Book of the Week – August 25th, 2012

With the beginning of the political conventions I thought it would be instructive to return to Milton Friedman. Free to Choose was written in 1980 and reprinted in 1990. It talks about the changing opinion of socialism and capitalism. But it gives warning which had we heeded it we would never be where we are today.

“Idealistic faith in socialism still lives on, but only in some ivory tower enclaves in teh west and in some of the most backward countries elsewhere.” If that isn’t a repudiation of the “Harvard and Yale” intellectually arrogant belief in Keynes rather than Hayek and the “we know better than you” bureaucrats in all of our capitals I don’t know what would be. Read the book and you will see we have been forewarned about our government encroaching on free enterprise for capital, defending indefensible programs “as is” such as social security and medicare, teaching for teachers and unions not for parents and especially for students and much much more.

This is a time like few others in our brief history. This is akin to the civil war in import. Do we want more government or less. The time is now.