Thursday, May 15, 2008

Milton Friedman Institutionalized

Why am I not surprised that the newly announced Milton Friedman Institute will be located in the former Chicago Theological Seminary?

5 comments:

Ken Houghton said...

Don't know. I'm certainly surprised—but that's because I didn't think his acolytes either (a) had a sense of humor or (b) were really that clueless.

kevin quinn said...

Peter: do you mean to say that the CS approach to economics has theological elements - the belief in the existence of perfectly competitive markets as an example of faith in things unseen, e.g., or the belief that laissez-faire cannot be improved upon as an example of Tertullian's "Credo quou absurdam" - or do you see this as a metaphor for the way laissez-faire economics searches out and destroys the sacred with its advocacy of markets in evrything?

Peter Dorman said...

Do I have to choose?

Myrtle Blackwood said...

It seems appropriate. Milton Friedman was always nothing more than a figurehead for the institutionalisation of 'free' (as- defined-by-the-plutocracy) market theology.

He was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society along with many other corporate servants. [The Society was set up in 1947 to promote and implement classical liberalism). "Hayek stressed that the society was to be a scholarly community arguing against collectivism, while not engaging in public relations or propaganda. However, the society has always been a focal point for an international [corporate] think-tank movement; Hayek himself used it as a forum to encourage members such as Antony Fisher to pursue the think-tank route. Fisher went on to establish the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in London during 1971, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., during 1973, the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research in New York City during 1977 and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in 1981. In turn the Atlas Foundation supports a wide network of think-tanks, including the Fraser Institute.

Prominent MPS members who have advanced to policy positions include Chancellor Ludwig Erhard of West Germany, President Luigi Einaudi of Italy, Chairman Arthur F. Burns of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz (professor and dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business) , Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe of the U.K., Italian Minister of Defence Antonio Martino, Chilean Finance Minister Carlos Cáceres, New Zealand Finance Minister Ruth Richardson and President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic. Eight MPS members, F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman (university of Chicago), George Stigler, Maurice Allais, James M. Buchanan, Ronald Coase, Gary S. Becker and Vernon Smith have won Nobel prizes in economics. Of 76 economic advisers on Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign staff, 22 were MPS members.."
[Source: wikipedia]

God forbid that they should allow local communities to create their own currency or promote the existence of an uncorrupted land market.

Wade said...

"God forbid that they should allow local communities to create their own currency or promote the existence of an uncorrupted land market."

You're kidding, right? Don't you know that Hayek (along with Mises, Rothbard and all the "Austrians") had pissed the entire economics profession off because he had argued for a commodity-backed money supply? Local communities in the United States were once allowed to create their own currency. Indeed, commodity backed money is what allows such a practice to take place within an economy. Arguing for this is precisely what made the Austrians so resented by moderate-to-left economists in the profession. Keynesianism, Marxism, state-communism, "market socialism", "mixed economies", etc, all seem to demand a central money supply. Indeed, all the Austrians had argued against the political trend in the 19th century US of our government's co-sponsorship of the banking cartel that culminated in the Federal Reserve. In fact, without this co-sponsorship the cartel would have never been realized (just review the history on JP Morgan and others who had been lobbied in the 19th century for a cartel).

Now, granted, most of the economics theories of those who belonged to MPS did not necessarily agree with MPS's founder on what the consequences of such a system might be. But it isn't so much that their personal alliances and their NORMATIVE beliefs were for a desire to prevent people the freedom to have their own currency as much as it is that their POSITIVE economic analysis of the money supplies used a centralized, fiat system as a starting point since centralized banking was an historical fact at the time of their work.

You guys who criticize Hayek and MPS really need to get a clue. How do you know you disagree with someone if you don't understand what they've said and why? Do them the dignity that Bohm-Bawerk gave Marx by performing an IMMANENT CRITIQUE before make a judgement about their conclusions and their motivations. How else could you be accurate with your observations otherwise?