Milton Friedman on Donahue - 1979

I'm pleased to present the number one selling book in America free to choose its number one in the New York Times bestseller list and I ought to know and it is written by the Nobel laureate a man whose will never be accused of making economics confusing man who has a reputation for not only saying what he thinks but writing what he thinks as well as he has done in this most important book title free to choose please welcome the Nobel laureate in economics Milton Friedman you here he comes again Milton Friedman and boy does he make an entrance now because this is a blockbuster book free to choose which not surprisingly features a very attractive flattering professorial picture of our guests on the front we feminists can only wonder what would we can only wonder how they would respond to this the fact that the book is co-authored by Professor Friedman's wife Rose and to what location do you suppose she has been relegated you've got that wrong don't you know that the best always comes last ah okay are we all right let's let's go over this now and you have to admit the chief prettier you certainly do have to admit that's not difficult to admit that at all as a matter of fact that you you do seem to have it all professor freedom if it just take a personal aside here for some you you well married you married for what cover D one years forty-one years to the same woman same well Minotaur we met down here at the University of Chicago and my first graduate course in economics she was a student she was a student who we were fellow students oh I see so you never did presume to teach her that oh no no no we were this is when I first so that's probably why you've been married for them and you also enjoy the prestige of the Nobel Prize you are the counselor to presidents and presidential candidates it's really a wonderful spot to be and and this is you know this is the last thing your mother would expect my son economist to have become a celebrity you're absolutely right unfortunately she died many years ago but you know I want to put one salt note in that people often fail to distinguish between giving advice and having it taken mmm-hmm and your eyes are given advice to many presidential aspirant it hasn't always been taken in fact most of the time it hasn't been I think we can assume that it's certainly not being taken now well I haven't given any advice to President Carter but none has been solicited i none has been solicited but that that really doesn't matter because i published my views in the newt in newsweek and other areas anybody who wants to know my opinion during my views has him readily available nobody has to call me on the telephone to find out yeah only time I talked to President Carter was in the interim between his inauguration his election in his inauguration when there is an absolutely hilarious incident he tried to call me to congratulate me on the Nobel award and he told his secretary to get Milton Freedman well it so happened there was a speechwriter in Jerry Ford's white house called Milton Friedman this is in the interim after Jerry Ford has been turned out and all of a sudden the telephone rings and Milton Friedman and the white shouts hears president-elect Carter's on the phone and he thinks Santa Claus is coming sure he's really this will be the unprecedented act of being asked to come on another administration well it turned out he was really trying to get me and he finally got me up in Vermont where we were at the time let me us let me see if I can express in very imprecise terms and very briefly what has the this the core of your statement here a personal statement we have too much government we are not allowing the free enterprise system to work as your as your most favored historical figure Adam Smith suggested it would work if we just let things alone we have too much government intervention it is interrupting the not only the wonderful work that the invisible hand does if we leave it alone but it's also depriving people of personal liberties absolutely okay very good some fill in the blanks no that's a very good summary there is a very important role for government to play but there's such a thing as too much of a good thing and government has been growing beyond bounds right now and to take the simplest measure the government spending at federal state and local levels amounts to over 40% of the income of the people of the country if you go around and ask people are you getting your money's worth for that forty percent of your income which is being spent on your behalf supposedly by government there are very few people who will say yes and they are right we're not getting our money's worth much of it is it's not many that it's being wasted it's that it's being wasted in a very particular sense you're spending money to do opposite things here at one place you're spending we're spending our money to try to propagandize us not to smoke in another place we're spending our money subsidize our growing at the backhoe now what sense does it make to spend these streams of money like that and you can go over and over again and find exactly the same thing the government is too big it's too intrusive it restricts what we can do it's becoming our master instead of our servant and we've got to react against it and cut it down to size all right let's share with the people at home just one of the statements of hmm Adam Smith that you refer to in your book which of course when I wanted I'm not going to be able to oh it's on page 10 thank you all right I've exerted from your book as you have from Adam Smith so we can both the we both with apologies to Adam Smith to whom from whom permission was not granted for this but here is what feels pretty good but he doesn't communicate with the next world all right by pursuing his own interest that is to say his meaning the person engaged in free enterprise the person who functions within the capitalist free enterprise system Adam Smith says he frequently promotes that of the society more effectively than when he really intends to promote it I have Smith says I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good meaning spare me from the do-gooders spare me from the people who intend to do good Smith is saying if you seek if you honestly seek your own self-interest within the free enterprise system Society will be the beneficiary a hard thing to but take the last part of that I've never seen that again I've never known much good done no I you know I don't have to see it I've never known much good done by those who affect it to trade for affected note he doesn't say did trade affected to trade for the public good now that word affected is a very important point because you must realize that people don't always express their real interests or their real values they say what they think will be attractive to the public of art let me give you a very simple example right now General Motors one of our major corporations has come out against the deregulation of the trucking industry the trucking industry today is grossly over regulated it never should have been regulated at all we never should have had it brought it under the Interstate Commerce Commission it was brought under the Interstate Commerce Commission not to protect the consumer but to protect the railroads at the time from the competition of trucks when they were first introduced into the 20s right now there's a move underway to deregulate trucking the way airlines have been deregulated there is nobody doubts that the deregulation of Airlines was a very good thing for everybody the deregulation of trucking would be an equally good thing there are literally billions of dollars being wasted because of the monopoly in trucking you're talking about fees when you talk about deregulation I assume you would still have some monitor on weight and can the trucking industry benefit by using highways that I am paying for and may not be using the merchandise I know now you now have a gasoline tax which covers the cost of the highways it is appropriate to charge for the use of the highways of course they ought not to get a subsidy I am opposed to subsidies and I'm opposed to the opposite of the excess taxes but they do now pay for the use of the highway through the through the gasoline tax and they should continue to do so as to weight limits that really has nothing to do with the ICC that has to do with the capacity a different Road I want to understand you though that you're not you're not such a purist as to be impractical you think you don't think anybody's truck should drive over anybody's pavement if the construction isn't prepared to accept the way no of course not okay perfectly that's but that applies not only the trucks it applies to private cars it applies gone into a private recreational vehicle but what you ought to do is to allow anybody who wants to go into the business of trucking to do so you know there are people today who receive $100,000 a year to give somebody else permission to use their ICC right to carry trucks to carry Freight from one point to another people who make a very good living without owning a single truck the total value of these special permits which have been given to trucking and enterprises to carry Freight even amounts literally to billions of dollars now General Motors and the trucking industry when they come down to Washington and say we ought to continue regulation do they say we ought to continue regulation in order to promote our enters mm-hmm what do they say they say the public will be hurt they are affecting the trade for the public good but do you think they're kidding themselves they're saying we we don't want the wonderful individual people in middle America to be hurt and and you're saying that's not what they're that's they know they're not stupid they're not Santa Claus they're not Santa Claus they are sepal or promoting their own interest and they're affecting the trade for the public good because that's the way to get things done nobody ever goes up to Congress and says look vote me a big bonanza of $100,000 because I'm a good man and I deserve $100,000 out of the public purse no he says you should subsidize x y&z because of poor middle class Americans or the poor people in the slums will but will be benefited from it five so you have two classes of people the so-called do-gooders you have the honest sincere people and they invariably end up being the front men for private interests they would never knowingly support that's part of it what's an example of that an example of that are the 19th century ralph nader's who got the Interstate Commerce Commission established they got the Interstate Commerce Commission established supposedly to protect the consumer no no they the do-gooder reformers the Ralph Nader types were sincere they were interested in promoting the interests of the and they were complaining that the railroads were monopolies and they were charging too high freight rates and we had to get the government in in order to to eliminate that exploitation of the consumer but who benefited from it the ICC was set up the do-gooder well-meaning reformers went on to their next reform and the railroads took over the ICC and they use the ICC to keep out competition to raise rates rather than lower them they used it in the 1920s to get the control of ICC extended to trucking because that was the most dangerous source of competition so those well-meaning reformers not because they were bad people but they ended up being the frontman for special Anderson you have that over and over again all right all right I know you've heard these two incidentally I should point out about the anise mythic I on-air is Adam Smith okay all right look the only frustrating part of a dialogue with you is it is I want the audience has a lot of questions for you too and it's so hard to do this within the confines of this limited time frame however how do you sabe and I know you've answered these questions so you can hear your teeth crack but how do you prevent monopolies you've got to have constraints on monopolies and isn't United Airlines too big and look what happened when they went on strike and should pan absorb national airlines we're going to have three airlines when it's all over and we're all going to be beholden to them there everybody's going to be impersonal you can see it now on the airlines nobody looks you in the eye and they're giving paper cups in first-class how's that for elitism but personally I don't see any objection of paper cups but let's go back the problem with the kind of statement you're making is to distinguish what's true from what's not true the plain fact is that the main restriction on the number of Airlines has been the Civil Aeronautics Board from the time the Civil Aeronautics Board took over control of the airlines in the 1930s until now until the deregulation they did not authorize a single new trunk line be cover a trunk lines was less because they were owned by the airlines who did wanted more competition of course now so the government became in an agency to help existing airlines not to head exactly exactly now what happened with deregulation you filled every seat in the airplane and you had new airlines come in the number of airlines has gone up not down it is true that there are some proposals to merge United and national but they're also Penn amber national I'm sorry but there are also a bunch of new airlines that are coming out here's world airways whom you never heard of before that's offering the G Clara Freddie Laker Freddie Laker broke the transatlantic monopoly so the fact is that the best protection of the consumer the best offense against monopolies it let me put it another way there's an old saying if you want to catch a thief you set a thief to catch him if you want to catch a businessman monopoly you set another businessman to break it down you don't send the government civil servant after them the most effective anti monopoly legislation you could possibly have would be free trade okay now answer this practical question professor freedom and there are some angry people would say come down from your academic tower and tell us how we're going to get automobile dealers who really care about servicing the car as much as they care about selling us the car tell us how we're going to get automobile dealers who-who-who sell us safety with the same vigor that they sell us cosmetics well if the public at large really wanted to bike safety rather than cosmetics it would be in the self-interest of the automobile dealers to sell them safety you have had some automobile companies that have concentrated on selling safety and they have not done very well in the sales you can't blame here you have let me to give you a very simple example you have the so-called superba car which is built by the chequered company that produces checker cabs caps they emphasize safety it's a safest car probably there is built in America they haven't been able to sell very many if the the problem with your your talk is that you're not talking in terms of what the consumer really wants as judged by what he's willing to pay for you're talking in terms of what you think he ought to want I am also taught okay so the underpinning here under underneath your statement here is the stupid public want land knownops no sellers and no fight with blue lights on these cars in the showrooms and overseas yeah I want one of those I'm not I've had lobster I'm not going to call them stupid the public is entitled to buy what it wants to buy Who am I to say whether those tastes are better or we're I mean my take what's your conclusion on a person who's more interested in the style of a car than whether or not the baby's protected after the collision well that's stupid I think he has every right to pursue his own objectives in his own taste and I have every right to try to persuade him he's wrong okay but if I can't persuade him do I have the right to force him now you don't bring in the baby because that raises another and an extraneous and very difficult issue because I am I will agree with you he does not have the right to put a baby like what I'm gonna create that's right that's a different question a third party effect is different I trust you wouldn't pass a law to oblige babies to be constrained in cars no I probably would not but I think that I'm very comfortable in saying no no no I'm comfortable but what I would do is I would say that any parent who nhi Piron ought to be subject to suit and to being sent to jail if a child has been damaged because of parents right are you willing to pay the prosecutor that it's going to take to develop the evidence that the mother didn't place the carpet baby properly in the car and the bureaucracy that will accompany the enforcement of the law which yeah that you can't unfortunately is so they for it I'm not as I said there are like not a lotta reasons I'm not an anarchist okay I believe that government has a very important role but it's a limited role okay and because we've been trying to extend the role we haven't been doing what government ought to do as well as it does as it should we've been doing a terrible job on what ought to be the first function of government the first function of government is to protect the nation against foreign enemies and to protect individual citizens against assault by their fellow citizens and we've been doing a terrible job on both ends and in that in that goal you are you are aligned with John Stuart Mill absolutely not bad company and I want to show you what I've taken out of your book you've quoted million I'm glad to see you've read the page to write my attitude to makes Judah alright that's tough this is a long hour I'll tell you okay here it is John Stehr the sole end for which mankind are warranted this looks grammatically incorrect would stay with us individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self protection the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others and then okay the only part of the conduct of anyone I'm sorry his own good either physical or moral is not a sufficient warrant in other words let's understand that for my own good for my own good the government cannot pass what would what would be called forcible action in other words in other words here's here's the way I can up youth a person ought to be able to kill themselves they have the right to commit suicide is it natural human run it's your it's your life it's your life now I want the government to spend any money to prevent you from doing this absolutely no now I am in fact obviously I as a friend of yours will try to prevent you if you were a friend of mine and you suddenly got to a bridge and we're going to jump over I would certainly rush over and grab you and pull you up but you don't want public money will you be from doing well I would go Father no no I want to go farther on a personal basis I would reason with you I would argue with you but let's suppose after I had reasoned with you after I'd argued with you I had failed to persuade you do I have the right to use force to prevent you from disposing of your own life the clearest changes I think I certainly do know I certainly do not and you do not and certainly you do not have the right to put your hands in the pockets of other people in order to prevent somebody from doing something in his own value system now you know it's an interesting thing every time you bring up issues like this people don't recognize what's been happening where is the rate of suicide highest is it in the countries that are free enterprise countries or is it in socialist countries Sweden has the highest rate of suicide of any of the Western countries that last time I looked at the figures maybe they've changed why I don't mean why but it's an interesting thing interesting observation well that Sweden is one of the most government control government kind of socialist countries in the world yeah but that hasn't prevented people from committing suicide yeah but but the problem we take the simpler cases don't think it lets this play has to be made the problem with your point is that that this is hardly any more the best representative example of what the free enterprise system ought to be so you yourself are America's severus critic you think we've blown Adam Smith's theory here in America so we should have people jumping off bridges left and right here because it's a bad how do you do well we do look at another game the point you just no no it doesn't because we have become so socialists look at the per extent to which people all I see are opting out of the world by going in for drugs by going in for various other activities of this kind which are a delayed form of committing suicide yes one of the problems of our society is that by having all responsibilities assigned to the government we have removed the pressure on individuals to be responsible for themselves to feel that they have a set of values that they are entitled to pursue so that no no I don't believe there I assume then that if somebody wants to smoke marijuana that's their business business absolute are we going to take that to heroin and it did absolutely now there let me go back on that one because that's a very interesting thing even if on ethical principles you believe it is right to prevent somebody else from smoking heroin as a matter of expediency it's a terrible mistake the larger those jumping off the bridge no no I don't mean that I mean it's a terrible mistake for society to render heroin illegal because that increases a harm which era one does why do we have so much crime in the inner cities and in the cities over 50% of it is attributed to crime for the sake of acquiring money to buy heroin because why is heroin so expensive because it's illegal we went through this with prohibition whether you believe it's right or wrong to prevent people from drinking alcohol we had the experience with prohibition in which we found that it did more harm than good and a lot of guys got shot in the garage a lot of guys got shot in the the more important the basic respect for law was eroded law-abiding people who would never ordinarily have broken the law broke the law in order to get a drink because they knew that the that the law enforcement agencies could not possibly enforce with any efficiency the laws against the law of the Prohibition look the reason they couldn't enforce it was because it wasn't publicly back if the 90% of the public had been in favor the prohibition law you could have enforced but I'm promising you 90% of the public it right now is in favor of enforcing prohibition against heroin and you cannot enforce it I agree I was understating my case even with 90% of the people you can't enforce it and it does vastly more harm today because it is illegal than it would do if it were legal let me point out for a moment then more lives are lost each year through drinking alcohol than through but what if there's a case if you're going to make the case for preventing heroin on the basis of saving lives there's a much stronger case for prohibition of alcohol but that there would be some who would argue that to to relax law enforcement or to take away law enforcement pressure on heroin trade is to ensure that heroin deaths will meet and exceed alcohol death on the contrary it would reduce the number of paralegals why would it reduce the number of heroin deaths in the first place many of the death comes come from impure all tolerated heroin or needles that are contaminated in the second place as we found in prohibition the fact of prohibition encouraged alcoholism rather than the opposite to the young people in particular it became an adventure to go out and get drugs to go to a speakeasy today with heroin illegal it pays a heroin pusher to create an addict because given that it's illegal if he it's worth his while to spend some money on getting somebody else hooked because once hooked he has a captive audience if heroin were readily available everywhere it wouldn't pay anybody to create an addict because the Phatak could then go anywhere to buy it you have had experience with this Britain has had legalized not heroin in general but they have had an arrangement under which certified addicts can get heroin from physicians on prescription iesson it's done very much less harm than our system has I have no apologies for believing that far less harm would be done to this country by legalizing heroin than is now being done by trying to enforce heroin prohibition I assume like the baby in the car you would support legislation prohibiting the sale of heroin and other addictive substances to juveniles well that's a very hard question I think it is a there is a different case for juveniles but whether you could really handle the question that's a question of expediency not a principle if I thought I could enforce it I would be willing to say that for juveniles but I'm not sure I could enforce it and I'm not sure when I looked into it I wouldn't decide I did more than good even there you'll agree that this is the issue that lays bare eye the whole notion of your personal statement and this is where we get to the practical realities of sweat and blood everyday life with parental anxiety where are my kids what are those sirens who's selling what to whom what are they doing in the car who's sniffing smoking drinking what is happening out there and for all of the adulation that you've received standing ovations everywhere you go this is a very difficult platform for you to I don't believe I don't believe so because I believe it corresponds to the real understanding and interests and beliefs of the vast majority the American people I think that you have to distinguish between the attitudes of the public at large and the attitudes of a relatively small group of people who have been trying to persuade the public to have different views I know that dr. Friedman and look at prohibition yeah I am worried okay Adam why did you get it adopted in the first place if the people in this audience who are predominantly female will pardon me it was only adopted because the young males were away in France during World War one and the women of the country voted in prohibition now that's neither good nor bad it's a pure statement a historical fact yeah the irony though let's not let's not miss the irony here the irony is that you are the darling of the conservative or the of almost is there anybody left who doesn't think we have too much government and you are as eloquent a spokesman against that abuse as there is walking around today you are also on record as supporting the candidacy of Ronald Reagan yes and do I have to tell you what happens to Ronald Reagan's candidacy if he so much as breeds agreement to the statements you've just made about drugs well fortunately one of the great virtues of being a college professor is that you can say exactly what you believe and what you mean I'm not running for office I've never run for office I have no desire to run for office and so I regard it as a great luxury that I could be a respond we'll be back I just don't believe that you can take away laws I have children if I don't tell them what to do and how to raise them I they won't know what we expected my feel there's nothing I guess you telling your kids with but I met you you compare the government to that telling us what to do in deregulation everything I think we have to have something to go by well but you see what you're expressing is precisely the paternalistic view of government that I object to I don't believe government is a mother of children I don't believe government is a father of children I believe government is a way in which you and I and our fellow citizens achieve certain things jointly that we can't achieve separately and I believe it is your responsibility as a mother to bring up your children in accordance with the values you believe and I believe it's a cop-out for you to say I want the government to do that for me no but there's so you were talking about suicides and how if you had a friend who is going to commit suicide people who commit suicide are very lonely people they usually don't have people to turn to so if you can help them with counseling which the government would fund that would save a life which is very dear it there are different ways to achieve that most counseling groups for suicides in fact are not financed by government money first of all the government doesn't have any money only people have money the government only gets money by putting its hand in your pocket and taking it out if you believe if you believe in the desirability of a counseling agency to counsel suicides more power to you get together with friends organize it finance it on your own and if the government didn't take as much money out of your pockets as it does you'd be better able to do it it's a way and also the fewer lonely people and less suicide that's right doing all right have a slowly really come along we're getting there Phil okay all right uh yes ma'am you want Stan please we're in Chicago with the professor Milton Friedman if since you do like Ronald Reagan and let's say he wins the election and he chooses you as his chief economic adviser what would you do to restore our economy back on the right jaqen would you put us on a gold standard or could you put us on a gold standard when you've asked three questions and I'll try to answer all three of number one I have been offered the chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisors in the past and I have refused it and I guarantee you I would refuse it again because you feel that it's what your something essentially and I believe that I personally can be more useful outside the government that I can inside it's a very important job there are many able people who can do the job I don't believe that's the way I can use my abilities in my interests most effectively I want to remain a responsible they you see what I mean by that if you're in that kind of a position it's right and proper that you're part of a team and if the team decides on something you don't agree with you either go along with it or you quit well I would rather stay on the outside where I can express my own views and I believe I am more effective in that way then I personally would be inside the government so I have no doubts about that but number two let me answer your second two questions what measures should the government take to try to restore economic health to the United States and I have very little doubt about what the major measures there but let me say first you're not going to do it overnight we've gotten into our present pickle because of three decades of mismanagement of the economy and we're not going to get out of it in six months but what you have to do is number one you have to move to cut down government spending to hold down the rate of growth of government spending in dollars and to cut it in terms of purchasing power number two you have to have a restrained monetary policy not a shock treatment not an over not a real cut in the quantity of money but to hold down and have a gradual reduction in the rate of monetary growth number three you have to eliminate as many of the regulations that now bedevil the economy as you possibly can the most important area there is the energy area we have created the energy mess because of governmental intervention the most effective measure we could take for both foreign policy and domestic policy would be to get rid of the Department of Energy to get rid of this mislabeled windfall profits tax to let the private enterprise economy go to work to produce the energy that we need now on your last question I do not believe it is either feasible or desirable to establish a gold standard under current circumstances the gold standard served well in the 19th century if you could restore the conditions of the 19th century namely a situation in which federal government spending was 3% of national income I'd be in favor of a gold standard and some of your detractors would want you to know that the writings of your hero Adam Smith took place as well in the 19th century no no it didn't in the 18th century all right then my point then my point my point is even more valid how if the gold standard is no longer applicable given the modern nature of economics how can we expect Adam Smith's writings to be well the principle which are in an older as you fall tonight well you know the Bible is 2,000 years old and I don't think you would say that the principles of the Bible are not applicable but the way you apply them are different the circumstances are different the principles of Adam Smith are just as applicable today but they have to be applied differently because the circumstances are different and those principles made sense of the gold standard in the 19th century and don't in the 20th we'll talk later about the fairness of referring to the Bible when arguing with the pressure you want to get rid of the FCC - sure of course get rid of the Federal Communications Commission if you can by if you would regulate I mean we got to have some control over the airway no now what I would do would be to have the Federal Communications Commission have a big auction at which they would action off all the present television and radio life and then only fat cats would own radio television station which many up detractors say is the situation now yeah well first place there are many of them and many people could come in and compete with them do only fat cats you talk we were talking about Airlines only fat cats only airlines no anybody here can buy shares stock in the United Airlines or in TWA in the same way with so they'll be publicly held and stockholders could dissent if they didn't like the commercials if the commercials were too long I could sell if they thought that the the company what the station wasn't doing a good job they could sell their stock much more effective than voting in Washington because each individual separately can decide what to do but more important if you once put it into made it into private property it would be not subject to the Fairness Doctrine you would have the same kind of Free Press on radio and television that you now have in the newspapers but you got to trust me to put all of the candidates on my program or am I just going to put my favor you put your favorite on and some other station will put its favorite on you do not get fairness by every individual program being fair you do not get fairness by every individual station get fairness in any event I'm not in favor of fairness I'm in favor of freedom and freedom is not fairness fairness means somebody has to decide what's fair and that means the FCC people have to decide what's fair I didn't want the FCC people to decide for me what I should listen to or here and you wouldn't be able if the public at large didn't agree with your choices you'd be out of business yeah so you were you you know it's a funny thing people think that if the appearance of power versus a reality of power it looks like as if you have a lot of power over what you put on your shelf but you don't really because because if you didn't appeal to the public if these people didn't like you do a marvel yeah I'm not questioning that but you do a marvelous job because you have found an audience for your Donna so in other words my power comes to the people is your classroom and if I just put on all of my favorites then the public will clearly see the Donny who was sold out in there go there right look I've been reading your book it's a good book and I recommend it to you just as he recommended mine but in that book you point out the difficulties you had getting into New York yes suppose you had had to have government permission to go into New York do you think you would have had it any easier do you think you could have had as much independence as you've had mm-hmm and under the friedman laissez-faire Broadcasting System there would have been more opportunities for this happening know how to do absolutely there would have been more stations then what would have been instead of three big networks you would have had a much broader group of stations you would have been able to break you in much sooner I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing but it would have happened ah is can we take one here we got a bit is the caller there yeah just hang on a second I'm doing my best we'll be back in Justin Milton Friedman is reachable via United States mail government-controlled as it is and at the Hoover Institution Stanford California the zip there is nine for 305 okay that's easy enough in an age of bureaucratic numbers mumbo-jumbo this arel relatively simple address let him know how you feel I know you're there caller at Stanford California just one I've got to get this in let's now one more time off the ivory tower you're you your statement against government growth and too much spending do I assume that you bring the same free to be irresponsible statements against military spending well about forty billion dollars you say a hundred and forty billion twenty fifteen years ago military spending was over twice as much as a spending of hgw today the spending of hgw is over twice as much is about twice as much as military spending fifteen twenty years ago before Vietnam military spending was nine percent of the national income today it's between four and five percent I said earlier the two basic functions of the government or to protect the nation against foreign enemies yes and to protect the citizen against his fellows military spending is essential for the first of course if we could do it in a private enterprise way it'd be a lot cheaper would you like to try I have never been able to figure out a way to turn the military the defense of the country over to private enterprise ideal prised anybody aggressive professor Friedman there aren't there are critics who say that it already is and the theories and old men declare wars is because they have a financial investment in the companies that make bombs and bullets and guns and uniforms and all it takes to get the I don't believe that for a moment I don't doubt that the people who have those interests try to exert their influence in that way but this is so serious and so important to matter that I really think it's no lasting on what's going on no one is saying it's a conscious effort but but the fact that the profit is there has got to influence behavior it's going to mean that indecision I mean that's the reason why our military spending has gone down so sharply 140 billion isn't enough for you do you know how much an aircraft carrier cause I got this just today this week from Senator Proxmire five billion for the boat and five billion for the planes on a ten billion for one boat how do you feel about that I think it's a it's a lot too much and might very likely if you could turn that over to private enterprise it would cost half as much but we have to have a strong military and at the moment let me get to this because I think it's very important if this country is fundamentally threatened in my opinion it is threatened much more by our weak position and foreign affairs than it is threatened by any mistakes that we have made in economic management we can recover from the mistakes in economic management but if we put ourselves in a position and foreign policy of the kind we've been putting ourselves in we cannot recover we're through so one day I'm all that's directly opposite the statements of many many honorable reasonable people who are saying it's the cost of bacon and the fact that the middle class can't make it to the next paycheck and the fact that several thousand people in the automobile industry are out of work that's going to threaten the integrity and strength of this country not a group of students somewhere it's not it would you talk about a group of students I'm not concerned about the group of students I'm concerned about the Russian armies on both sides of that straight I'm concerned about the fact that in our neglect we permitted the Russian to take over the base of eight when the British left it in 1971 and they have built up a major military base with airplanes and so on that they are now coming into Afghanistan they've got both parts of the Persian Gulf and Upen sirs all right oh my how unrealistic can you be not to look at what's been happening to the relative strength and position of the Russians on the one hand of ourselves and the other and do you think they're spending that money and devoting their energy to that in order to have it sit idle alright and what are you going to do with the workers who built all these airplanes after the order is canceled by the government General Dynamics and Fort Worth Boeing in Seattle what are you what is the economists going to do to help the economy the local economy when suddenly Big Daddy government cuts off the not a thing not a thing the and there's no reason to do anything because all of those people and the people who bit in that included in their bids and allowance for the possibility and the danger that they would be cut off and they will have to adjust just as all the other people have to adjust what are you going to do for the people who are out of work when the public and large suddenly changes from wanting the one kind of pair of shoes to another kind of pair of shoes what are you going to do when the public at large decides it's it's not going to go in big cars it's going to go in little cars I don't want to do a thing I want to let the private market work the private market system is a system of profit and loss and the lost part is just as essential as a profit part it is a disgrace that we should be bailing out Christ Chrysler ought to be allowed to go broke all right I know the collar is still there all right I'm gonna try and get you on I really am and I'm sorry but I have to break now we'll be yeah in the free enterprise system call is a tease we'll be back in a moment hi I'm glad you waited sorry what you had a question oh yes I would like to ask what Professor Friedman what the average middle-income taxpayer can do to get to quit being taken to the cleaners by the IRS unfortunately unfortunately very little I do not believe that you can find a solution to that problem as individuals I think we can find a solution to that problem as citizens thanks very much to Milton free yourself and Alan I think go free to choose the book don't forget the book I'm happy to show off the book have a nice day everybody

Channel: EdChoice

Views: 605,970

Rating: 4.8585014 out of 5

Keywords: Milton, Friedman, Donahue, Free, to, Choose

Id: 1EwaLys3Zak

Length: 45min 27sec (2727 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/satoshi_vision]

Bitcoin forces governments to be honest, it protects against oligarchy and corruption through the printing of money. Money is the center of everything and Bitcoin is the first form of money designed to resist oligarchy. It shrinks governments. "Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master". We need it to stop being our master, and start serving us instead, and Bitcoin enables a path to make this happen.

[u/satoshi_vision]

Another interesting part, he also says @18m36s mark that "I am not an anarchist. I believe government has a very important role but it is a limited role. And because we've been trying to extend the role, we haven't been doing what government ought to do as well as it should. We've been doing a terrible job at what ought to be the first function of government..."

[u/lgdly]

arent bchsv leaders trying to use government to sue abc? lol