Re: Leftists knocking Friedman ?

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 08:00:06 -0600, "John Galt"
<whoisjohngalt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>These broad concepts can be extended to justify further interventions,
but 
>it's most accurate to say that "if you gotta trust somebody" Friedman 
>trusted the automaticity of supply and demand more than he trusted 
>government bureaucrats and politicians. One can reasonably argue the
extent 
>to which "Friedmanism" permits goverment regulation under the principles 
>above, but I think his primary theorem that markets are more trustworthy 
>than politicians to be quite sound and wise. I don't see how we can 
>reasonably trust collections of politicians to make correct choices by 
>consensus on complex matters on which they are unschooled, and would
prefer 
>them in the role of mitigating effects generated automatically rather
than 
>dictating the effects themselves.

A nice piece. Thanks for the effort.
>
>Instead of demonizing Friedman, I am of the opinion that there is ample 
>ground for debating the need and sort of goverment regulation in the
economy 
>according to the principles in the first paragraph, and that there is no 
>reason to forget (because of one's political inclinations) that he is one
of 
>our Nobel Prize winners and thus one of our greatest thinkers.  Besides, 
>history shows that when a group attempts to "burn" (figuratively
speaking, 
>here, of course) either a man or his opus, they simply insure that the
man 
>and his opus takes on an even more influential position among future 
>scholars.

well, maybe, maybe not. Darwin replaced Lamarack for a reason.