lewrockwell.com — Just how free is Friedman's market? From 1971, an Austrian analysis of the Chicago School's economic policies. Included, of course, is a prediction of the result of dropping the gold standard for a fiat currency.
Jul 8, 2006 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountJul 8, 2006
Great post. While I knew a lot about the Chicago School, I didn't realize Friedman was behind the withholding tax. How the Chicago school can even call itself free-market advocates is ludicrous. And trying to economics into macro and micro is even more inane, as if the two are separate. Thankfully, Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and now more are around to bust this myth. Unfortunately, government schools still love to push their Keynesianism onto glassy-eyed students who have no clue.
ccranJul 8, 2006Submitter
It is amazing how folks have to be trained to think illogically in order support the dominant economic paradigm. I am no economist, so what I find compelling is the deductive nature of Austrianism. If you can work from first principles, logically and consistently, it has no flaws. The only flaws people seem to be able to point out is that it condradicts dominant theory, and/or does not reflect free market reality- well of course! The dominant theories are illogical, and our market isn't free!As for the withholding tax.....arghhhh. It is one of the biggest chains on us. Imagine if employers could not be threatened with government sanctions and instead every single individual who didn't pay taxes had to be dealt with. Tax protest made easy. Of course, that is the point.
smooveJul 8, 2006
For the withholding tax alone, he's going to hell. See also this story: <a class="user" href="http://digg.com/movies/BANNED_Cartoon_now_popular_in_Google_Video">http://digg.com/movies/BANNED_Cartoon_now_popular_in_Google_Video</a>
Closed AccountJul 9, 2006
I agree that withholdings are wrong. They allow the state to tax almost at will and without the full knowledge of the taxpayer but Friedman was still an advocate of Keynesian policy when this error was made. An excuse? No, but a reason.