Free to Choose: A Personal Statement Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B000SKJMMY | Format: PDF
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement Description
Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, teamed up to write this most convincing and readable guide, which illustrates the crucial link between Adam Smith's capitalism and the free society. They show how freedom has been eroded and prosperity undermined through the rapid growth of governmental agencies, laws, and regulations. While a large central government may have good intentions, the results it produces are lamentable. More than another indictment of government planning and bureaucracy, however,
Free to Choose offers several convincing and creative remedies to the world's woes.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 12 hours and 15 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
- Audible.com Release Date: June 22, 2007
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000SKJMMY
Being Nobel winning economist, I was not sure what to expect from this "personal statement". What a pleasant surprise and enjoyable read. The book represents the Friedman's take on the government policies of the day (1979). Not knowing that the book was written over 20 years ago a reader would swear it just rolled off the press. The fact that the problems addressed by this book are still the problems we are (or more importantly are not truly) debating today only bolsters the arguments that current government policy is failing.
As a not quite totally liberal or Libertarian (as modern socialist democrats (Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Diane Feinstien, etc.) and moderate Republicans (Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, James Jeffords, etc.) have co-opted the liberal and moderate monikers), Friedman puts forth arguments against government intervention is many areas, but does demonstrate where government can be helpful, in limited ways, to address various market failures. The book addresses areas such as free markets, price and wage controls (which are currently causing electricity shortages in California), equality and justice, education (Friedman has been urging parental choice in public schooling since the 1950s), consumer protection, worker protection and inflation. The book presents each issue by examining how we got to the current state, what is wrong with the current policy and how he believes the policy should be changed. In various instances, he suggest both his preferred change and a watered down version (pragmatic version) that might actually be enacted in our current political morass.
A quick note to readers. One reviewer suggested that the book plagiarizes the work of Lord John Maynard Keynes. This could not be further from the truth.
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