I've been pondering Daniel Davies's attempted takedown of Milton Friedman, or for that matter Jon Chait's book on supply side economics, and so I slip beneath the fold...
What strikes me is that these writers, and also their counterparts on the Right, see so little need to adduce anthropological evidence to characterize other people’s views. When it concerns the Laffer Curve, or global warming, or the correct measure of civilian deaths in Iraq, the concern is for the highest standards of evidence. Yet the question of what other people "really believe" also can be treated in more or less sophisticated form, most of all with the tools of anthropology. Web quotations are relevant, but there is no substitute for getting out there and speaking to those people, for a start.
I’d like to propose a new research convention. Anytime a writer or blogger talks about what The Right or The Left (or some subset thereof) really wants or means, I’d like them to list their personal anthropological experience with the subjects under consideration. Davies presents Friedman as a shill for the Republican Party; I’d like to know how many (public or non-public) conversations he has had with Friedman about the topic of the Republican Party. I’ve been present for a few, and while I’m open to feedback from Davies, my guess reading his post is that he hasn’t been there for any. Yet he writes with a tone of certitude: "it’s clearly not intellectual honesty that makes American liberals act pretend that Milton Friedman wasn’t a party line Republican hack."
Is it really true that "The ideological core of Chicago-style libertarianism has two planks. 1. Vote Republican. 2. That’s it."? And Davies’s own quotation of Milton Friedman does not support his core claims; he simply asks us to believe that Friedman is lying. I would ask Davies to apply the same standards of argumentation and evidence that he does to the Lancet study of Iraq or the many other topics he has written excellent blog posts about.
How many supply-siders has Chait talked to? It might be a lot, but again I’d like to know. Has he met with the people who write The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page? How many of them? How many leading Republican donors and strategists does he know? Did they really chat with him, or were they in controlled "interview mode"? How motivated are they by supply-side doctrine? What did those say who weren’t so motivated?
How many intelligent pro-life Republicans do you know? How many southern racist Republicans do you know? Have they confided in you? Do they trust you? Do you really think you know what they believe?
I don’t mean to suggest that such anthropological research will always yield sanitizing answers. Nor do I believe that the Left is worse in ignoring the anthropology of ideology than is the Right.
It is sad that anthropological research has such a low status among so many smart people. It is fashionable to open up data sets for replication. So let’s do the same for research into ideology or even just proclamations about the ideology of others, especially those you disagree with. Tell us how much field work you did, who you did it with, how much they trusted you, and what you wish you could have done but didn’t. That is easy enough in the on-line world.
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As opposed to the Democrats who mostly (honorable exceptions like Feingold deserve credit where it’s due) who didn’t figure out that they opposed Bush’s encroachments on civil liberties until his approval rating had safely dropped to the 30s.
D^2 almost has an insight in his post when he criticizes American liberals for not calling out libertarians for being fair-weather supporters of civil liberties, but he fails to notice that the primary reason for this is that mainstream liberalism in the US (in particular as manifested in the Democratic party) not only shows primarily fair weather support for civil liberties, but many (as the Clinton examples demonstrate) will proactively align in favor of encroachment when it’s a Democrat doing the encroaching.
Tyler, you’re a hoot. “Personal anthropological experience with the subjects under consideration”: pray tell, what anthropological training do you profess to have? All your pompous pretense is saying is that you listened to the great man and thus feel differently. Please, show us your anthropological notes so that we can all be awed and cowed by your perspicacious insights! Did you use that awesome libertarian power of knowing what people really think?
It’s really sad to see all your syncophants (and Milton’s) attacking D2 with their inept arguments. How blasphemous the idea that the great man could have had a pimple! Let alone one so large. Besides his design of the Federal withholding tax.
My Critiques of Libertarianism site has a relatively new index for Milton Friedman. Only a few things there. If anybody would like to suggest more, I’d welcome it.
MattXIV: I’m not defending the Democrats. The Patriot Act is exactly the kind of thing which libertarians, if they actually exist and are actually libertarians, would be expected to take a leading role on. If the libertarians have any independent function in American politics, that would be it. But they didn’t.
I use the small-l word because I don’t just mean party members. Bush’s various offenses on habeas corpus etc. (not just the Patriot Act) have been egregious, and you don’t have to be a libertarian militant to oppose them.
I didn’t like much of anything about Friedman, but the specific thing I’ve put on the table here is his willingness to accept authoritarian government if free markets and low taxes came along with. His relationship to Bush was completely RELEVANT to that.
Friedman wasn’t as cozy with Pinochet as Hayek was, but based on his relationship to Bush, I think that he too prioritized economic liberties over civil liberties.
Barkley Rosser above is right; I misread a biography which said (correctly) that Milton Friedman was an advisor to Nixon, and assumed (incorrectly) that this meant the CEA. Although he *was* an economic advisor to Nixon, and he endorsed the 1972 campaign despite Nixon having announced the “War on Drugs” in 1971, said “We are all Keynesians now” the same year and continued to make use of conscription in Vietnam despite running on an anti-draft ticket (on Friedman’s advice) and having commissioned the report of the Committee on an All-Volunteer Force which reported in 1970. So I maintain my substantive point – given what Nixon actually did, it is very hard to see what a Republican presidential candidate would have to do in order to not get the Friedman endorsement.
Did someone mention Lancet?
dsquared writes:
“Repeatedly”? Now, I don’t know if this is true or not but I have read my fair share of Lancet commentary, by Roberts and others. Where does Roberts admit this?
And, by the by, much more work by serious scholars about the Lancet surveys is coming down the pike. Better get those clumpy boots on, dsquared!
I would guess that one way for a Republican to lose Friedman’s endorsement would be to be George McGovern.
Since Nixon did in fact end the draft in 1973, Friedman seems to have backed the right horse in that respect at least.
joe, that’s unfair: DD was right that Friedman never resigned. If you keep it up, we can even get him to hang the whole case on that absurdity.
I can’t help but to think that the real reason why liberals hate Friedman (and they do!!) stems from his success.
And Friedman had unprecedented success for an economist. He ruled both the academic community and the popular economics community.
Lets face it, Galbraith was popular but not really respected by his academic peers. But Friedman managed to be both. He became a household name, yet extremely powerful in the academic community as well. this drives the left crazy.
Wasn’t Friedman about a million years old in 2004?
As a general rule, when evaluating the character of major historical figures, we shouldn’t put too much weight on what they did after age 90.
Milton Friedman was brilliant and humane, a powerful combination.
I don’t hate MF. He is responsible for my career. I work in financial futures. I’ve all but prayed to the guy.
I am trying to understand what you meant by all this, DD. You are calling a man who (along with Barry Goldwater) defined modern Republican fiscal policy: a “Republican hack†. Doesn’t that sound odd, when repeated back to you?
How can someone be a hack for supporting a movement they helped define? Would you say that John Lennon was a hack? Would you say that Bob Dylan was a hack? (I am listening to music†¦ can you tell?)
It has already been pointed out that MF went after Republicans hard when they betrayed the policies he championed. To suggest that he was somehow disingenuous to go after John Kerry’s policies confuses me.
Are you saying MF was only allowed to go after Republicans when they act like Democrats?
Anyone have any MF quotes on Mike Gravel? I have a feeling those two had some good things to say about each other. Though I suppose Gravel might be a Republican hack, too.
-Ben
[dude, you should really be feeling embarrassed about being reduced to defending your stance based on a press release]
what, a press release that Milton Friedman signed? No, you should be embarrassed for using such a weak argument to me (you should also be a bit embarrassed for trying to get away with calling me a coward when you thought I wouldn’t be reading this thread, I did notice that by the way, you coward). You might notice I’ve also cited an article Milton Friedman wrote, two interviews that Milton Friedman gave and the fact that Milton Friedman endorsed Richard Nixon, twice. That’s what hacks do, they sign up to big statements with press releases, despite not really believing what it says in the press release, or even reading what they’re signing.
[* Or is it maybe: There's some way for economists to participate in economics[sic - presumably you mean politics] that doesn’t make them — horreurs — “hacks”? “]
Well yes there is. It’s not exactly difficult. If you don’t want to be a hack, but nevertheless want to participate in politics, don’t say things that you don’t mean. Don’t endorse policies in public that you criticise in private. Don’t, to put it bluntly – “horreurs” – lie to the voters. Michael, are you being – horreurs – disingenous on purpose? I think so. Horreurs.
Did Milton sign the press release or the letter?
If he just signed the letter, then the interpretation that he did so simply because he didn’t want Kerry elected, which is not hackery, is still available. D2 your argument then hangs on the supposition that Friedman would have known the letter was going to be turned into an endorsement of the Bush fiscal policy, which is speculation whichever way you cut it. You might be right, but there’s plenty of room for you to be wrong, so you’ve not call acting like everybody who disagrees with you is a fool or a knave.
And signing a letter saying A when you ought to have known it would be taken as B is another step removed from outright hackery. Perhaps Milt didn’t think it through, or was a bit lazy on that occasion. You are rushing to judgement somewhat if this is all you’re argument hangs on. Seems to me there are a few people on this thread who have come convinced that Milton was a hack, and aren’t troubled that the arguments presented here are not sufficient to show that. And who believe that actually being a Republican can only mean being a hack – well if you believe that, what’s to discuss?
Also, as far as I can see D2 you have not addressed my points that the excerpts from the interview about the Patriot Act do not appear to support your argument, as they stand. Perhaps you have not responded because I am so obviously wrong; if so I await embarrassment.
“As someone noted earlier, it’s what people say and write publicly that matter. This notion that you have to talk to the person — presumably to allow him or her to obfuscate or change his or her original comments — is just plain silly.”
That would be fine, but it has nothing to do with what D^2 is doing. He takes statements which don’t on their face support his argument and decodes their ‘real’ meaning based on his personal interpretation of their character.
So Friedman saying that he didn’t like Kerry’s policy (which is exactly what you would expect a non-hack with Friedman’s economic beliefs to say) REALLY MEANS that Friedman wholeheartedly supports Bush’s policies.
Or the fact that Friedman offers a description of what tends to happen in war-like responses (that we devalue liberty at such times) REALLY MEANS that Friedman desires this devaluation of liberty.
“But nevertheless continued to serve on his Council of Economic Advisers, never spoke out against him in campaigns, never resigned, in general continued to support the Republican cause.”
that is an impressive amount of wrong to cram into just one sentence. As has already been mentioned friedman never sat on the CEA and spoke out against nixon policy openly and often.
Apparently, though, the above facts, alongside friedman’s numerous other breaks with republican policy, is neither here nor there since he voted republican. Let me inform DD of something he is apparently unaware of: You don’t have to agree with a party’s policy platform to vote for that party, only consider it less bad than the other guy’s.
Now, if you can cite an example of friedman supporting a republican administration in preference of a democratic opposition that was proposing to the end the war on drugs, introduce school vouchers, cut government spending ect. then you would be somewhere uncharacteristically close to a point.
I hope you don’t mind that piece of unsolicited advice in the preceding paragraph, but boy, you are struggling here.
[Still, you are telling a story about what happened over that letter that supports your argument, but it is not the only available story. Maybe Milt just thought he was joining the good fight against Kerry, wanting to help out as a sincere Republican supporter, and did not think "hey, by signing this I am effectively endorsing Bush's fiscal policy". ]
well maybe he *was* an idiot, but I think this unlikely, the man did win the Nobel Prize after all. This was hardly the first Presidential election campaign he’d seen.
What is the point of handing out all this benefit of the doubt? It is never reciprocated.
Friedman always ‘advised’ people he diagreed with; to give some random examples, Communist China and Pinochet’s Chile. He hoped his ideas would have liberalising effects.
He was consistenly Republican albeit reptillian, viewing them as the lesser evil, and the more receptive to his ideas. His support for Bush’s fiscal policy might’ve been ideological tax-cutter starve the beast logic. Or maybe Sailer’s Octogenarian point is right. Or maybe he was sometimes a bit of a party hack, because he thought they were the lesser evil, and wanted Republicans to win.
Hm, posthumous anthropological research is tricky. But I don’t think Davies’ proved his case.
I’d like to know how many (public or non-public) conversations he has had with Friedman about the topic of the Republican Party. I’ve been present for a few
Hark at Lord Muck. Argument from authority, to say nothing of argument from social status.
And frankly, of all groups who can chuck around demands for “personal anthropological evidence” without being hypocritical, rightwing libertarian economics bloggers are not the most obvious.
We’re arguing about Friedman’s psychology, Alex. It may be argument from authority, but short of mind-reading it seems the best approach.
Well no we’re not. If I (as seems unlikely at present) ever get commissioned to do the intellectual biography of Milton Friedman, I’ll take Tyler’s advice and do a whole load of detailed research on what he “truly” believed. However, my actual area of interest was “were these principles ever important enough *to Milton Friedman* to interfere with his giving wholehearted support to the Republican Party”. To which the answer is “nope”.
[The signing of a letter does not equal the signing of the press release that is later attached to it.]
Right, so the Bush-Cheney ’04 team called Milton Friedman up and asked him to sign a letter. He assumed that this letter would not be used as a general statement of support for Bush. This is a Nobel Prize winning economist we are talking about, who had been involved in something like half a dozen presidential campaigns. It defies credulity. Even then, there is still “What Every American Wants” and the Patriot Act comments to defend.
[4: Negative support of a candidates policies(Kerry) does not impute positive suport of another candidate's policies(Bush)]
Keep ‘em coming guys.
What is the mistake, Thomas? You don’t seem to say what it is.
Let’s see; the Bush-Cheney 04 campaign team want some economists to sign a letter criticising John Kerry. Among the ones they call is Milton Friedman. Roger so far?
Assuming the BC04 chaps aren’t actually trying to spend as much time as possible calling people who tell them to fuck off, they will have chosen the ones they think will do it; this tells us that they expected Milton Friedman to sign. Revealed preference, eh. I don’t think they called, say, Paul Krugman or Max Sawicky.
Milton signs, despite the fact he said that Bush-Cheney’s economic policy was a disaster.
BC04 issues a press release pointing to the letter; what the fucking fuck do you expect them to do? Bury it?
Where’s the mistake Thomas?
It really does amaze me that so many of Milton Friedman’s fans are trying to portray him as a political naif who didn’t understand what he was doing when he signed that letter, or who honestly believed that the Patriot Act would be quickly repealed. It’s almost disrespectful.
He announced it would be phased out in 1969, just a few months after he was inaugurated. Apparently, in the world Dsquared inhabits, politicians can merely snap their fingers to make things happen.
And, as someone else referenced, Friedman used his Newsweek column to criticize, several times, Nixon’s wage and price controls; one of which was titled ‘Monumental Folly’. That began in August 1971, so another of DD’s claims is exploded.
In addition, in 1992 Friedman told an interviewer than he thought economic policy might be better if Clinton won over GHW Bush.
But, don’t ever change, DD. You’d be no fun if you ever bothered to ascertain the facts before spouting off.
About Iraq, here’s an excerpt from a WSJ interview, from July 2006, with Milton and Rose:
:Right, so the Bush-Cheney ’04 team called Milton Friedman up and asked him to sign a letter. He assumed that this letter would not be used as a general statement of support for Bush. This is a Nobel Prize winning economist we are talking about, who had been involved in something like half a dozen presidential campaigns. It defies credulity. Even then, there is still “What Every American Wants” and the Patriot Act comments to defend.
[4: Negative support of a candidates policies(Kerry) does not impute positive suport of another candidate's policies(Bush)]”
Now I’m willing to believe that the Bush/Cheney people were initially calling people for the letter. It isn’t impossible. But not all similar letters start that way, so do you have evidence that this started in the campaign offices?
As for the rest, you see, this is rather different from your initial claim. You initial claim is of full throated, hackish support for Bush’s policies. Now you are retreating to the idea that criticism of Bush’s opponents–in a way that is fully consistent with Friedman’s economic understandings–represented some sort of support for Bush. That is a different claim in both scope and depth. No one will argue that the letter was ZERO support, just as no one would argue that the side effect of objecting to the American invasion of Iraq offered SOME SMALL LEVEL of support to Saddam continuing in power. But on balance the tradeoffs seem fair to some people. But to characterize your position on Iraq as full throated, hackish support for Saddam would be rather unfair don’t you agree? Even though one of the side effects of that position is to contribute to the continuation of his power?
And your Patriot Act stuff looks to me like you are frankly misreading Friedman’s statements. He DESCRIBES the human response in time of war and offers a HOPE that the time of war will be short so the degradation of liberty which is inspired by that will also be short. He does not offer support for that degradation of liberty.
Trying to reduce his signing of that letter to demonstrating that either a) he was a hack or b) he was an idiot, isn’t going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. Your opponents in this argument to not accept that dichotomy.
Would you make the same judgment if a left-wing intellectual and avowed Democrat had say attacked Bush on Iraq at election time, even though they also actually disagreed with the Democrat policy on Iraq too? (I think that’s a comparable situation, I could be wrong)
I am no particular Friedman fan, I just don’t think D2 has backed up his assertion here. Unless you reduce the word hack to mean something so innocuous to make D2′s original post equally content free.
I cannot see any support for the repeated assertion that he said the Patriot Act would be small and temporary, either. Nor for anything to refute Brad’s original argument that Friedman did not support the Patriot Act.
It seems Tom beat me to it.
MF tried “embarrassing a serving Republican president† on many occasions (Nixon, W, HW). Others have pointed to them, DD. You are ignoring these facts because it is bad for your argument or you are skimming for straw-men.
(You are practicing a type of argumentation I find in my niece when she is not ready to come inside or go to sleep. She ignores everything that she does not want to hear and clamps down on the few words she does. This is why so many parents and caretakers feel the need to add ‘ice cream’ to every unpleasant sentence directed at a child.)
Again, I have to ask, who should MF have supported over Nixon? Which candidate was more in line with his economic and socioeconomic beliefs?
And on top of that, why shouldn’t MF have felt free to attack John Kerry? If MF thought the Kerry economic policies would have been worse for America than Bush’s, why shouldn’t he have said so? Should he have waited for the second coming of Goldwater? You seem to be arguing under the premise that MF secretly agreed with Kerry, but wanted the GOP to win anyway. Where do you get that? Isn’t the former more likely… that MF simply thought that Bush > Kerry?
-Ben
Ending the draft was quite a coup for MF.
This is a substantial exaggeration. Certainly Friedman opposed the draft, but he was hardly a lonely campaigner who found success against long odds. The draft was not a popular policy, to say the least, and the opposition was vocal and active.
Of course, most of this opposition was decidedly left-wing. So I suppose it is convenient for conservatives to ignore it, and attribute the end of the draft mainly to Friedman’s persuasive powers, rather than the political realities of the time.
DD, it isn’t a question of whether Friedman’s signing the letter could be taken to be an endorsement of the re-election of Bush. Sure. Absolutely it could be, and was. But you mischaracterized the letter, which is an attack on Kerry’s proposals and not a defense of Bush’s policy or proposals. (I would think that damning enough of Bush’s fiscal policies–that when the campaign went around looking for prominent economist endorsers, all they could find was people who thought that Kerry would be worse.) And you relied on your mischaracterization to say that Friedman was a liar. You do something similar with the Patriot Act. Again, I don’t doubt that you don’t understand it, but because of your insufferable arrogance you don’t hesitate to spout off about it. Friedman, on the other hand, was apparently more modest. In the interview you link to, he explicitly says “The Patriot Act is a very complicated issue, and I’m not going to get involved in that.” Despite that clear statement, you take the rest of his statements (about civil liberties in wartime) to be an endorsement of the Patriot Act, and a suggestion that he believes that the act will be repealed at some future point. From that, you spin the same tale: Friedman’s lying, because the Patriot Act isn’t a small and temporary imposition on civil liberties, and Friedman knows that. There’s a pattern of dishonest, bad faith mischaracterization here. And there’s a reason for that: you’re dishonest. I say that with all due respect.
[MF tried "embarrassing a serving Republican president† on many occasions (Nixon, W, HW). Others have pointed to them, DD]
No, they’ve asserted them. Nobody’s provided a shred of actual evidence except me.
Michael “Horreur” Blowhard:
Remember this?
“So maybe sometimes cowardice plays a role in the way people carry on like this?”
Trying to walk away from your own actual words sets a poor precedent for trying to carry Milton Friedman away from his. Now I’m adding – Horreur! – “fibber” to “coward” and you guessed it right, not apologising for either. Horreur.
[No, at every second of their participation in the political process, such non-hack paragons "spoke truth to power," or some such. Ahahahahaha. Right.]
You appear to either be arguing with yourself here, or trying to attribute something to me which I didn’t say. So either a loony – Horreur – or a liar – horreur.
[And you relied on your mischaracterization to say that Friedman was a liar.]
Thomas, you are also making a false claim here, which speaks very badly about your own honesty. Or perhaps you were just being careless.
Bernard: Mike Gravel did a great thing stalling the vote to maintain the draft, and there was certainly a very strong ‘left wing’ element to the movement. I am not sure what you are attributing to me, here, but I am not bashing the ‘left wing’.
You seem to be confusing the debate, anyway. DD told us MF was a Republican hack. Teaming up with what you admit to be the ‘left wing’ does not scream ‘Republican hack!’ to me.
While I did not say MF did it by himself, but he was one of the very few who could credibly argue with military leaders. His arguments met them on their level, practical rather than emotional, and his exchange with Westmoreland was no small part of the larger fight.
-Ben
You’re simply wrong. Friedman gave his first lecture against the draft in the fifties, and popularized the idea in the early 60s (before the Vietnam escalation) in Capitalism and Freedom.
The impetus for Nixon’s policy was a U of Chicago four day conference in 1966 organized by Sol Tax, Friedman and a few others. A survey of participants at the beginning showed 2/3 were opposed to the idea of ending the draft.
Walter Oi contributed a very effective paper that influenced the participants, and the end result was a reversal to 2/3 in favor of the idea. Nixon was in favor of the draft at that time, but Martin Anderson drew his attention to the book that was published from that conference; The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives. That changed Nixon’s mind, and he told a NY Times reporter in 1967 that he favored ending the draft.
That’s a bald faced lie. I gave you his Newsweek columns which are collected in There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch:
Get cracking, you’re seriously behind on your reading.
D^2 is right. You just have to know that it is absolutely true that support for “Across the Board Tax Cuts” is exactly equal to entirely supporting all aspects of the administration’s fiscal policy. Now you know.
More context for Danny’s writing in general.
DD — Your skills continue to deteriorate even as your name-calling and hysteria reach new heights!
Reading Comprehension 101: I used the word “cowardice” (accompanied by the word “sometimes”) in the course of ruminating over a Paul Krugman essay that Tyler’s posting had me recalling.
Your vanity may find this hard to wrap itself around, but you were barely on my mind. In fact, I barely know who you are, aside from having a dim impression from quick visits to CT that you’re someone who seems to have no idea how badly his usual slashing and strutting plays outside Oxbridge debating societies.
Meanwhile you prance about, throwing darts like “fibber,” “coward” and “loony” at me, madly trying to pretend you’re triumphantly on the attack while in fact trying desperately to cover up your tracks.
Well, it’s a strategy, I suppose. Why not have the fun of going down in flames feeling like a hero rather than simply apologizing, or admitting that you’re wrong, or might have overdone your claims a bit?
In any case, I’m glad you show so little interest in winning anyone over to your side!
Thanks for providing so many of us with such a fun spectacle. All the best, MB
“Government can go into debt, but only so far. Eventually it has to raise taxes or hold down spending. Which party is more likely to hold down spending? As bad as Republicans have been, understand that most, if not all of Bush’s spending bills were opposed by Democrats because they didn’t spend enough!
Friedman chose the lesser of two evils.
As for the PATRIOT Act, if anyone thinks President Gore or President Kerry would have acted substantially differently, I have a bridge to sell you. Friedman was pretty clear: you lose your freedom if you fail to fight the enemy and you’ll lose freedom when the government fights the enemy. You can always repeal the government after the war, but if the enemy wins you’re out of luck. Again, the lesser of two evils. ”
Keep telling yourself that.
Ben,
I’m confusing nothing. I’m simply objecting to giving Friedman all the credit for ending the draft.
Patrick Sullivan,
You’re simply wrong. Friedman gave his first lecture against the draft in the fifties, and popularized the idea in the early 60s (before the Vietnam escalation) in Capitalism and Freedom.
Please read more carefully. I don’t deny that Friedman opposed the draft. As for Nixon’s hopes to end the draft, these were based on the idea that as the Vietnam War ended, manpower needs would drop significantly. He did not favor, as Friedman did, fighting wars with a volunteer army. It is true that Nixon reformed some of the more idiotic aspects of the draft as it operated then, but that is hardly the same thing.
More criticism of Republicans by Friedman (Bill Bennett and George H.W. Bush) from Friedman:
On February 2, 1992–the year GHW Bush was up for reelection–Friedman wrote an Op-ed for the NY Times titled Oodoov Economics, that criticized George H.W. Bush in detail for his ‘reverse Reaganomics’ which ‘b[rought] stagnation’.
It was also Friedman’s response to Bush’s latest State of the Union speech. While he applauded some of Bush’s belated return to Reaganism: ‘In all fairness to President Bush, his program–with its mixture of rediscovered Reaganism and interventionist welfare state measures–is only confusing.’
He then explained the political dilemma (that DD, in his aggressive obtuseness, is denying): ‘By contrast, House Speaker Thomas Foley’s response…frightened me, with its recipe for a comprehensive ‘nanny state, a centralized apparatus to extend into every nook and cranny of our lives.’
Concluding: ‘As a longtime Reaganite, I welcome Bush’s apparent return to the fold. He knows the words, but has he really mastered the music.’
Please provide such a sentence from the Open Letter to Bill Bennett I’ve linked to for you.
Then provide such sentences from the several Newsweek columns I’ve pointed you to.
“That’s what hacks do, they sign up to big statements with press releases, despite not really believing…. If you don’t want to be a hack, but nevertheless want to participate in politics, don’t say things that you don’t mean. Don’t endorse policies in public that you criticise in private. Don’t … lie to the voters.”
“Luis, the point in the original post (which I think you have misunderstood) was that Brad (and everyone else) had assumed that Friedman would have opposed the Patriot Act, because it was completely at variance with libertarian principles. Whereas he did, in fact, when given the chance to publicly denounce it, not do so.”
I think DD has a decent point in regards to the signing of the letter, since the letter does seem to specifically endorse Bush fiscal policy, which Friedman had criticized. Yet I don’t see how this means that “the ideological core of Chicago-style libertarianism” is to win elections for Republicans. Is it clear that Friedman’s motive in signing the letter was primarily its effect on the 2004 election? My belief would be that Friedman, being a smart and skeptical man, would not expect that his signing or not signing the letter would have the slightest effect on the election’s outcome. So I think it possible that his motivation in signing it was to express loyalty and preference for the side he believed in. A man can do understandably do that, though the world call him Hack.
As for the Patiot Act thing, if it makes a hack of Friedman that “given the chance to publicly denounce it [he] not do so,” that seems like an awfully low bar for hackery. Only 1 Senator voted against it originally. Only 4 against its authorization. Even a devout libertarian may believe that there could actually be some sort of (perhaps unknowable) trade-off between “libertarian principles” and the probability of n civilian casualties in the future.
“Denouncing” the USA Patriot act may have seemed distasteful, or at least like overkill to Friedman. He may have genuinely thought the measured response he gave was best.
Anyway, if it gives Daniel Davies comfort to think that the moral qualities of humans depends on their political beliefs, why argue with that?
Hmmm…the anthropology department = ‘go out and talk to them’ department? News to me….
Jack, have you read the thread? If you mean to come in at this late hour and defend DD’s claims, please do. Because it’s obvious that DD can’t. His initial claims are entirely mistaken, and that’s been demonstrated on this thread.
Start with this claim, from the comments above: “It [the 2004 letter] was a specific statement that the Bush fiscal policy was good for America and would help shrink the size of the tax burden. Similarly, a statement that the Patriot Act was a relatively small and probably temporary imposition on civil liberties. These were definite, false statements that were inconsistent with what he said in other times and places.” If you think that’s DD has offered a defense of these claims, please tell me where. If you think that these claims can be defended but that DD hasn’t, please provide the defense.
You don’t read English? DD said:
Which led to several people refuting his claims IN DETAIL. 1. Friedman was merely engaged in a discussion of the Patriot Act. 2. The economists’ letter didn’t even mention Bush. 3. I refuted his claim about Friedman ALWAYS refusing to criticize Republicans with numerous examples of him doing just that.
And, I’ll add another one; he criticized Reagan for accepting the Greenspan Commission’s recommendations on SS. He said it was nothing but ‘band aids’.
DD has had to look at EVIDENCE that refutes every single claim he’s made, but hasn’t conceded anything. The only conclusion I can draw from his failure to respond substantively, is that he is an intellectually dishonest person. And, with whatever respect is due you, if you can say with a straight face that no one has tried to convince DD he’s wrong, so are you.
“Nobody in this embarrassing echo chamber, with the possible exception of Barkley Rosser, has actually attempted to convince D^2 that he is wrong….”
Most likely because bitter experience has shown that it is impossible to demonstrate to that prissy braying jackass that he is ever wrong, about anything, anytime, anywhere.
Jack, I’m embarrassed for you.
One by one, for what I hope is the last time. (DD has other friends, so who knows.)
1. Friedman said “The Patriot Act is a very complicated issue, and I’m not going to get involved in that.” The more general statements he then made about civil liberties in wartime were taken by DD as his position on the Patriot Act. Are you saying you agree with DD’s misinterpretation?
2. Yes, Friedman signed a letter for the 2004 Bush campaign. It was clearly meant for partisan purposes. But that doesn’t make the contents of the letter inconsistent with Friedman’s considered views, which was DD’s claim. DD claimed here on this page that the letter “wasn’t just a general endorsement of the Republican Party here. It was a specific statement that the Bush fiscal policy was good for America and would help shrink the size of the tax burden.” The text of the letter is above on this page, and it’s clearly not consistent with this description.
3. Ah, now I see. You’re making shit up too. Cut from the same cloth. Tell us, what are you referring to when you talk about Friedman “signing letters supporting the budget balancing skills of Bush”? Surely not the same 2004 letter that DD mischaracterized? Yikes.
Seriously, do you really think that the giant intellect and public intellectual that was MF was completely naive about the political ramifications of his actions? If yes, then you’re an idiot. If no, then you either think MF was an idiot or hold the wrong opinion. Hmmm…
What makes this all the more hacktackular is that this letter didn’t start in the Bush campaign as a bashing of Kerry. Nope, $100 it started as a letter of direct support for Bush policies but couldn’t get anyone of importance to sign it.
“But that doesn’t make the contents of the letter inconsistent with Friedman’s considered views, which was DD’s claim.”
No. DDs claim was that the only rule is to vote republican, even if you disagree with them profoundly. That MF wrote multiple articles critizing the Bush policies and still signed the letter for the campaign is just more evidence that he was glad to be a hack.
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