Today in History- October 14. Two Nobel Prize Winners, Commemorating One, Condemning the Other. A series, Part I
On October 14, 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in leading the non-violent resistance to racism, segregation, and discrimination against African Americans.
He was the youngest person to have received the award, at age 35.
Dr. King's story has been told many times over, and is well chronicled by documentaries and Historical accounts. My wife Martha and I were politically active for 40 years, and we were fortunate to have known and worked with some of his closest collaborators, such as Rev. James Bevel, and Ms. Amelia Boynton Robinson. We learned first hand from them just how difficult the pathway of non-violence actually was, in a nation where fire bombings, lynchings, beatings, and other varieties of indignity were carried out, in the name of preserving what our current "misleader" would characterize as "Confederate Heritage." The system of "Jim Crow" which Dr. King defeated through his campaigns, is today being brought back with a vengeance by the White Nationalist pretender president and his cult followers in the Republican Party. So, we pause for a moment to remember what Dr. King did, and how he did it, invoking that standard of dignity and self-discipline with which he approached every fight in which he engaged. He taught, he led, risked everything, and inspired, and did it without dropping F-Bombs and screaming "burn it to the ground".
Rather than write about Dr. King today, I will stick to my perspective of writing about those things which most people don't know about, haven't thought about much, and might not even feel is relevant to them, yet for whom the need to know could not be greater or more timely. In that spirit, I am going to write about the other Nobel Prize, given on October 14, 1976, to economist Milton Friedman. [pic1, Friedman and Nixon]
Milton Friedman- The Man Who Revived Fascist Economics, and Called It "Freedom".
You may have heard the name before, as he was featured in a PBS Series, titled "Free To Choose", also the title of his most famous and misnamed book. He was a prolific author, and widely publicized by Conservative News Media and Magazines, especially by the followers of William F. Buckley.
In fact, Milton Friedman is the current top economic advisor to the Trump Administration, and the main architect of the GOP approach to dealing with the present economic crisis, though he has been keeping a low profile. A very low profile. Six feet under, low. He is currently dead, and has been for 14 years, yet his horrific philosophy continues to stalk about, haunting us like the living dead animated by a Voodoo curse, burning live Chickens, chanting incantations, and propitiating the irrational forces of the "Dark Side". [Pic2, commanding the Market to bounce back]
Yes, Voodoo is a very relevant word in discussing this subject. In fact, If we were to make a list of the exact Sciences, such as economic modeling and forecasting, grounded in hard data and empirical evidence, I would rank Voodoo at approximately 4,150th, followed by Friedman at number 4,151.
Let's start at the beginning. The hatchery from which Milton Friedman was sprung was called the University of Chicago. They are famous for their school of economics, which has the trendy and upbeat name, "The Chicago School". They are nothing if not original.
The Chicago School was indeed first, among all economic curricula, to raise what could be described as an advanced symptom of mental illness to the level of Academic Dogma. That symptom has a name, which is "Monetarism". Coincidentally, that term is very close philologically to the words "mania", and as well "monotony". However, you may notice that the word root is primarily related to money. Conceptually, Monetarism is a form of Academic Encopresis, a form of infantile object fixation/fetish which we will not be discussing over dinner. This fact tells you a great deal about Milton Friedman, his academic mental illness, and that of his entire school. You see, Money, intrinsically has no value, and is a fictional creation. It exists essentially as a gentleman's agreement between a government and its people, and amongst governments and private institutions. Money is as real as the bytes of data which you save on your devices or in the Cloud. In other words, not real at all, not worth the digital imprint that it isn't even printed on anymore. Even Gold and other precious metals derive their value from an agreement, and have no intrinsic value, except as a means of exchange, created as a convenience. Try having Gold for dinner, or burning it in your fireplace for warmth. Ironically, most people have been misled by such Voodoo promoters to believe that money is their main source of wealth and security, and were they to have more or it, would be better off. That is not the fault of the people, it is however the primary way in which we are manipulated and corrupted. We'll come back to that. [pic3 Boopdollars]
So, imagine if you will, an entire theory, of life, society, government, finance, social and economic policy, management, and measurement, called Monetarism, which is based on something which is fictional. In effect, the entirety of US economic policy under Republican Presidents, taught in our Universities, spread through Conservative and Libertarian Think Tanks, debated by pundits, and awarded Nobel Prizes, is the equivalent of Harvey the Rabbit.
[Pic4, imaginary friend Harvey, with Jimmy Stewart]
I'll interject for a moment that though I enjoy lampooning and ridiculing this incompetent and absurd philosophy, it is to be taken deadly seriously. The actual economic program of Milton Friedman and his followers, such as George Shultz, Paul Volcker, Donald Regan, Alan Greenspan, has been imposed and carried out by some of the most corrupt and murderous regimes in the 20th Century, from Pinochet's Chile, the Nixon takedown of the Bretton Woods post War system, Margaret Thatcher's UK, and the mass murderous "Shock Therapy" program imposed on Post Soviet Russia. (the Russian program unleashed the current beast of Russian Nationalism and Imperial revanchism which confronts us now with Putin's operations) Friedman's outlook has been at the core of every operation to dismantle the benefits of FDR's New Deal, to destroy the social safety net and with it the concept of developing infrastructure and science for the Public Good, every bit of progress coming from the Civil Rights movement in the form of Affirmative Action, and ending discrimination based on sex. Also, Monetarist philosophy has actively been the engine for the Right-Wing Think Tanks and Republican Party leadership since the Reagan era, using Friedman's philosophy to take a sledgehammer to the carefully and thoughtfully built system of Regulation of Corporations, initiated by FDR, and continued up until Nixon brought in the Monetarists to begin dismantling it. Every disgusting development the financial world since Nixon, from the explosion of Mergers, Junk Bonds, Derivatives, and now SPACs, (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies) Crypto currencies, and many more varieties of Bubbles and Ponzi Schemes flow from the insane drive toward Deregulation. The most destructive polluters in the corporate world are now doing so with impunity, because Friedman's "Conservative Revolution" spearheaded by disgraced former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, has enabled them by lifting environmental regulations which had reigned them in.
The Philosophy of Milton Friedman posits a false idea of "Freedom". It is rooted in the unfettered by government pursuit of property and financial wealth by individuals, even if in flagrant disregard for the Public Interest. It celebrates greed as an attribute to be admired and enabled, in the belief that greed is what drives the economy and motivates people to work. It reifies Social Darwinism, the outlook which says that the "Markets" will reward the "fittest", and whatever calamities befall the unfit, is nature taking its course, "weeding out the unfit". And finally, Friedmanism demands extreme levels of economic austerity, a savage reduction in living standards, in the name of "fighting monetary inflation", and rescuing a Nations currency and credit worthiness. This is why Friedman's misnamed program, "Free to Choose", has never been able to be implemented by any nation that practiced Democracy. Only Dictatorships have been able to implement the program of the Chicago School, and they were all miserable destructive failures. Even according to Friedmanite William F. Buckley...
"It is possible that Milton Friedman's policies must suffer the overriding disqualification that they simply cannot get a sufficient exercise in Democratic situations".
So, we will come back to this, and look at each instance in which Friedman's policies produced disaster. Before that, I want to look at the origins of his Monetarism, and intellectual influences. That will be Part 2.
