Customer Reviews
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - Incompatible Ideals? - By: Mr. Nicholas J Robertson, 08 Jul 2008 
I became vaguely aware of Milton Friedman in the 1980s, when he was often referred to as the favourite economic guru of Thatcher & Reagan, the founder of "monetarism" as a new school of economics. He was disliked by the left, & there were dark mutterings about his involvement with some of the less pleasant South American regimes of the period.
More recently I was referred to some excellent video clips of Milton Friedman on YouTube, & became interested in how his views fitted into economic thinking as a whole. I also became aware of economic libertarianism, expounded by such organisations as The Cato Institute (publishers of some of the sceptical volumes on man-made global warming theory, but with a much wider range of interests than that) & The Von Mises Institute, that seems to have quite an extreme view as to how limited the role of the state should be. Private justice, anyone?
Capital & Freedom was Friedman's seminal popular work, published in 1962 & based on a series of lectures that Friedman had delivered in the mid to late 1950s. Other popular works include Free to Choose, written jointly with his wife & published in 1980. He doubtless wrote scores of more technical papers in between. Friedman's economic hypothesis is that free market capitalism is the most effective mechanism for organising economic activity & growth, & that it thrives best when the government intervenes in it as little as possible. This economic hypothesis is alllied to a strong personal conviction for individual liberty, that men should as far as possible be left to do as they choose so long as their actions to not have injurious effects on others - a philosophy stated emphaticallly by the founding fathers of the United States.
Milton Friedman argues his case clearly & effectively, & most of it is as apposite today as it was in 1955. Often it is only when he refers to numbers of dollars that one remembers that this book is nearly 50 years old - there always seems to be one or two noughts missing from the end of average salaries. There is quite a lot of historical detail - he devotes a chapter to the Great Depression, & his hypothesis that it was caused not by a failure of the market but by incompetent government intervention. Friedman believed that the market would have suffered less badly, & recovered more quickly, if the government had left well alone. As the Federal Reserve & the Bank of England intervene to deal with the current "credit crunch" banking crisis we have to hope that they will get it right - Friedman seemed to believe that by concentrating the power - & the responsibility - for managing the market even into highly intelligent & well-intentioned hands, you created the conditions for a major upset that the market, left to its own devices, would have avoided by the separate actions of thousands of individual participants acting in their own interests. We shalll see!
The problem with Friedman's brand of economic liberalism (and he deliberately stuck to the word "liberal" in an attempt to win it back from left of centre state-interventionists - later he gave up & accepted the description "libertarian") - & with the Thatcherism & Reaganomics that it spawned - was that it can seem harsh & uncaring. Friedman argues passionately against the public provisions of housing, minimum wages, agricultural support, state provided old age pensions & much compulsory attempts to redistribute wealth. He does so on the basis that they interfere with individuals' freedom, concentrate power in government (which often operates inefficiently, & that most such schemes are ultimately counterproductive. He does also argue against the abuse of power by big corporations, through cartels & government lobbying, & expresses concern that the tax laws that alllow corporations' retained profit to suffer a lower rate of taxation than income a disadvantages smalll companies against big ones, & that this, even in the early 1960s, had artificiallly supported the development of massive corporations. Friedman was, it seems, a smalll company man, a believer in enterprise on a human scale.
Friedman believed above alll in Liberty. His belief in equality - egalitarianism - was more qualified. He believed in equality of rights under the law & of opportunity, but not that the state should attempt to achieve "equality of outcome" - i.e. equality of material wealth. That should be left to individuals to resolve through interaction with others & in accordance with their talents & inclinations. Equality of opportunity, of course, is easily said, & not an issue that Friedman resolves. For example, in arguing for a limited role for government in education, (though a much greater one that some present day libertarians might argue) opportunity for a high quality education would at the least be much easier for those born of rich parents than poor - one point at which I find myself unconvinced by him. In short, though, Friedman thought that men should be free to be unequal.
Whether or not you subscribe to Friedman's ideas, this book represented a major reassertion of the principles of classic, free market economics in the face of progressively more state-directed economies not just in the Eastern-bloc but in the US & Western Europe too. That school of thought had been dominated by John Maynard Keynes, & the latter's "General Theory" shalll be my next project. This is an excellent, thought provoking & easily absorbed book.
Outstanding - By: Geoffrey, 17 Oct 2005 Friedman is a very intuative economist, of this there can be no doubt. However, his correct intuition, in my opinion, stretches no further than economics. His chapter on political freedom for instance, has many holes in it, & although he raises some very thought-provoking ideas, in the end I felt it impossible not to disagree on many counts.
This said, I would strongly advise this book to anyone, beginner or advanced; it's simple style that presents challlenging ideas will suit almost alll readers.
Excellent. A classic relevant today. - By: , 29 May 2005 
It is surprising how relevant this book is to the present state of affairs having been written originallly in the 60s.
Friedman goes through the issues of capitalism, freedom & related issues on an easy to understand manner; with a few exceptions where he gets a bit too technical for the general public (e.g. monetary policies). Nevertheless a very enlightening text by the Noble price.
A must read for anyone interested in liberalism, economy & politics.
Highly Recommended! - By: Rolf Dobelli, 14 Jun 2004 This is a new edition of Milton Friedman's classic 1962 capitalist manifesto. As such, it was ignored, spurned & hated for decades by the intellectual, post-Keynesian establishment. In the 60s, Friedman once found himself debating a liberal who attacked him by simply reciting Friedman's views of the proper role of government. This was working rather well with the audience of college students until he quoted Friedman's opposition to the military draft. Friedman suddenly found himself awash in the unexpected cheers of students. Perhaps it was a foreshadowing of his career. Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, & his ideas gained some degree of mainstream acceptance in the Reagan years - although many of his thoughts remain controversial. To the extent that Friedman debunks myths about the Great Depression that are widely accepted as fact, perhaps he has a point about the semi-privatization of education. We strongly recommend this volume to those who seek a deeper understanding of government's role in a free-market economy.
all 100% correct except for one glaring ommission - By: , 11 Aug 1999 
Mr. Friedman is certainly the greatest living economist & this book is the best there is for an introduction to what capitalism reallly is. Mr Friedman explains to us the complex basics of economics that most still don't understand. For example when two capitalists exchange money or goods is one getting ripped off, are they doing something trivial, selfish, or wasteful that should be regulated by the gov't, or are they advancing the cause of prosperity ,civilization & freedom? Mr. Friedman walks us through these issues, & more, very brilliantly but in the end he doesn't tell us what to do. When we watch the evening news or walk into the voting booth we are not asked for our opinion of capitialism,rather, we are asked our opinions of Democrats & Republicans. The real issue is not capitalism vs. other; it is Republicans vs Democrats. The book: Understanding The Difference Between Democrats & Republicans is still one of the very few, unbelievably, that deals with this, the most important issue we face. And it isn't ashamed to point out at great length the connection between Republicans, capitalism, & freedom.
