Posted by
Tom Grey - Liberty Dad on Friday, November 17, 2006 12:45:41 PM
How Milton Friedman helped end the Draft:
At one point, Westmoreland declared that he
did not want to command an army of "mercenaries."
"I stopped him and said, "General, would you rather command an army
of slaves?" Friedman later recalled. "He drew himself up and said, 'I
don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.' I replied, 'I
don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries.'"
U.S. officials ended the draft in 1973.
I met Milton quite a few
times at Libertarian Party functions around Stanford in the early 80s. He was a
Libertarian hero and, despite being ’Republican’, was a nearly pure-L
libertarian. He always wanted the Lib Party to be as pure as possible, to
advocate freedom from an economic view but also with freedom as a moral good.
He thought bringing the pure Liberty argument into the political discussion would change the debate, in
a similar fashion but a 180 degrees different direction as the Socialist view
of the early 20th century.
He was great. He’ll be missed. We were proud and pleased when he visited Bratislava, Slovakia.
(See the F.A. Hayek Foundation, but Hayek.sk is just in Slovak, so far.)
David Boaz lists many of Friedman’s pioneering
ideas, the World Turner shows how he mattered.
"The collectivist ideas that had dominated the 20th century were being replaced by a more libertarian spirit.
And
not just in England and the United States. The success of the free
market in Chile influenced other Latin American countries to move away
from their long tradition of interventionism and tentatively embrace
markets. About a decade after Reagan's election, the Soviet empire
collapsed, and many of the new leaders in eastern and central Europe
turned out to be readers of... Milton Friedman."
My comment:
Thanks, David, for
highlighting how successful the Chilean "Chicago Boys" experiment was
-- so much more so than Castro's which started 10 years earlier.
The
attacks on Pinochet for real human rights abuses, and even murders, are
driven more by a hatred of successful capitalism than a hatred of
murder (as you imply by the lack of criticism of China, whose leaders
have murdered far more).
Milton was also influencial in Slovakia
(with some Cato supported F.A. Hayek Foundation think tank ideas) -- we
have a 19% flat rate tax, and a 3 pillar pension system including
choice of where to invest for our required 2nd pillar. (1st pillar
insurance for all poor and old; 3rd pillar tax advantaged private
savings, like IRAs).
Really nice quotes you've added, too.
Your
own Cato Institute is perhaps the leading proponent of many of
Friedman's ideas. Please continue following the advice I heard Milton
often offer to Libertarians -- advocate the pure-L libertarian
position, to shift the terms of the realpolitik debate.
Ralph Kinney Bennet has one of the most notable remberances, of being 29 years younger but playing
Tennis with Milton
"I began to notice that although his face was relaxed, even
smiling at times, the eyes behind his glasses were very concentrated.
He looked like a man enjoying himself as he moved about in the
sunlight, but his eyes seemed almost apart from him and focused on
nothing but the ball."
Not a big surprise in the ending, but very worth reading, a fine story, with such a refreshing lesson.
"At peace with his own strengths and weaknesses" -- what a nice balance to strive for and achieve.
I'm really glad he lived so well, and so long.
I hope the US Congress considers a better School Vouchers program, as a suitable monument to a great thinker.