Re:Milton Friedman - Why Drugs Should Be Legalized
« Reply #1 on: 2010-04-24 04:16:12 »
[Blunderov] 5 stars to Friedman but only 4 to the producers of the video who chose to end with the caption " More Liberty, less government". Certainly it is a catchy slogan. And slogans do, by nature, tend to gloss over nuances. This one however is a fallacious equivocation. Not all government is bad, indeed more of it is required in respect of, for instance, the banking practices/fraud which has almost brought the world economy to its knees and which are a good example of decisions being made which lead to the harm of innocent bystanders. Perfectly legitimate for government to intervene here IMV. Do we see a " War Against Financial Malpractices" being waged tooth and nail in the boardrooms of America. Strangely, no. Why not, I wonder?
[Blunderov] 5 stars to Friedman but only 4 to the producers of the video who chose to end with the caption " More Liberty, less government". Certainly it is a catchy slogan. And slogans do, by nature, tend to gloss over nuances. This one however is a fallacious equivocation. Not all government is bad, indeed more of it is required in respect of, for instance, the banking practices/fraud which has almost brought the world economy to its knees and which are a good example of decisions being made which lead to the harm of innocent bystanders. Perfectly legitimate for government to intervene here IMV. Do we see a " War Against Financial Malpractices" being waged tooth and nail in the boardrooms of America. Strangely, no. Why not, I wonder?
I'm guessing your final question was rhetorical but ... I think we're not seeing a War Against Financial Malpractices because people in power rarely wage war against their own benefactors.
The causes of the recent financial meltdown were complex and I'm skeptical of any simple explanations such as "wall street greed". If you look at the system you'll find that gov't policy was almost certainly a factor. Maybe more govt oversight would help prevent this sort of failure in the future but maybe there are other solutions.
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