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Title: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman ISBN: 0-15-633460-7 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: November, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (44 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Surprisingly Current and Definitely On Point!
Comment: Being Nobel winning economist, I was not sure what to expect from this "personal statement". What a pleasant surprise and enjoyable read. The book represents the Friedman's take on the government policies of the day (1979). Not knowing that the book was written over 20 years ago a reader would swear it just rolled off the press. The fact that the problems addressed by this book are still the problems we are (or more importantly are not truly) debating today only bolsters the arguments that current government policy is failing.
As a not quite totally liberal or Libertarian (as modern socialist democrats (Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Diane Feinstien, etc.) and moderate Republicans (Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, James Jeffords, etc.) have co-opted the liberal and moderate monikers), Friedman puts forth arguments against government intervention is many areas, but does demonstrate where government can be helpful, in limited ways, to address various market failures. The book addresses areas such as free markets, price and wage controls (which are currently causing electricity shortages in California), equality and justice, education (Friedman has been urging parental choice in public schooling since the 1950s), consumer protection, worker protection and inflation. The book presents each issue by examining how we got to the current state, what is wrong with the current policy and how he believes the policy should be changed. In various instances, he suggest both his preferred change and a watered down version (pragmatic version) that might actually be enacted in our current political morass.
A quick note to readers. One reviewer suggested that the book plagiarizes the work of Lord John Maynard Keynes. This could not be further from the truth. Friedman is a monetarist more in the vain derived from classical economics as presented by Adam Smith and used as a basis by the American Founders, especially Thomas Jefferson. The failed policies of the newer Keynesian economics (demand side economics) are at the heart of what Friedman is railing against: Government control. Also Monetarist are distinguished from the supply side theories of Robert Mundel and Art Laffer. In fact, the only Keynes quote I can recall from the book was used to demonstrated that even someone as wrong as Keynes knew that monetary inflation (printing too much money) was one of the worst mistakes a government can make. "There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
Rating: 5
Summary: Facts And Intellectual Honesty From A Great (Free) Mind
Comment: I came onto this book a few decades ago, but I did not immeditely read it from cover to cover. The parts I read nevertheless had a lasting influence on my world view, like some kind of an inoculation. After the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Eastern collectivist ideals seem to have somehow pervasively invaded Europe's political and bureaucratic landscape in a strange hybrid form of regulated and socially controlled capitalism. Some of the truths distilled in this book seem to be in need of being re-discovered, especially in Europe, and although the book might appear outdated, Milton Friedman's no-nonsense pragmatic intellectualism is still highly valid today. Let it also be said that free-market economies are probably some of the few models that are most compatible with various christian biblical points of view, in that they preach contentment with one's own situation (help thyself and heaven shall help thee) before revolutions and wealth-redistribution tactics (an earthly paradise of evenly re-re-re-distributed wealth is both anti-scriptural and irrational, and would not last for more than a few minutes without a brutal and ruthless dictatorship, as men and nations were never created equal, be it in physical features, ability or talent). If charity and kindness of heart should be more of personal concern rather than being socially institutionalized and legally enforced, they have historically been proven as most inefficient, partial and unjust when becoming part of a planified political agenda. In the same vein, freedom can only hardly be forced upon individuals and societies if there is yet no real longing for it (as in everything else, good timing is almost everything...)
To come back to the content of the book, Free To Choose is what one may call an economic analysis of politics, for the layman that is. The works of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises offer more in-depth studies on economics, social and behavioural sciences. For a more philosophical approach of the libertarian ideology, some of the works written by Ayn Rand and co-authors are highly recommended. Gary North has, with his studies on Christian Biblical Economics, done something similar to Richard Posner's Economic Analysis of Law, but applied it to the writings of the Bible in what one could call an economic analysis of Christian and OT Scriptures (as a Christian, you do not necessarily have to share his postmillennial, anti-dispensationalist point of view). The fact is that there is a great plenty of sound authors of economic analysis and its many ramifications. Max Weber, for example, in Spirit of Protestantism, was the first to have an objective sociological glance at the impact of various christian confessions (and puritan faith in the after-life) upon the psychology of economic behaviour and purse strategies (a must read if you wish to widen your horizontal frontiers) but of course, the list of authors that have attempted to gain a behavioural insight into the activities of man with an economic telescope doesn't end here... The fact is that everything could be analyzed from the point of view of economics and the costs of opportunity (witness Richard Posner's Sex and Reason), so that economic analysis remains a very powerfull tool that opens up a vast and almost endless amount of subjects to rational enquiry...
Rating: 5
Summary: Economic Freedom
Comment: "Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom". That quote from Milton and Rose Friedman is the essential reason why "Free To Choose" should be required reading for all Americans in high school! This book makes a powerful and persuasive argument in favor of a free market economy. Written in a very lucid style "Free To Choose" makes the usually dry subject of economics easily understandable and a pleasure to read. The "Power Of The Market" chapter shows how free markets work and why they are essential for human freedom. "Tyranny Of Control" chapter explains why trade restrictions and subsidies backfire. The "Freedom And Prosperity" chapter examines what the dramatic experience in Eastern Europe reveals about bureaucrats and markets. The "Created Equal" chapter shows how markets promote justice. Simply said, this book tackles economic issues that are as timely today as they were when the Friedman's wrote about them in 1979.
As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found "Free To Choose" a great book for anyone who wants to understand basic economic theory.
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Title: Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman ISBN: 0226264211 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek ISBN: 0226320618 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: September, 1994 List Price(USD): $9.48 |
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Title: Wealth of Nations (Great Minds Series) by Adam Smith ISBN: 0879757051 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: December, 1991 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, Revised and Expanded by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 0465081452 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 23 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History by Milton Friedman ISBN: 015661930X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: March, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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