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 so-called "movement conservatives", from Nixon to Reagan, to Newt Gingrich and Trumpworld, and is still to this day 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. In fact, six feet under. 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 Britain's Adam Smith and his "Invisible Hand". (Which is the hand which picks your pocket)

 [Pic2, Voodoo Economist 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 Friedmanite economics 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 curriculum programs 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 called "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 and metaphorically, monetarism is a form of academic "Encopresis", a form of infantile object fixation/fetish (look it up) which we will not be discussing over dinner.  This fact tells you a great deal about Milton Friedman, his academic sociopathy, and that of his entire school. 

You see, Money, it should be remembered, 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.  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, even though in modern times it is not even physical, rather a digital fiction. 

 [pic3  1920's Crypto, "BoopCoin"]

They have also been misled to believe that their money is being unjustly taken from them and squandered by advocates of "big government" through unjust taxation to subsidize the too lazy to work Socialists, illegal immigrants and minorities who are content to feed off of the public trough.  That popular but stupid belief has been a constant drumbeat in Conservative propaganda over decades, and is therefore a primary way in which our citizens have been manipulated and corrupted. We'll come back to that.

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 at this point that while 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, and Alan Greenspan, has been imposed and carried out by some of the most corrupt and murderous regimes in the 20th Century. Stark examples of this model include Pinochet's Chile, the Nixon administration (which severed the US Dollar from the Gold Standard, destroying the Bretton Woods post War system of fixed exchange rates), Margaret Thatcher's extreme austerity regime in the UK, and the mass murderous "Shock Therapy" program imposed on Post Soviet Russia. (the Friedmanite Russia program unleashed the current beast of Russian Nationalism and Imperial revanchism which confronts us now with Putin's hostile operations against US interests) 

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. Likewise targeted by the Friedmanites were the economic gains coming from the Civil Rights movement in the form of Affirmative Action, and the ending of discrimination based on sex. 

Additionally 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 up system of regulation of corporations, initiated by FDR, and continued up until Nixon brought in the monetarists to begin dismantling it. 

Every significant new form of monetized debt in the financial world since Nixon, from the explosion of Mergers and Acquisitions, Junk Bonds, all varieties of Derivatives, and now SPACs, (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies) Crypto currencies, and many more types of parasitical speculative bubbles and Ponzi schemes have emanated from the insane Friedmanite drive toward more financial deregulation. 

The most destructive polluters in the corporate world today are 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. Likewise the repeal of the FDR era Glass-Steagall law (pushed through by Friedman/Ayn Rand disciple Alan Greenspan) effectively allowed our Banking system to convert to the Casino business, opening the door for more Wall Street looting and speculation. This led to the 2008 financial crisis when the housing market related bubbles entered a reverse leverage collapse. 

The philosophy of Milton Friedman posits a perverse idea of "Freedom". It is rooted in the concept that the proverbial "market participant," unfettered by government, in pursuit of property and financial wealth even if in flagrant disregard for the Public Interest is a net benefit to the economy. They call this "shareholder value." It is the outlook dramatically portrayed in film by Michael Douglas in the fictional character of Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street". 

(Pic 5, "Is greed still good"?)

Friedmanism elevates greed as an attribute to be admired and encouraged, in the belief that this is what drives the economy and motivates people to work. It reifies Social Darwinism, the explicitly racialist outlook which says that the markets will reward the "fittest", and whatever calamities befall the unfit, is simply 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 nation's 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 draconian austerity programs of the Chicago School, and they were all miserable destructive failures.  Even according to Friedman promoter, the founder of modern "movement conservatism"  William F. Buckley, who said---

"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.