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Why Government Is the Problem (Essays in Public Policy) By Milton Friedman ( Hoover Inst Pr )
Release Date: 1993-02
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Product Description
The major social problems of the United States—deteriorating education, lawlessness and crime, homelessness, the collapse of family values, the crisis in medical care—have been produced by well=intended actions of government. That is easy to document. The difficult task is understanding why government is the problem. The power of special interests arising from the concentrated benefits of most government actions and their dispersed costs is only part of the answer. A more fundamental part is the difference between the self-interest of individuals when they are engaged in the private sector and the self-interest of the same individuals when they are engaged in the government sector. The result is a government system that is no longer controlled by "we, the people." Instead of Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," we now have a government "of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats," including the elected representatives who have become bureaucrats. At the moment, term limits apear to be the reform that promises to be most effective in curbing Leviathan.
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 Has There Ever Been a More Profound Hypocrisy... ( sidereusnuntius )
...than Milton Friedman, the guru of neoliberalism AKA neoconservatism, prating about why government actions are the problem? This is the original "Chicago Boy" - the same Milton Friedman whose disciples laid economic plans for the military dictatorships of Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil; the same Friedman who waxed enthusiastic about the "reforms" imposed from the top by General Pinochet! The same Friedman, by the way, whose ideas of economic Shock and Awe GWB has tried to unload on Iraq along with military occupation at the cost of lives and limbs of so many National Guard men and women.
If you want to understand Friedman's economic fundamentalism, take a look at "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein.
[Postscript on 10/25: I've subsequently reviewed Friedman's Monetary History of the USA in more detail than this. I refer you also to the comments by Mr. Alan Greenspan, published yesterday, concerning the failure of Friedmanite "prediction" regarding the economic meltdown of this month. Friedman has always asserted that "prediction of real world events" is the proper evaluator of economic thought; on that basis, his thought has dramatically failed.)
{Post-election postscript: It would seem that people are catching on to the failure of Friedmanesque public policy to maintain economic benefits for the mass of the populace. Check out the article by Paul Krugman in the NY Times on Nov. 7th. Also check out the report that John McCain, that disciple of Friedman, met and conferred with Pinochet at a critical moment.}
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 Thought It Would Be More Like A Book
Wasn't much too it for the price and postage.
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 GOOD BRISK READ ( i_have_no_idea )
This essay is a really good way to stimulate theories and ideas, enabling the reader to conduct further research on his or her own.
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 ARGUMENTS AGAINST STRENGHTENING GOVERNMENTS ( minev )
In this very short piece, Friedman tries to make a brief argument on why government is in fact the main obstacle to development. Given the very limited space (18 pages), it is impossible to make a very strong argument on such a broad topic. Friedman makes some good points, but most of them do not provide supporting evidence, so it leaves a hesitant reader unconvinced. It seems to me that this book is sufficient for good argument over cocktail conversation.
For a more thorough analysis of the same arguments presented in this short book, I would recommend either Capital and Freedom or Free to Choose by Friedman as well.
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