In the same chapter Friedman literally says:
> On the contrary, I believe strongly that the color of a man's skin or the religion of his parents is, by itself, no reason to treat him differently; that a man should be judged by what he is and what he does and not by these external characteristics. I deplore what seem to me the prejudice and narrowness of outlook of those whose tastes differ from mine in this respect and I think the less of them for it.
> Except Friedman wasn't a racist, and the quote is cut specifically to make it appear that way.
He doesn't say that Friedman was racist, you made that up.
He says that Friedman was a fundamentalist and that people should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, and the quote illustrates that well and the context doesn't change anything to that point.
> He says that Friedman was a fundamentalist and that people should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, and the quote illustrates that well and the context doesn't change anything to that point.
No, Firedman says that government force isn't the best way to address discrimination. Again the quote is clipped to mislead.
Page 93 (as numbered on the pages, IDK which PDF "page" [edit: nb the table of contents gets it wrong, one supposes the pages were re-numbered in the digitization process, or something]) or just search "Capitalism and Discrimination" and it'll get you there fast, for anyone who's interested. The chapter is... well, I found a real howler, but then I have odd taste in entertainment, sometimes, and my enjoyment was almost certainly not by a route the author intended. I'd recommend it just on that basis, regardless of its role in this thread but, uh, only for my fellow weirdos.
FWIW I didn't find Zitron's framing of it misleading, having now read it (I'd read excerpts of that book before, and maybe even that chapter, but couldn't recall for sure, so re-read it just now)
Instead he advocated that the absence of regulation would somehow, magically make racists who control capital be not racist anymore.
There's nothing misleading in that quote.
He also wasn't against all regulations, and specifically supports regulating positive harms.
You could read the chapter yourself in 15 minutes.
I know, I just think it is much like believing that fairies exist. Except that believing in fairies causes no harm to society. His beliefs did.
> You could read the chapter yourself in 15 minutes.
You just presume others didn't read it, when in fact you dislike their interpretations and conclusions after reading it.
> Except that believing in fairies causes no harm to society. His beliefs did.
I don't agree, and such a banal analogy is not exactly convincing.
Perhaps believing in fairies does cause harm to society.
Guess what that makes you?
I think it is totally within the bounds of reasonable discourse to discuss if minimum wage laws achieve their stated goals.
Prefacing that with "I am personally against discrimination" is pretty much meaningless. His awful economic doctrine and beliefs will result in discrimination anyway.
Let's not pretend Friedman needs to be presented in a bad light to make it clear he was an awfully evil person.
I absolutely think it’s ridiculous to call him an evil person, it’s a totally unfair characterization.
He is arguing against the only thing that could meaningfully reduce discrimination and increase equality. As I refuse to believe Friedman was an imbecile, the only possibility left is malice. He knows that his free market fundamentalism will result in more discrimination, but he doesn't care because government is icky.
> I absolutely think it’s ridiculous to call him an evil person, it’s a totally unfair characterization.
He was evil because he advocated for policies and doctrines that meaningfully make the lives of people worse. It's likely impossible to measure the harm he caused to the world.
Surely we can agree the freer market in New York was superior to the government control of contracts in North Carolina.
Free markets have demonstrably lifted billions of people out of abject poverty in the last 50 years.
In my view what lifted people from abject poverty was a measure of technological progress and industrialization. The places where people were mostly lifted out of poverty do not embrace the completely unregulated free market fantasy of Friedman.
I believe in government as a strong regulator to rein in corporations, because corporations are optimized to generate profits even when they cause harm to society in their profit-seeking mandate. Obviously you will disagree with this, because government icky, and you seem to embrace the fantasy that once free of the shackles of icky government, the benevolent capital holders will benefit the world somehow.
You advocate for something very extreme, and it is clear we won't find middle ground at this point.
Have a great evening, and feel free to have the last word.
I don’t disagree that governments have a role in regulating harms, and neither did Friedman. He did believe that taxing pollution was more effective than setting particular targets, but that’s a difference of approach not of aims.
I think we probably have more overlap than you imagine.
you are choosing to define segregation very narrowly - as in a government law requiring individuals to be segregated (attend separate schools, or use separate bathrooms, etc)
that is an absurd definition to use in this context, because the original example from Friedman's quote is a different type of segregation - a business owner hanging out a sign that says "we're hiring, but only white people".
redlining [0] created segregated neighborhoods, but not via government mandate, just from banks and mortgage lenders "voluntarily" deciding that certain neighborhoods should be whites-only. there were also housing covenants [1, 2] that enforced segregation via contract law.
if your definition of segregation does not include those practices, your definition is worthless.
0: https://www.brickunderground.com/blog/2015/10/history_of_red...
1: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/realestate/racism-home-de...
The Federal Housing Authority created in 1933 and the Home Owners' Loan Corporation created in 1934 created the zones and directed the banks where to make loans. I’d suggest you read a bit either. I’d suggest The Color of Law.
from the NYT article I linked to:
> In 1927, the National Association of Real Estate Boards — now the National Association of Realtors — championed racial covenants, creating a model clause that was inserted into countless deeds. It read, in part: “No part of said premises shall be sold, given, conveyed or leased to any negro or negroes.”
> The Federal Housing Administration, which was created in the 1930s to insure home mortgages, also all but required racial covenants to guarantee loans, including those for developments like Levittown, a community of mass-produced tract homes on Long Island that opened in the late 1940s and where only “members of the Caucasian race” were allowed to live.
there was legally-mandated segregation, but it was not exclusively done through legal mandates. some of it was "voluntary" contracts of the sort Friedman is defending.
your previous comment was that people in NY in 1950 didn't have legally mandated segregation. but apparently you are aware that there was segregation in NY in that time period?
maybe you're splitting microscopic hairs, and letting "in 1950" do some heavy lifting? because those covenants were enforceable in NY and elsewhere, but only up until Shelley v. Kraemer in 1948.
and of course, lots of other discrimination was legally allowed after that, up until the Fair Housing Act - for example, advertising apartment rentals in NYC as "whites-only" would have been perfectly legal until 1968 [0]. that's also a "voluntary" contract of the sort Friedman thinks the state shouldn't interfere with?
> I’d suggest you read a bit either. I’d suggest The Color of Law.
are you unaware of how condescending you come across with comments like this?
or are you aware, and are OK with it? (especially when "go read such-and-such" has been repeated in many of your comments throughout this thread)
it's quite possible for people to have read all the same books as you have, but come away with different opinions. responding to someone who disagrees with you with "go read this book" is kind of an asshole move. it carries a baked-in assumption that the person who disagrees with you isn't as well-informed as you are.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968#Types...
I think we have a reasonable difference of opinion here, and while my focus is primarily on the force of law, you're right the the history of the racial covenants is important to consider.
Actually this is a pretty weak point. We have plenty of historical examples where a terrible person came up with a brilliant idea. So Friedman being racist or not (he was categorically not, Zitron is being unfair here) is kind of a non-issue. The philosophical problem is that favoring shareholder value above moral value or social value (or whatever you want to call it: the betterment of society; or Socrates' "flourishing" [εὐδαιμονία]) just doesn't seem to have any positive externalities.
"Line go up," sure, but what does that actually do? "Line go up" teleology is trivially a dead end moral philosophy. In fact, if history is much of a teacher, any economic teleology seems to be pretty morally bankrupt—from concrete jungle capitalism to Bolshevik communism to bartering. I'm extrapolating, but here, I do agree with Ed.
The person who is good at consistently making the value/number go up and to the right on your money; or the one that gives vague ‘social good’ reasons why they aren’t?
Especially if the ‘social good’ stuff is often vague and non-concrete?
The world is a much different place from when Socrates was around.
This has nothing to do with the broader point of drafting policies that further social flourishing (there's disagreements as to what this means, of course) as opposed to drafting policies that further "line go up." In fact, I'd argue that the latter is meaningless without a foundational underpinning (we see this in imploding hyper-inflated economies).
In other words, who cares if I have a zillion Funbucks if the country is falling apart?
He was never saying just do what the fuck ever you can to flip a buck. The article quoted by Edward Zitron is Friedman responding to Nixon trying to shame companies into not raising prices during an inflationary period.
At a certain scale, regardless of what you personally choose (unless most others in the country do exactly the same thing you do), the country is going to either ‘fall apart’ or not regardless. Think of it from an election perspective - no matter how hard you voted for anyone but Trump last election in the US, Trump still got elected.
But, you can choose if you’ll have more money or not at the end, depending on which company you choose to invest in. So for instance, regardless of how you voted, practically, it would have still been a good idea to invest in some of the companies which benefit from Trump being in office, eh?
Yes, this does lead to larger scale problems when everyone does the same math. But at the same time, the actual math is the same for everyone, eh?
Money may be the root of all evil, but how much you have also decides if you’re going to be eating cat food in retirement, or have gourmet home cooked meals eh?
Monks may sleep better at night, but that is a trade off few others are able to make.