't do anything substantive really, but is just to have a psychological effect.

The free market has brought about innovation and mass production. However the fundamental principles of capitalism where firms prioritize profit/acquisition/expansion over people and the planet should be criticized. The continued use of fossil fuels, deforestation, outsourced labor, prisons for profit and mass incarceration, pollution... Yet free market enthusiasts want to keep government from regulating countless dangerous and unethical business practices?? Why should we continue using a socioeconomic model that is proving to be counter productive, regressive, and even harmful? If we acknowledge the planet has finite resources, it's pretty absurd that in the 21st century we're trying to preserve a system that promotes mass consumption, planned obsolescence, exploitation and scarcity.

@epsilon8998, what do you make of the fact that Friedman opposed the war in Iraq?

...some of which are answered in previous posts, for instance, "The reason the shareholders don't care is because even after the ludicrous pay offs, they're still making absurd amounts of money not in spite of..." does not imply that they're distracted. It implies that they are complicit. Returning to your appeal to the judicial system; Class action suits were a way for people to hold business to task in the U.S now all but substitutead with arbitration with a recent SCOTUS decision.

And I'm not the first one to call her a liar. At least one man did that before me. Hint: he's interviewed in the video you're responding to, and his name is Johan Norberg.

It may be true that Klein overestimates Freidman's direct influence at times but it is also true that Nordberg here overestimates the extent to which Klein cites Freidman as directly involved. Freidman, for Klein, is not a master manipulator, but more an influential archetype of the kind of free market capitalism she is criticizing as a whole, that others also advocated, and also changed and evolved over the decades. She is not saying that Freidman had a direct hand in disaster capitalism around the world, but that the type of political economics that developed out of the thinking of Freidman transformed into disaster capitalism under the hands of others. She also argues that Freidman's economic is inherently problematic, and she provides a critique of its underlying logic. It doesn't matter whether or not Friedman was directly involved, or even an advocate of particular interventions like Iraq, because Klein's argument is that the underlying logic of Friedmanite economics leads to this kind of policy. Nordberg seems to be arguing that Klein is wrong because Freidman didn't explicitly advise brutal regimes to be brutal, nor advocate deliberately causing disasters. Well Kleins exlicit argument is that he didn't need to, his followers worked that bit out on their own.

I have talked to a few Chileans and even read a blog by a US citizen who have all said that while Chile isn't perfect, it definitely is one of the better South American countries to live. As for Argentina, Argentina was never really a true free market, yeah they introduced some free market reforms, but Argentina has been at it's core of politics a judicialist society which is a radically centrist form of politics which rejects both communism and free market capitalism.

It would appear that the Cato Institute has taken an interest in rehabilitating the reputation of Milton Friedman, but if Norberg had bothered to check the backstory of Kliens account of what took place in Latin America under economic liberalization Friedman himself appears as a minor character. Tacit support for the rationales that supported the US policy of intervention in Chile was offered by another Mont Pelerin economist Friedrich Von Hayek. Like Friedman, Hayek saw in Pinochet an avatar of his own economistic conception of freedom who would rule only for a "transitional period." only as long as needed to reverse decades of public employment and state regulation, "My personal preference," he told a Chilean interviewer, "leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism." In a letter to the London Times Hayek defended the junta reporting that he had "not found a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet that it had been under Allende.". Of course, the thousands executed and tens of thousands tortured were not consulted in forming Hayek's assessment of the situation. There were no union strikes because there were no unions to trouble Hayek's idyllic vision of freedom.

@SaulOhio

10 жыл бұрын

Now you turn to trying to smear ANOTHER good man. Please show me how Pinochet's own economic policies were consistent with Hayek's ideas? Did he abolish the central bank in Chile and institute a gold standard? No. For years after the coup, his regime tried central planning, which is inconsistent with the ideas of both Friedman and Hayek. It was only after his militaristic economic management failed that he finally admitted to failure that he allowed more free market reforms. Hayek's "ilyllic vision fo freedom" includes the freedom of association, and unions would be allowed. So to the degree that unions were banned (if they indeed were. I do not trust "facts" you present any more than I trust a Disney movie to teach me history) Chile did not represent anything resembleing Hayek's "idyllic vision fo freedom".

@zeezoromlars9987

7 жыл бұрын

gary morrison what is your job? be honest.

@garymorrison4139

7 жыл бұрын

You have a point. people of color have for the past couple of centuries posed a public image problem for their masters. Those imported from Africa have gone from being useful as slaves, to become a political liability. The question that vexes libertarians today is the same one that has dogged the trail of capitalism's utopian theorists for generations. Given that society exists for one purpose which is to produce capital for the wealthy how are we to dispose of the evidence?. The problem of what to do about the unemployed can be dealt with in a rational manner if we conceptualize it as a problem of overpopulation caused by the sexual depravity of the poor rather than the failure of the labor market as theory believed to demonstrate a self-regulating equilibrium. The problem of how to dispose of a surplus population of millions, subsequently to be feared once it has outlived its usefulness? Attempts at avoiding the inherent problem of unemployment has seen numerous historical incarnations, The Nazi's dreamed up a system of forced labor camps to assist in war production to dispose of surplus labor but this proved as costly to operate as our 30 year experiment with mass incarceration. Conceiving of this unemployed surplus population as criminals was more recently mainstreamed by smooth talking libertarian Ronald Reagan under the guidance of senior economic advisor Milton Friedman. The main advantage of long term incarceration being that once people are trapped in cages they can easily be prevented from reproducing which avoids facing the problem of how to efficiently exterminate them Capitalism as a regime exists in a perpetual state of crisis in practice because it is continuously beset by the intractable problem of of how to escape from itself. Should we try genocide again?

@janne9502

6 жыл бұрын

Hahahaha!

@ohedd

6 жыл бұрын

LMAO 😂 time to break out the tinfoil hats guys

"You have to lower inflation you had to make sure that people had an opportunity to get a job only then could they begin to demand personal freedoms and democratic freedoms as well! " *E P I C !*

@Megabyxos Also, I found where you got that number. It's from the World Bank's Doing Business report, where Chile ranks 49 out of 183 countries. However, you'll note that the EFI ranks each country in 10 categories and that Chile is almost exactly at the world average in the Business Freedom category. The categories overlap to an extent between indexes, so it's hard to make direct comparisons, but the rankings seem consistent, and at any rate the use World Bank stats to compute the EFI.

@spader49 "You keep on saying no accountability, where did Friedman ever advocate that? Please educate me with your decades of studying. If someone 'screws over someone', there is punishment through the law." When Friedman said that, he expanded on it by saying that he meant you could sue people that fuck you over, not in the context of regulatory laws. So great, if you can afford a team of lawyers and can wait for years to drag a case through court, you can hold somone to account.

70 years of economic experimentation has unequivocally demonstrated that free-market capitalist systems are the best. nuff said...

@adstanra

9 жыл бұрын

WanderleiSilva29 you need to retire Wanderlei.

@adstanra

9 жыл бұрын

WanderleiSilva29 actually you need to get a life ---begin by submitting to drug testing.

@adstanra

9 жыл бұрын

WanderleiSilva29 lol.

@IIIMajesty

6 жыл бұрын

70 years? It's the entire history of human civilization.

The odd thing about this whole discussion and the comments is that neither Norberg nor Klein appear to grasp what Friedman actually wanted: Friedman was then the chief proponent of monetarism: that is that the government can steer the economy by the amount of money it prints. That policy was tried during Thatcher's first period in office and had to abandoned in 1984 since nobody knew exactly what money was and montarism was then completely forgotten again.

I agree! it seems though that we agree in the most important factor, which is that ideology can be harmful. Best wishes!

Milton Friedman: "While I was in Santiago, Chile, I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile. Now, I should explain that the University of Chicago had had an arrangement for years with the Catholic University of Chile, whereby they send students to us and we send people down there to help them reorganize their economics department. And I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile under the title “The Fragility of Freedom.” (cont)

False advertising. This isn't a debate. It's an interview of a critic.

I do not know if he was dishonest or if information asymmetries were a new theory that he did not know yet. What I can say, however, is that he did not always oppose government intervention. For example, he awarded Hernando de Soto with his prize for his research on property rights that would eliminate many information assymetries. He was not opposed to the FED's intervention to prevent the banking system from collapsing for which Austrian economists would criticize him.

But that was the CIA, Friedman had nothing to do with the 1973 coup detat. Friedman even stated during an interview that while yes he did give some speeches on economics in Chile and he met with Pinochet for around 45 minutes and wrote a few letters to him. Also, contrary to popular belief, Pinochet was exactly a free market reformer, in fact in his early reign, many of his economic plans were largely interventionist.

Neomi Klein is just a wannabe pseudo-intellectual making money off sensational fads. Friedman debated with countless fierce opponents and did so in a very open honest fashion. He even had the courage to invite them to debate him on his own show.

@rickbar123 I can't find a World Bank statistic on overall economic freedom, could you provide a link please? Also, I know a shitload of countries that aren't open or severely limit outside investment and trading. Chile's government has certainly been left of center since 1990, but they also kept most of their free market principles in place. They have very low tariffs, low corporate tax rates, strong property rights, high labor freedom, and are EXTREMELY accommodating to foreign investment.

I did watch shock doctrine and while I do agree with her points she does seem to paint Friedman's influence with a broad brush, the fact that she fails to recognize is that since at least the early 1900s the United States has supported even backed coups and interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean

@abbadabbadolittle I have a preview of it up right now as an incomplete draft. I'll probably break it into 3 or more parts later. I'll release it to you and you can use the link to show others

Stability is false. The concentration of wealth in Chile is brutal. We have more people on the Forbes list that Sweden, but 50% of Chileans live on less than USD 450 per month (2.5 dollars per hour). Chile's minimum wage is U.S. $ 2 per hour. We have education world's most expensive, the monthly fee of any university is us 450 USD or more. No pension system, the minimum pension is $ 161 a month. Wealth in Chile is only visible from the outside of country.

are people forgetting about the letters between friedman and pinochet...where he uses the term "Shock treatment" and explains how.

@puremercury

8 жыл бұрын

Um, Norberg mentions Friedman writing Pinochet a letter in the video.

@dinomiskovic294

5 жыл бұрын

Liberty AboveAllElse and we all know what happened to average Americans after 1981 until now.... disperse of middle class lower standard and lower life expectancy and yes welfere for the rich and foreclosure for the poor, all thanks to Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics...

Good for them. That's their purpose. Of course over paying their execs is not maximising profit. Thank you for proving my point.

@abbadabbadolittle Thank you. I'm working on writing a response to this sort of argument that should tear it a new whole in its logic. I'll make it into a video sometime later. Once I get finished with my current one that is.

@August1977 Where in the video does Norberg or Friedman deny that? Naomi Klein also uses the shock doctrine herself by that definition. You've completely missed the point. Norberg is being completely fair when he explains the context of Friedman's quote.

Very nice!

How to instigate wage regulations? Why the same way the 8 hour work day,minimum wage, and laws safeguarding workers health in their places of work were implemented. Laissez faire has worked well enough for Somalia that we should obviously adopt the model and do away with regulation. The 8 hour work day? Regulation. The fact that you trust not to find toxic sludge in your tap water? Regulation.I've further discussed the topic with another person here,I urge you to read that exchange.

Yes, you are right, it is subjective. However, I rather read value judgments from economists rather than politicians and journalists about the economy. They are the experts in the economy.

Very succintly put.

This video should really link to Norberg's article. Google 'disaster polemics' to find it.

@August1977 Rather than claim this interview contains fallacies how about you actually quote one you claim is?

Awesome.

Obviously since I made the distinction in my posts,I'm well aware of the difference between Laissez Faire and crony capitalism as implemented economic policy. Glass-Stegall had specific regulatory provisions over speculation. It was structured regulation. It was the intention of government policies to house people. The private sector benefited through tax incentives speculators benefited through driving prices up and "flipping" real estate and the lenders benefited by...

history hasn't shown a crisis just passing on it's own, it took a lot of work in the depression for example, a lot of government injections of money and jobs on infrastructure and things of the sort.

"Its not the total elimination of property rights that will only lead to a totalitarian regime its the weakening of individual rights by the state that leads to a loss of individual liberties". This somewhat contradicts what you wrote below: "the Locke Hayekian thesis that property rights are the foundation of individual liberties". There is contradiction in that the abolition of property rights should therefore be the main responsible for the loss of individual liberties.

"To allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment…would result in the demolition of society.” ~ Karl Polanyi, 1944 “In 1945 or 1950 if you had seriously proposed any of the ideas and policies in today’s standard neoliberal toolkit, you would have been laughed off the stage or sent off to the insane asylum.” ~ Susan George, political scientist Do not confuse the economic - oikos nomia - the norms of running home and community with chrematistics - krema atos - the accumulation of money. ~ Aristotle

I would add that I understand that one cannot have a substantive discussion of the political and the economic without mentioning the role of the State. My primary values, certainly in matters economic, center on the individual-and I include corporate entities as part and parcel to my individualistic take. To be sure, you and I share much in the way of goals, whether such concern themselves with the collective or the individual. My contention is that of the role of state in maximizing the latter.

I do like that there is at least something against Klein, because I always felt there was a bit of a slant in the book (I'm only halfway). I still am very suspicious of the IMF and I do believe that rapid privatization never occurs in a democracy.

Does anyone know if Naomi Klein has ever responded to these refutations?

So let's talk about fairness; would you say that say, AT&T's CEO is in anyway deserving of his colossal pay cheque based on what his work actually means to the company?

Sorry I meant "salaried employees" not "salaried employers"

(cont) The essence of the talk was that freedom was a very fragile thing and that what destroyed it more than anything else was central control; that in order to maintain freedom, you had to have free markets, and that free markets would work best if you had political freedom. So it was essentially an anti-totalitarian talk."

@abbadabbadolittle You know, something about your comment about "inflicted his so called free market disaster" with force etc. struck me as odd and it finally hit me. Milton Friedman was a libertarian, which pretty much meant he didn't want to inflict anything on other countries. Also, he couldn't have inflicted anything. I don't think he ever held an office other than something with taxes, which he actually supported a Keynesian approach during. Could you be more specific how he inflicted?

Wasn't it Rahm Emanuel who said "Any crisis can be made an opportunity"?

I just want to mention that although his followers might have supported government intervention for corporation and rescues for the big ones. Milton Friedman himself did not agree with that notion since he strongly opposed lobbying, when corporations gain political privilege, and government bailouts. He strongly criticizes corporatism.

@earthshine2Y hahaha that comment made me laugh a lot, and i have no idea yet of the context *reads down the comments*

As things are, money decides the politics which decide where the money is allocated (more corporate subsidies than you can shake a stick at,en mass privatization). Money has bought politics; politics were gradually put for sale with the erosion of regulations over the financial sector not to mention the situation with lobbyists. The solution to corruption is not to destroy the system of checks that it corrodes but to fortify the system and hold those who abuse it accountable.

@Mickmars90 Well, Hong Kong passed a minimum wage bill. It's only a matter of time before that spreads to the mainland. Would Freidman have supported the passage of that bill, particularly since it was a "people's movement" that helped to push it through?

"It says it in the preface... " He never wrote such a thing in his 1943 preface. He might have done it in later publications when he realized that collectivization had not led to tyranny. Whether you like it or not, Hayek argued in his book that countries such as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had already gone down the "road to serfdom", and that various democratic nations are being led down the same road, and notably Britain.

Before I read Norberg's "In defence of global capitalism" I was Klein follower. And now after having read "När människan skapade världen" (When man created the world) I call myself a libertarian. What I want to say is it is not impossible to change minds - and Johan Norberg is doing a fine job.

In terms of China, yes, they may have been protesting for Democracy at Tiananmen Square-but ultimately, if the citizens had voting power they most likely would not have accepted the radical adoption of the free-market.

@spader49 Calm down. I meant put down in a metaphorical way, not in the way you deal with a dying family pet.

...but the shareholders will only care if you fail to maximize profit by any means necessary.

Your guess is as good as mine. As I said, it's a title Chomsky gave himself.

Firstly,I'd like to avoid creating a false dichotomy between agriculture and industry as if they were mutually exclusive, Having said that,one of the coercive tactics corporations use is to set up factories in impoverished countries, pay meager salaries and use the threat of picking up and leaving if and when the workers decide to organize or demand better conditions. It would be great if tilling the land were still an option what with the inhibiting start up cost that would entail. Are they...

@fadelapouit "And let's not forget about he CLinton administration, who made Mae and Mac buy those risky mortages." Interesting. I never realised that the US Government passed a law making the purchase of risky mortgages mandatory. Can you provide details of this?

@abbadabbadolittle Not meaning this in an aggressive way, but pretty sure Milton Friedman was against corporatism. In fact, I think he spoke against it, a lot. How would you respond to the claim in the video that Friedman was officially against the was in Iraq?

Hayek's Road to Serfdom refers to big government in general, not to socialism in particular as it was applied in USSR which was an undemocratic statist form of socialism. I quote you: "Your confusing individual rights with libertarianism" (?). But you wrote this one hour ago: "Libertarianism which is individual rights and individual liberties". So I just wonder who is in a statement of confusion in this debate.

But that was caused by Pinochet's economic administration intervening in the Chilean economy by pegging the Chilean dollar to the US dollar. A decision which many free market economists including Milton Friedman himself criticized.

...A person who recognizes that corporations are not some sacrosanct idol beyond reproach,especially when their actions,whether its drastically altering our environment or lobbying for less and less regulation so as to have the few laws they already barely adhere to to all but vanish. There are courts for that and the paltry fines which have already been factored into their quarterly budgets offer no disincentive for them to cease. So far I've done nothing but answer your questions...

I have so far not only answered but have qualified said answers repeatedly, you just keep shifting the goal posts with new questions or choose to be willfully obtuse by rephrasing the same questions after having them duly answered. In return,I ask you indulge me by explaining your faith in the success of the current system, especially in the face of the global economic mess as it is today, and how the current system is anything even Adam Smith himself would endorse.

I thought you were referring to Chomsky.

@thetrueprometheus Yes. What most people dont understand about the privatisation issue is the argument put forward by the privateers that nationalilsation is an inherited failure from old times is actually a misnomer. Most things were privately owned in the past but it was such a failure that they were nationalised. Put when Pavlov rings his bell the fools will dribble.

Mainstream economics is also heavily influenced by emotions and politics because those who watch it the most are non-economists. So, it is like a popularity contest. Also, economics has a more systematical approach than politics to attempt objectivity. Political works, however, are filled with subjective and moral arguments.

Naomi using 9/11 for herself -- shame Naomi.

The problem with the book is that it is 500 pages long... WAIT FOR IT -- without proving her points...

Well if the situation at Foxconn is any indication,I'd say worse.

Yup, and the endless cycle of CEO reshuffles where they transition from company to company, leeching undeserved multi-million dollar bonuses from each stop is a show of the shareholder's handling of the situation. If that was your point, you're welcome, I suppose. The reason the shareholders don't care is because even after the ludicrous pay offs, they're still making absurd amounts of money not in spite of their companies attempts to circumnavigate regulations and labor laws but because of it.

Freidman's opposing the Iraq invasion did not prevent his ideology from being the prime motivator behind the privatizing of Iraq's economy and the privatizing of the occupation itself. Neo liberalism as predatory capitalism is opportunistic and takes advantage of disasters, often intentionally increasing their severity for ideological reasons. Norberg himself is intentionally engaging in obfuscation.

@C_R_O_M________

5 жыл бұрын

And socialism is made out of pure angelic dust! You people need to read a lot more history! Capitalism is now implemented and lifting Chinese and Indians out of miserable poverty. Any ideas why the 80+% of wealth producing Chinese GDP comes from the private sector?

@thetrueprometheus The very definition of corporatism implies government intervention. Without any government intervention, firms can't have enough power to control as they did under FDR during the Depression. Also, you say that the governement is there to break monopolies. What about the Fed? the Post Office? mass transit? most roads? a good part of education? Medicare? the US medical association? the Bar?

(Second part) Referring to British socialists he notably wrote (p.4): "many who think themselves infinitely superior to the aberrations of Nazism and sincerrely hate all its manifestations, work at the same time for ideals whose realisation would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny". You just forget one important aspect: in right-wing tyranny such as Nazi Germany, Pinochet's Chili, property rights were not abolished. Pinochet was even advised by American liberals inspired by Friedman.

@Wraith23 ... Of course the myth of the Chilean miracle did not begin until the mid 80's, when, after a decade of Chicago School policy implementation, Chile's economy collapsed (driving unemployment to 30%) because Chile's piranhas (financial houses freed from regulation) had bought up the country's assets on borrowed money and run up the debt by billions. Pinochet then, to save the economy, did what Allende did and nationalized many companies, thus saving revenues for the state.

False. The reforms to implement neoliberal model in Chile began in 1979 under the dictatorship. Pinochet left power in 1990, eleven years later.

Lastly, this" I don't advocate 'crony capitalism' at all. Less state involvement = less cronyism for me",to me,sounds like "there are a few corrupt officers in the police force. Instead of weeding them out and diminishing the likelihood of recurrence let's just do away with the police force all together and hope everything'll be alright".

7) Friedman's ideas translate to a movement towards democracy in Chile. From the start his Chicago Boys had been advising Pinochet on how to run his government. So... does democracy come, in the midst of a reign dedicated to the genocide of the left in a predominantly leftist nation? Pinochet reigns from 1973 to 1990. 8) She's saying that Friedman intended his theories to cause harm. No, she doesn't. Just that there are clearly big ethical problems involved in the implementation ofhis theories.

I can agree with the fact that Friedman was too ideological, and that because of it, some of his theories were incorrect. For example, he was against "socialized medicine," but even Kenneth Arrow, a big proponent of the free market recognized that healthcare was the nightmare of capitalism since healthcare has all kinds of information assymetries in the free market. Arrow won the nobel prize because of his research in assymetrical information.

@chapaev36 The function of Government is to democratically represent the people who vote for or against them. It is not to facilitate the desires of finance capitalists nor to to facilitiate the requirements of corporations. It never was and it never will be. I wonder why that is all they ever do?

@12thHamster Because freedom presupposes responsibility, something for which many (Europeans, certainly) find unnerving.

@abbadabbadolittle (2 of 3) He is right to point out Klein absolute distortion of the Friedman quote that acts as the centrepiece of her own thesis. Regarding the Cato Institute affiliation, this was not a Friedman think tank, but rather, if anything, a Rothbard think thank and Rothbard has some far more interesting criticisms of Friedman's views than Klein puts across. Klein's book certainly gives the appearance of scrupulous sourcing, but then what good is scrupulous sourcing when your cont..>

In the European tradition libertarianism is synonymous with anarchism. And the anarchists believe that individual well-being, prosperity, and social harmony are fostered by "as much liberty as possible" and "as little government as necessary" can be combined with collective property as in self-managed or cooperative companies.

9) She shows in her book just what harm his theories caused in Russia, so his arg doesn't work there either. In China now, 70% of the capital is owned by 1% of the pop. Both these places are in a bad way, however he intended his theories to be implemented. Her point is that the international support for the implementation of these reforms is the colonial agenda of MNCs, and that aid is never forthcoming if free market reforms are not on the table, so it's a kind of extortion.

@Mickmars90 Well, I was talking about China, you know... Of course there is no such poverty in UK. Why? Not because of capitalism per se, but because labour unions and democracy. In the19th century during laissez-faire- capitalism there was such poverty in Britain. But it was NOT due to i capitalism itself, that it ended.

Did Moynihan say "chariot picked" ?!?!

"does not imply that they're distracted. It implies that they are complicit." So they are being ripped off but don't mind? Because it is up to them. If they don't think a CEO is worth it why would they pay him more than his worth? I think you need to think that through a bit. Besides, complicit in what? Profit. Again though, you have not answered. What and where is the system you are intending? Where is the success to emulate? Are you advocating pay commissions? Price controls? If not what?

@cosmicviewer477 You are probably very much correct. I think it would "simply" require each and every one human to "enlighten" themselves...care about and take responsibility in these questions that most often probably take more time than one human lifetime to become immediately urgent. I think that will always be required. So until that improves, lead is the only answer to your question I can come up with.

If politics decides who gets the money then politics will be about who gets the money and thus money will buy politics.

...countries and for some reason you,who I assume is not a CEO of a major corporation,is championing this.