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> I'd rather not simply acquiesce to power just because Milton Friedman (or anyone) considers it a good idea. You're confusing is and ought here. It's not that

by strlen 16y ago

> I'd rather not simply acquiesce to power just because Milton Friedman (or anyone) considers it a good idea. You're confusing is and ought here. It's not that they consider it a good idea, it's just it's empirically observable that the society is better off as a result. You can challenge Friedman and a propose a new economic theory. Indeed others have modified his theories to take account of externalities such as pollution: if you want to make such an argument here, I'm ready to listen. I don't mean it in a polemic way, I am curious about research into externalities of social networks and economics-conscious ways of dealing with them e.g., equivalent of pollution credits.

michaelchisari 16y ago
Plenty of people have challenged Friedman's economic theories. In fact, the Austrian school of economics is in no way unchallenged, and in many circles is not considered empirically sound. I'd rather not get into a big political or economic debate, but the idea that Friedman's views are an objective truth is simply not true.
- strlen 16y ago
  > In fact, the Austrian school of economics is in no way unchallenged, and in many circles is not considered empirically sound. Friedman isn't Austrian school (he was against the Gold standard and he suggested Income Tax withholding!). If you want a horrible analogy, think of Austrian school as Haskell, Chicago school as OCaml (Hayek being a link between the two, just as HM type inference is the link between ML and Haskell), Keynes as Smalltalk and more modern theories as something like Scala.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  My mistake, confused Friedman with Rothbard. However, the concept of eschewing social pressure requirements in favor of the machinations of the market is something I have no interest in. Generally, I agree with Krugman's critique of Friedman's economics (although I consider myself to the left of Krugman).

by strlen 16y ago

michaelchisari 16y ago

Plenty of people have challenged Friedman's economic theories. In fact, the Austrian school of economics is in no way unchallenged, and in many circles is not considered empirically sound. I'd rather not get into a big political or economic debate, but the idea that Friedman's views are an objective truth is simply not true.

strlen 16y ago
> In fact, the Austrian school of economics is in no way unchallenged, and in many circles is not considered empirically sound. Friedman isn't Austrian school (he was against the Gold standard and he suggested Income Tax withholding!). If you want a horrible analogy, think of Austrian school as Haskell, Chicago school as OCaml (Hayek being a link between the two, just as HM type inference is the link between ML and Haskell), Keynes as Smalltalk and more modern theories as something like Scala.
michaelchisari 16y ago
My mistake, confused Friedman with Rothbard. However, the concept of eschewing social pressure requirements in favor of the machinations of the market is something I have no interest in. Generally, I agree with Krugman's critique of Friedman's economics (although I consider myself to the left of Krugman).