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 Number 1 book on basic economics August 5, 2008
This is absolutely the best book on basic economic thinking. It is filled with sound logical arguments for free markets. This book should be the starting point for anyone interested in politics and politically economy.
Milton Friedman is "way out there" for many, but his debating skills are solid. I used arguments in this book during debates in grad school and easily hammered classmates who couldn't figure out how to argue against the "green pieces of paper" statement when they were arguing on how the U.S. should eliminate our trade deficit.
In this book Dr. Friedman will teach you what free market capitalism is and is not. He will demonstrate how government regulation failures lead to the Great Depression and how monetary shocks (kicked off by the government yet again) created problems in the early 70s. Dr. Friedman will make his case for school choice and discuss why regulation harms consumers.
This book covers nearly all the most basic angles of economics you will hear about in your local newspaper and on tv. Reading this book should give you enough working knowledge to be prepared to debate or discuss economic topics with others.
Milton offers you the tools and answers to hammer most any local socialist. His writing is clear and his arguments are easy to understand. I recommend this book to any person wanting to learn more about free market capitalism.
 Willful myopia June 11, 2008
13 out of 32 found this review helpful
Dr. Friedman is plainly an educated and articulate man and his arguments have a seductive veneer of logic to them. The tragedy is that his interpretations are extremely selective: he focuses exclusively on what he perceives to be the strengths of the free market, while completely disregarding its costs. In this respect, he shares the mentality of the fundamentalist. Anything that ever goes well, he attributes to the free market; anything that ever goes wrong, he dismisses as either an aberation, a reflection of inadequate adherence to his core belief system. He has thus created a logical closed loop, which admits no possibility of his starting assumptions being flawed.
Which is highly unfortunate, as he makes a great many assumptions, such as costless mobility of labor, perfect information, and the eventual trickle down of wealth, which are empirically unsound. If a worker loses his or her job, Dr. Friedman assumes that, somehow, that person will be able to find a bigger and better job elsewhere. How? Where? How is that person going to find the wherewithal to pay for the additional training and/or education needed for that real or imaginary bigger and better job? How will s/he pay for rent, food, transportation, health insurance, childcare, etc., while looking for this bigger and better job? Such trifles are plainly not Dr. Friedman's problem; nevertheless, they do pose a whopper of a problem if you're the person who's lost your job.
Likewise, Dr. Friedman simply takes it for granted that companies will behave honorably, will have access to perfect information, and consumers will never be misled or swindled, but will unfailingly shape the market based upon sound decisions. Wow. Must be a nice planet Dr. Friedman lives on. On this planet, companies make rash and/or unethical decisions on a daily basis which are based upon poor information and/or immediate short term gains, for which the general public bears the cost.
Because Dr. Friedman ignores such inconvenient realities, he views the world through rose-colored lenses and is blind to the dismal performance of his ideas whenever they have been implemented as policies. In every instance around the globe, the inevitable result of Friedman's radical ideology has been a tiny handful of predatory capitalists becoming richer than kings while the rest of the country sinks into abject poverty. Dr. Friedman's ideas, in every instance where they have been applied, from Chile to Argentina to Russia to Poland to South Africa to SE Asia - the list goes on - have unfailingly produced huge surges in unemployment and poverty, wholesale selloffs of the country's natural resources and other assets, and, of course, the adoption of repressive measures by governent to force the unpopular policies upon the unwilling populations. How ironic that Dr. Friedman describes himself as an advocate of free choice, when he has personally advised governments around the world to coerce their citizens into accepting his disasterous economic "reform" programs. Not surprisingly, Dr. Friedman doesn't wish to discuss the victims of his ideas, or, insofar as he recognizes them at all, he condescendingly dismisses them as the tragic cost of "progress." Progress for whom? Again, Dr. Friedman doesn't concern himself with such details.
The central flaw in Dr. Friedman's ideology is that he takes no account of wealth distribution. If an economy increases in efficiency, Dr. Friedman claims vindication. But if the benefits of any such increase go exclusively to a tiny minority while the vast majority of the population experiences a sharp reducation in quality of life, how has any overall increase in efficiency improved matters? Dr. Friedman seems to assume that the billionaires his policies create will reinvest their wealth into their local economies. Yet, empirically, we find once again that such is not the case. Billionaires invest their wealth where they can gain the greatest return on their investment. Why then would they want to invest in their own countries? The people who live there, thanks to them and Dr. Friedman, are unemployed and too poor to be able to afford to buy anything. The country's natural resources have already been privatized and sold off, what's left in the smoldering husk Dr. Friedman leaves behind to entice investment?
In sum, what Dr. Friedman describes as freedom of choice is an attempt to legitimize and apply a palatable facade to a wild west approach to economics, in the which the strongest and most ruthless rise at the expense of the weak, a kind of economic Darwinism. It's not without logic, but the cold, cruel, heartless world Dr. Friedman has to offer is a pretty terrifying place.
A Life Changing Experience May 6, 2008
Arguably Friedman's magnus opus, Free to Choose is a book that will radically change the reader's way of thinking. Admittedly, before reading this book I would have been proud to vilify the free market. Like so many others, I fell victim to the demagogues. Free to Choose revolutionized my ideas about the role of government, and how intervention is inherently inefficient. Frieman's ideas are undoubtedly controversial, but Friedman himself was no polemicist. He would look down upon today's radio scum, like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. In fact, Friedman would look down upon most modern conservatives. He proudly acknowledged that he was in fact liberal (in the term's classical usage).
Free to Choose brilliantly reveals how over-regulation, astronomically high spending, and an ever-growing bureaucracy have impeded freedom. In the chapter "Created Equal", Friedman summarizes his entire set of ideas in a few words. He says that today many are pursuing "equality of outcome" rather than what the Founding Fathers pursued - "equality of opportunity."
Essential April 9, 2008
A more essential guide for those of conservative and libertarian leanings I can't think of.
Friedman, in his traditionally accessible, though brilliant, way elucidates economics, politics, and freedom in a timeless classic.
Would buy again and again.
The principles of economic freedom are found in this book. A must read! October 14, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
The relationship between freedom and economics is undeniable. Also undeniable is the relationship between government and freedom. Milton Friedman brilliantly makes a clear persuasive case for the perpetuation of free markets and the elimination of big government, as a means of augmenting freedom worldwide and as a result expand prosperity. Although this book is over 27 years old, the economic principles of this book are as timeless as Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations".
The book covers topics, such as socialized medicine, which is even more popular today, due in large part to the propaganda promulgated by the sensationalist media circuits. Of course, Americans do not want socialized medicine so proponents are euphemistically calling it "universal healthcare". Mr. Friedman expressed that "in our opinion there is no use whatsoever for socialized medicine. On the contrary, government already plays too large a role in medical care. Any further expansion of its role would very much against the interest of patients, physicians, and health care personnel." This book was written almost 3 decades ago when the expenditure of healthcare was huge, however, not as appalling as it is now at close to 15% of the country's GDP. There are many factors involved in the rising healthcare costs, not the least of which is the government's inability to operate any activity cheaper and more efficiently than the private sector. There are no exceptions to this. None! Unfortunately, the tendency of government is to increase funding for programs that don't work. If it isn't working, then it must mean it needs more funding, is the philosophy of government. This clearly goes counter to the much more efficient private sector where costs are controlled in order to attain a dirty little concept called profits. It is in the self-interest of people and companies and not their benevolence, that most of the freedom and economic progress is dependent upon, according to Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.
Mr. Friedman was a radical free trade crusader and the evidence espoused in this book is overwhelmingly effective at convincing most open-minded individuals. Friedman goes on to write "Wherever we find any large element of individual freedom, some measure of progress in the material comforts at the disposal of ordinary citizens, and widespread hope of further progress in the future, there we also find that market activity is organized mainly through the free market." He goes on to warn us that "Wherever the state undertakes to control in detail the economic activities of its citizens, wherever, that is, detailed central economic planning reigns, there ordinary citizens are in political fetters, have a low standard of living, and have little power to control their own destiny." He further declares that under such governments impressive monuments may be produced and a certain class may enjoy a full measure of material goods, however, ordinary citizens will become merely "instruments to be used for the state's purpose" and will receive only what is "necessary to keep them docile and reasonably productive."
Friedman also covers topics on education, consumer protection, inflation, unions and what he believed, at that time, was a "turning of the tide" into a more free market based mentality by the general population. This period, however, was when Carter was still in office and Reagan was coming in with his message of small government and as a result reduction in taxes. I'm afraid that we are again seeing a turning of the tide, this time, unfortunately, we are headed into larger government and more social programs, due in large part to the short memory of the American public of what communism used to be and the continual romanticizing of socialist countries that provide its population with cradle to grave social programs, almost always at the expense of freedom and progress. We must be careful!
This book is a must-read to gain a fundamental understanding of economics, and as a reminder of the basic economic principles that have made America great. Enjoy!
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