Milton Friedman on Slavery and Colonization

first you talk about the injustice is which in which prevail in the so-called communist countries and then the free societies which exist in the capitalist countries and the wealth that has been created there but you restrict your arguments to the Western European countries the United States and Japan what you fail to point out is that most of the countries in the world are capitalist that is the means of production are owned privately or the accumulation of wealth is privately accumulated most of these countries have severely repressive governments and most of them suffer from huge unemployment rates hunger and poverty if we look at India as compared to China which has twice as many people and under its system the Chinese system has been able to achieve things for the masses of people which India could not even consider the same thing goes would you come to your questions about just two more points because I've excuse me I'd like a little bit of free speech myself we don't want to deny you free speech we drive everybody's people s past thank you very much I think we agree with you so let me finish okay the problem which a lot of us feel is first you did not mention in terms of the countries you were pinpointing such barbarous countries the South African Zimbabwe and in terms of giving your appraisal of the riches that have been accumulated in the Western so-called democracies capitalist democracies I would like you to give us an honors the value of evaluation of just how these countries got so rich so quick and that direct relationship of that to the fact that there were slaves that worked free labor and the wealth that was created in this society being a direct product of that relationship and also of the colonial relationships of the Western European countries and the wealth which they bled out of the people in their colonial domain I will be glad to answer those first of all as a sense in which every country in the world is capitalist Soviet Union is capitalist every country in the world has large capital under control and the real question is of course the organization whereby the capital is controlled in the Soviet Union it is controlled by the state or by officials of the state in the second place I have been talking for an hour I would like to talk to you for 10 hours in a full discussion I would certainly agree with you the capitalism is not a sufficient condition for freedom it's a necessary condition for freedom I never said that wherever you had capitalism you had freedom I never said that I never made that statement I made the opposite statement wherever you had freedom you had capitalism capitalism is a necessary condition for freedom but not a sufficient condition for freedom in addition you need relatively broad access to capital and a relatively free market again relatively unique competition I usually refer to it as competitive capitalism to distinguish it from certain kinds of systems which have been capitalist and have all of the bad qualities that you described in the second place because I want to don't want to take too much time to go to your final points in the second place it simply is not true that the enormous increase in the well-being of the free countries of the West arose out of slavery slavery was a blot on our discussion there is no question and of course it was a disgrace to this country to have had slavery as long as it did but if you take Britain which did not have slavery if you and I'm going to go to the colonies that's the next point I'm trying to take one point at a time the gentleman made two separate points one had to do with colony want had to do with slavery and want how to do with colony Britain did not have slaves Japan did not have slaves in the hundred years since the Meiji Restoration Hong Kong today does not have slaves and you ask yourself if you want to know how people feel ordinary people feel about different systems you ask how they vote with their feet and you ask whether it's Hong Kong that has to put up police to keep people from Hong Kong going into China or it's China that has to put up police to keep people from China going into Hong Kong so look at the way people vote with their feet before you judge which society gives them better conditions but in any event in any event let me go to the final point of colonial of columns in the first place it's not true that the wealth or the benefits of the West derive from exploiting the colonies the facts are against you the reason why you say that is because it is so hard for people to get out of the notion that life is a zero-sum game they think if one man benefits of another must lose but in a free market both people can benefit now if you take the case of Africa the wheel the wheel had not been invented in parts of Africa by the end of the 19th century the number of people in Africa and their average conditions of life in Africa have been enormous grown enormous Li as a result of their contacts with the West well I would say you don't know your facts sir they in the case in the case of India which is a very famous case if you look again at the facts all of the studies have shown that it cost Britain more to maintain India these are some famous studies by Jacob Viner which went into the details of it in great detail in colonialism has always cost the mother country more than it ever gotten any direct or indirect economic benefits so far as India was concerned the history of India is divided into three periods the period of British rule in the 19th and early 20th century when there was very real progress in the standard of life of the people of India the period of the 20s and the 30s when there was a great struggle against Britain and for independence when there was essential stagnation in India and there was no growth the period since the creation of Independence in 1948 when you have had a highly centralized government when unfortunately it was Harold Laski and not Adam Smith who is the most respected intellectual figure in India when India when the Indian people have have lost not improved when the average amount of food and so on has been going down not up the people of India have been worse off under independent non colonial government than they had been before so colonialism well first of all where is do you have colonialism today you have the classic the classic colonialism behind the eastern cut behind the Iron Curtain you have Russia which is a master country I mean not the union of socialist Soviet republics but Russia which is a master country with a great colony around it within the Soviet Union in Poland and Czechoslovakia hungry that's the great example today of your classic kind of colonialism the United States with trivial exceptions has never been a colonial country it did have Philippines it had Philippines for a while Cuba was not a colony of the United States in any event in any event you need a sense of proportion in the period between the between the Revolution in 1776 in 1898 the US had no colonies and yet the u.s. that was a period of the greatest growth and the greatest economic development of the United States your question you

Channel: Sidewinder77

Views: 1,237,823

Rating: 4.5178723 out of 5

Keywords: Milton, Friedman, Capitalism, Freedom, Slavery, Colonialization, liberty, socialism, communism, economics, documentary, Africa

Id: 4xeebU8VhmY

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 02 2007

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[u/ctphillips]

This guy's really a vile POS. Check out his ideas for "thriving baby markets." Yes - selling babies to the highest bidder.

[u/[deleted]]

Of course he is gross. He believed in free markets. Capitalism is a stain on the world.