That whooshing sound is Milton Friedman flying right over the DUmmies' heads.
Take the time to click on the link in the OP and watch the two-and-a-half-minute video.
LynneSin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Oct-28-11 10:19 AM
Original message
This clip is over 30 years old & yet it's so real for today: Donahue interviewing Milton Friedman
http://dauckster.posterous.com/a-31-year-old-video-clip-absolutely-worth-you
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2201476Note that Friedman speaks not so much of greed but rather free markets and individual self-interest. Not necessarily the same thing, as greed is a matter of degree and depends on the motivation of the individual. And besides, isn't it a DUmmy philosophy that we should all be voting our self-interests? What do they mean by that if not financial gain? The only difference is they want that gain to come from robbing someone else.
You might as well be showing a film on the Theory Of Relativity to a cage full of monkeys, though.
rurallib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Oct-28-11 10:23 AM
Response to Original message
1. quite interesting and scary.
Notice that Friedman immediately puts communism up as the straw man.
Hassin Bin Sober Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Oct-28-11 10:33 AM
Response to Original message
2. I don't know if I like the clip. Donahue lets the arrogant SOB run over him.
Was Milton Friedman wrong? Sure. WE know it.
But look at the comments. The usual tea-bagger contingent is there saying Friedman is 100% correct. Never mind the Randian free-marketeers went screaming and wailing to the socialistic government for their socialistic bailouts to correct what "greed" did to the "free" markets.
So Friedman, speaking uncontested, gets to make their point. Geed is good for us. Never mind reality.
No, YOU don't know it. Name one other country which has come so far in improving the quality of life for its citizens in 235 years. I'll wait.
TomClash Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Oct-28-11 11:12 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. Excellent reply
I was thinking exactly the same thing.
Capitalism isn't synonymous with individualism. Salk created a vaccine for polio and benefitted far less economically than he could have.
Friedman exists in a bipolar vacuum - the choice is either the Soviet Union or unrestrained capitalism.
He doesn't answer the question at all. He simply says everyone is greedy - except everyone isn't greedy. Indeed, look around, most people aren't.
No, he didn't say, "everyone is greedy". If you can't break out of this need to lie about every single thing your opponents say you can never learn anything. Salk chose his path while living under a capitalist system, which demonstrates that it can accommodate both altruism and self-interest. It's called freedom.
cui bono Donating Member (1000+ posts)
14. It would be nice to see the clip continue, perhaps Donahue did come back.
Those comments are ridiculous. You are so right, they never "understand" that there is corporate socialism running rampant in this country.
Wrong. Friedman never advocated crony capitalism. He advocated free enterprise. They are not the same thing. If something is wrong you fix it. You don't throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.
hifiguy Donating Member (1000+ posts)
3. When the history of the 20th century is written 100 years from now
Milton Friedman will be classed with Hitler, Mao and Stalin as one of the people who inflicted the greatest misery on the most people of that era. Bet on it. Friedman was a monster in human form.
One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn't belong
Can you guess which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish this song...hifiguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Oct-28-11 11:49 AM
Response to Reply #11
13. I am not so sure. The logical outcome of Friedmanism is
total enslavement of the masses in everything but name.
If capitalism is enslavement, how do you explain all those people who fled your Socialist Paradises to come here? I guess they were "acting against their self-interests", too.
This is why it's hopeless to try and reason with a Lefty. They simply have to be defeated.
