MILTON ON CSPAN

[david.lloyd-jones@canrem.com (David Lloyd-Jones)]

 Adam Shostack <adam@bwh.harvard.edu> sez:

AM+| if you have cable, Milton Friedman will be discussing Hayek on CSPAN 
  +| (I'm not sure whether I or II, I think I) this Wednesday at 8.
 
On behalf of the Second International may I comment, without seeing 
the show, but having read most of their books?
 
As far as Friedman and Schwartz are concerned they have made a good 
career out of a simple insight, "inflation is always and everywhere a 
monetary phenomenon".  

When I was two and three years old being pulled around in a sled as my 
parents organised the socialist revolution (during the war this 
consisted of voting for the Commonwealth Party and opposing the 
Communists; Conservative and Labour, the government, were both so 
hated they were not in the game...) I was always told that inflation 
was too much money chasing too few goods.  Hmmm....
 
When I grew up I met people who had been two cells over from Hayek in 
their filthy Austrian jail.  Hayek kept on muttering: socialism leads 
to fascism, socialism leads to fascism, return to previous two clauses 
and repeat...
 
Social democrats, including my friend just down the corridor from 
Hayek, thought that fascism resulted from chaos, stupidity, and lack 
of social organisation.  I support the Lions Club to this day, sing 
Bingo for the Catholics; I support every farm co-op, not because I 
think their economics is sound but because I think that neighbours 
working together is something to be supported every time you see it.
 
                                      * * *
 
What Milton says about Hayek on television will probably be clean, 
appealing, rational, and clear to the minds of the very young.  
 
Limited, however, in its use.
 
                            -dlj.

david.lloyd-jones@canrem.com

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