|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
 Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:15 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: |
It's hard to claim that his policies are an absolute success. Post colonial countries that have had hte most economic growth include China, Brazil and Japan, none of which have followed the neo-liberal model as Friedman explained it. They all included higher levels of state involvement than other post colonial countries yet their economies, as a whole, are better. Friedman didn't have a whole lot to say about the economic wellbeing of the individual, mainly just for economies on the whole.
But seriously, whackademics?!?! |
I think you ought to go ahead and actually read what he has advocated. Really. Read it. Don't just create a 'straw-man' and say he did this and that. READ ABOUT IT. Learn about it. His primary concern was 1) Individual rights 2) Macroeconomic stability and 3) Privatization of SOME firms.
And yes, whackademics. A psychotic focus on ONE small aspect of his life (which is why brainwashed cowboys like you only know ONE aspect of his life).
| Quote: |
I hadn't realized that I was personally responsible for the the attrocities of Pol Pot, Mao & Stalin. I think you've been listening to thsoe whackademics a bit too often. |
I said that the Left wingers of academia were responsible. Not a hakwon babysitter from Seoul. Don't delude yourself. You aren't an academic. An English "teacher" isn't an academic. It is a fine job if you like it. But you aren't an academic. And I think we are starting to see why.
| Quote: |
If you're willing to blame academia for the attrocities of Pol Pot (although an interesting example considering the US briefly sent military aid to act as a counter weight to the vietnamese communists), Mao and Stalin (a tenuous link at best, surely something a whackademic thought up), then surely you hold equal outrage towards the CIA and US government. I mean, arming Chilean and other Latin American dictatorships during Operation Condor and teaching them how to torture 'dissidents' is arguably the worst human rights crime committed in the Americas, save the genocide of its original inhabitants. |
Sure. Why are we talking about who the US supported? Again, this is where your feeble mind falls apart. I say that the academic left supported and directly created the biggest monsters of our time and you start ranting about America.
| Quote: |
Not to mention support for some of history's other notorious thugs, including PW Botha (apartheid), Idi Amin (crimes against humanity), Reza Pavlovia (installed by the US, ruled under a regime of torture and killing until he was overthrown), Suharto (killed over 1 million indonesians with US made weapons), Commander Marcos (BUsh Sr praised him for his "adherence to democratic principals and to the democratic processes" while he was busy torturng and killing and imposing martial law for years on end in Phillipinnes), Duvalier in Haiti, Cordoza, Musharef,king Fahd, etc...
You seem like an intelligent guy, i'm sure you share your outrage and disgust for these criminals and thugs as I do for Stalin, Pot and Mao |
.
We were talking about an entirely other thing. And now you are continuing to rant about America. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you a one-topic-wonder? Eh? Can't function without googling "American crimes"??
But, the really interesting this is, HE OPPOSED ALL THAT TOO. He was a LIBERTARIAN. Get thee to a bookstore.
| Quote: |
Non sequiteur, but i'll try.
As have the human rights movement, civil rights movement, gay rights movement, decolonalism, feminism, etc... |
So, I said, correctly, that every big bad bloody idea of the last 100 years came from the left. And you reply "so did decolonalism". As if this is any kinda response.
But the larger point is your response, and why you have been trained like a good dog to only focus on certain things. A great man dies, and you slam him and try to drag me into an argument about American foreign policy. One-topic-wonder, you is.
| Quote: |
Of course criticism of Friedman has nothing to do with him collaborating with one of the worst human rights abusers since WW2, nor for the dogmatism his views have been treated with and their effects on the the worlds poor, not to mention the environment.
Again, i've read a fair bit of his work, the Chicago Boys colluding with Pinochet is unforgivable. Full stop. |
No you haven't. You are a liar. If you HAD read his work, and were not a liar, you would have come across his ideas about the market leading to democracy again and again and again. His position was that the only way freedom would come to Chile was if it was rich(er) first. He was right.
Now, go to whatever bookstore is near your hakwon and buy Capitalism and Freedom. Read it, and then apologize for talking smack about a dead man you know absolutely nothing about.
Ok? |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Slep wrote: |
| BJWD wrote: |
| Slep wrote: |
| thanks for the link. It'll have to tide me over until BJWD decides to respond to my post. I want to learn more about whackademics. |
Don't worry, I'll help you sort out the mess that is your mind when I get out of this hellish airport in Taiwan.
But, I want you to think about why MF got all that scorn while Sarte got off with his reputatin in tact. Or, do you even know about what Sarte was up to? No, of course you don't. Google it, learn about it, and then ponder why you were never told about that yet were told about MF by your flunky profs at whatever B rate uni you studied "arts" at. Also, go read about the Hitler supporting "intellectuals" that are still taught in modern uni today by leftists. |
I'm happy to see you ignored every one of my points.
I know who Sartre is. I'll continue to be respectful while you sort to ad hominums. It's fine, i'll muddle through em. I assume you're discussing Sartre's colluding with the Vichy regime during ww2. I'm guessing, cause as far as the political, this was really what he was most criticized for during his public career. Studied that as well. See the reason that Milton Friedman gets more criticism (although neitehr get a whole lot, it's realyl only a small subset of university students who even study eitehr of them, much less criticize em) is because, as far as I can tell, Friedman's ideas were far more prevalent in Pinoche'ts Chile than Sartre's in Vichy's french.
Now Nietzche, he gets *beep* criticized (i'm not sure how justly) for how he was coopted by the Nazi's.
I have no idea what you're talking about regarding Hitler's support of intellectuals. I know he was a fan of Wagner's symphonies but other than that, i'm really drawing a blank. |
Now, I was not talking about Vichy. You see? This is my main point! You are a product of such a pathetic education. Google "sartre khmer" and learn something.
You slander, childishly (with an emoticon) a great man. And yet you know nothing about him or the wider intellectual conflict of his time and before. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
Since this thread was initially about a great man and his death, here is the best obituary I have read.
| Quote: |
| http://www.reason.com/news/show/116839.html |
| Quote: |
It's Milton Friedman's World: We're Just Living Freely in It
The economist who advocated "Power to the People"
Brian Doherty | November 21, 2006
When celebrated public intellectuals of Nobel-prize-winning heft die, the newspapers are packed with encomiums on their brilliance and importance. It isn�t always obvious, though, where the rubber of their lofty scholarly words hits the road of our day-to-day life. With Dr. Milton Friedman, winner of the 1976 Nobel in economics, most celebrated figure of the Chicago School of economics, author of the 1980 nonfiction bestseller Free to Choose, seeing his (invisible?) hand in the workaday world isn�t all that hard.
If you or your children have not been forced into the armed services in the past three decades�which you haven�t�thank Friedman. He was the intellectual sparkplug for the Nixon-era Gates Commission that convinced Nixon a volunteer army is both workable and the right thing to do.
If the dollars in your pocket are worth somewhere close to what they were a year ago, not 8 percent or more less, thank Dr. Friedman. His work as an economist convinced Federal Reserve chiefs, after the grim late 1970s dominated by stagflation (high inflation combined with recession), that we should strive to keep money supply growth low to restrain both inflation and unemployment. While the world�s central banks haven�t followed every technical detail of his plan, the old and destructive belief that government can tax and spend and inflate our way to prosperity is gone, and Friedman is why.
Friedman�s image may have been square�economics professor, PBS TV show host, advisor to Republican politicians from Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan. But what he stood for is as groovy as can be: Power to the people, man.
At the heart of all of Friedman�s scholarship and activism was the idea in the title of his famous book and TV series: that all of us should be free to choose. From who should have to serve in the military to who should decide what a dollar is worth, Friedman has been 100 percent for taking power out of the hands of elites and government and handing it to the decentralized decisionmaking of everyone, everywhere.
Who should decide where our kids go to school, and who should control the money used to pay for it? We should. Thus, Friedman�s advocacy for decades on behalf of school choice and education vouchers, which became his main policy focus during his later years through the efforts of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation.
Who should decide what we can eat and how we enjoy ourselves? We should. Thus Friedman�s controversial arguments for ending the war on drugs.
Who should decide how we get to spend our money? We should. Thus, Friedman�s writing and speaking on behalf of tax and spending cuts anywhere and everywhere. The day he won the Nobel in 1976, he was schlepping himself around to a talk in Detroit on behalf of a Michigan state level amendment to limit state government spending. He did this sort of thing tirelessly for over 50 years, agitating for liberty and choice in venues both exalted and everyday, never thinking that any audience was too small or unimportant. His belief in the propriety and effectiveness of personal control over our own resources always energized his plumping for Social Security reform to give us more personal control over our retirement savings.
Who should decide the value of currencies in relation to other currencies�national governments, or the decentralized decisionmaking of all economic players? Friedman of course believed the latter, even when the idea was considered outrageous, writing scholarly defenses of it from the 1950s until 1973 when floating exchange rates, to a large degree thanks to his explaining their benefits, became a reality. This is yet another constitutive part of the world we live in that Friedman can be credited with. (�Floating exchange rates� means applying the basic free-market logic about price controls to international currencies�that governments should not attempt to dictate what their currencies sell for in terms of other currencies, but allow the price to be set freely by market forces.)
When it came to how government should best try to help citizens in need, Friedman made some concessions that upset the more hardcore doctrinaire among his libertarian comrades, from Henry Hazlitt to Murray Rothbard. He called, not for a complete end to any government income floor, but for a �negative income tax,� an idea that helped influence the earned income tax credit. But even here, Friedman was, within the limits of political reality as he saw it, fighting for individual autonomy, saying �no� to countless social services and targeted, managed giveaways that treated the poor as if other people knew what was best for them. The negative income tax just gave the needy money and let them decide for themselves what was best for them and how to craft their lives.
Friedman won vital policy victories on the draft and the money supply. He was less successful (though no less right) on his other efforts to empower the individual. This is to be expected�he was a radical, and radicals aren�t going to win all their fights. (He once referred to one of his heroes, Adam Smith, as �a radical and a revolutionary in his time�just as those of us who preach laissez-faire are in our times.�) But through a combination of his piercing intelligence, his academic successes, and his unparalleled ability to explain complicated ideas in understandable terms (honed during his nearly two decades writing a column on economics for Newsweek, from 1966-84, and coming to fruition with Free to Choose), he was the most successful purely intellectual radical of the 20th century.
We live in Friedman�s World, to a delightful degree�though of course not entirely. Even beyond his specific policy victories, on the meta-level we have seen in his lifetime communism, the antithesis of Friedman�s economic and social beliefs, die (and smuggled, clandestine copies of his writings helped inspire and educate dissidents in the former Soviet bloc).
But the whole point of his intellectual and polemical project is that this world belongs to all of us. And it should thus be shaped by our free choices, in economics and our private lives. Even the highly technical economics work of which he was most proud�his work on the consumption function and his �permanent income hypothesis�--had important implications about why we should be free from government economic management. His theorizing on that topic, which has held up well in the field, implied that government fiscal manipulations for short-term macroeconomic benefit aren�t apt to work, since people make their consumption and saving decisions not based on their immediate income but on a conception of a long-term �permanent income.�
It is for Friedman�s insistence that we should be able to run our own lives free of busybody manipulations in the economic and personal realms that he was so well loved (and, alas, in some circles so passionately hated)--the love manifest in the many personal tributes from his comrades in the free-market fight. He tended to be personally respectful and mindful of them all, great and small. We recognized that everything Friedman did was based on belief in us�all of us�and an urgently felt desire that we should be as free as it is possible for us to be. As the old song goes, Milton Friedman truly lived to make men free.
I have had, luckily for me, my own Friedman Encounters, thought I don�t have any particularly colorful tales to tell of them. He was a helpful, generous, and methodical interview subject, unfailingly gracious and helpful for the three hours over two winter afternoons we spent together in his elegant San Francisco home way back in 1995 for my forthcoming book Radicals for Capitalism (portions of that interview were printed in Reason in our June 1995 issue), all the way to the hour on the phone he gave me on Reason�s behalf late this August on the Federal Reserve, which was used in our November issue interview roundtable. He was unfailingly willing to give his time and his sharp intellect in the furtherance of spreading his ideas, from start to finish, to Reason or in any forum.
He was an economist of the Chicago school, and thus believed in empiricism: he always argued, methodologically, that theories should be judged, as per his famous 1953 essay �The Methodology of Positive Economics,� on their ability to predict, not on whether their assumptions seemed to be true. He thought theories should be tested always against reality. Despite that fact that most of his political writings were based in this sort of pragmatic argument based on observable results, he believed ultimately, as he said in a 1990 speech in Jerusalem, that �the free market�s main justification is, in my opinion, its moral strength, not its superior efficiency, though that is now proven.�
Milton Friedman was never a politician. He could never make things happen. He could only explain why they should, and let us decide. But still, to a large degree because of him, the world is a different, and better, place.
When his first major work on politics, Capitalism and Freedom, came out in 1962, many of the best and brightest among us still believed that the controlled economies of the Soviet bloc might indeed someday bury us, and that government fiscal manipulations a la Keynes were the key to a lasting and unmarred prosperity�mostly by fooling people into misunderstanding what was really going on in the economy by the fake bursts of prosperity that inflation can create in the short term (but never, as Friedman helped prove, in the long term). Friedman foresaw the 70s stagflation crisis, and his monetarist ideas helped guide the Federal Reserve policy that have mostly curbed inflation since the early 1980s. With nothing but persuasion on his side, he�s steered the ship of the world in a better direction.
To the extent that we choose to heed Friedman in the future, we�ll have more even choices we can make for ourselves--and be richer for it. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Slep
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 1:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
It's hard to claim that his policies are an absolute success. Post colonial countries that have had hte most economic growth include China, Brazil and Japan, none of which have followed the neo-liberal model as Friedman explained it. They all included higher levels of state involvement than other post colonial countries yet their economies, as a whole, are better. Friedman didn't have a whole lot to say about the economic wellbeing of the individual, mainly just for economies on the whole.
But seriously, whackademics?!?! |
I think you ought to go ahead and actually read what he has advocated. Really. Read it. Don't just create a 'straw-man' and say he did this and that. READ ABOUT IT. Learn about it. His primary concern was 1) Individual rights 2) Macroeconomic stability and 3) Privatization of SOME firms. |
Well done. I give specific examples of how the neo-liberal policies he advocated have not worked and you accuse me of straw man. I've studied his work, i don't know how many times i must repeat it. I find it particularly odious his notion of what a moral CEO represents, as its completely stripped from actual morality, the landbase, etc...
Unfortunately, i think due to the overarchign conflict of his time b/w the US and the USSR, he assumed that large social services and other forms of beaurocracy were an impediment to individual liberties. If anything, social services can be a guarentee of positive rights, something I think Mr. Freidman failed to recognize.
| Quote: |
| And yes, whackademics. A psychotic focus on ONE small aspect of his life (which is why brainwashed cowboys like you only know ONE aspect of his life). |
Again, i'll say it again (maybe i ought to copy and paste the same setence again and again), i've read his works as well as done a fair bit of research on the so called chicago boys and neo-liberal economic policies. I'd say that's a pretty broad subject.
Personally, not interested in being a cowboy, i always sympathized with the indian but i digress.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
I hadn't realized that I was personally responsible for the the attrocities of Pol Pot, Mao & Stalin. I think you've been listening to thsoe whackademics a bit too often. |
I said that the Left wingers of academia were responsible. Not a hakwon babysitter from Seoul. Don't delude yourself. You aren't an academic. An English "teacher" isn't an academic. It is a fine job if you like it. But you aren't an academic. And I think we are starting to see why.
|
Largly pedantic stuff. You seem to be fan of the ad hominum attacks. Don't quite understand why...
| Quote: |
| Sure. Why are we talking about who the US supported? Again, this is where your feeble mind falls apart. I say that the academic left supported and directly created the biggest monsters of our time and you start ranting about America. |
It seems ideology blinds you to reason. The link between the 'academic left' and murderous thugs such as Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin is rather weak. The link b/w other murderous thugs and the US (when it served business interests) is relatively clear cut. Now, providing we don't pay attention to the actual lives lost and only look at the ideological battle taken place, we can justify some of the thugs the US supported based on cold war politics. Certaintly not all of them.
It's a comparision, your example is weak, mine isn't.
| Quote: |
We were talking about an entirely other thing. And now you are continuing to rant about America. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you a one-topic-wonder? Eh? Can't function without googling "American crimes"??
But, the really interesting this is, HE OPPOSED ALL THAT TOO. He was a LIBERTARIAN. Get thee to a bookstore. |
I function rather nicely but that's besides the point. While he may have rejected these things, him and the Chicago boys differed in deeds. Beating the proverbial dead horse, his involvment (and even more odious the other Chicago Boys more direct involvment) speaks wonders about his commitment.
It's like Al Gore's committment to the environment, except for those years he was Vice President.
| Quote: |
So, I said, correctly, that every big bad bloody idea of the last 100 years came from the left. And you reply "so did decolonalism". As if this is any kinda response.
But the larger point is your response, and why you have been trained like a good dog to only focus on certain things. |
Again, you missed my point. I showed examples of how the left provided positive alternatives to the horrible ideas of mainstream right wing at the time.
And fascism and its followers (Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, Latortue, etc..) were from the right. This hardly discredits right wing values but fascism.
For some reason, you seem to think that the attrocities of Stalin discredit left wing ideas, rather then stalinism.
Talk about straw men.
| Quote: |
| A great man dies, and you slam him and try to drag me into an argument about American foreign policy. One-topic-wonder, you is. |
Don't think he's a great mine. I think many of his suppositions proved to be wrong. The complete failure of the WTO (the organization in charge with enforcing his policies) to lift billions out of extreme poverty, even when they follow Bretton Woods dictates, is a glaring example of that. Argentina, Brazil, etc... the list is long.
| Quote: |
No you haven't. You are a liar. If you HAD read his work, and were not a liar, you would have come across his ideas about the market leading to democracy again and again and again. His position was that the only way freedom would come to Chile was if it was rich(er) first. He was right.
Now, go to whatever bookstore is near your hakwon and buy Capitalism and Freedom. Read it, and then apologize for talking smack about a dead man you know absolutely nothing about.
Ok? |
And i think the notion that markets leading to democracy is an insult the various democratic movements around the world. It's a stop gap that dictators use to justify maintaining their grip on power. Some dictatorships work will with open markets (China being the most obvious) others with closed. Chile was free before Pinochet. To claim that an imposed thug like Pinochet was the best thing to happen to Chile shows a position bereft of any morality. I doubt his victims would agree. Sorry, they must just be victims of 'progress' |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Slep
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 1:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
Can you show me a document that actually explains Sartre's involvment in the Khmer Rouge, it seems that the government there took his views on decolonialism to an extreme.
By this line of logic, christianity is evil because of the crusades, Islam because of Al Qu'aida, Judaism because of Israel, capitalism beause of the 3 billion people who are living at under $2 a day, communism because of Stalin, genetic engerineeing because of Monsanto, nuclear energy because of Chernoybyl, etc.. You get my drift.
As far as I can tell, his actions were minimal, especially compared to Friedman in Chile.
i googled and otehr than a david horrowitz comment about sartre's children in an article about academia, a comparision to Gaza and Sartre's notion of hell, i didn't particularly see anything of substance. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 5:47 am Post subject: |
|
|
You haven't ever even read one word that he wrote. Full stop, end of discussion. You say you have, but you haven't. This is very apparent by all of your comments. You haven't a clue as to what he advocated, or why.
You slander a great man without knowing the first thing about his ideas at all. Neo-liberal, eh? Yeah. What, exactly, does that mean? Are you sure he is it? U sure? Really? What, exactly, is the difference between a 'liberal' and a 'neo-liberal', other than one is an actual school of thought and the other a slander against people who believe in ideas that by their very success embarrass fools on the left that believe in planned economies.
The KR were direct products of the French communists with Sarte playing a deep role. I suggest you spend some time brushing up on your intellectual history. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
happeningthang
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
| BJWD wrote: |
You haven't ever even read one word that he wrote. Full stop, end of discussion. You say you have, but you haven't. This is very apparent by all of your comments. You haven't a clue as to what he advocated, or why.
You slander a great man without knowing the first thing about his ideas at all. Neo-liberal, eh? Yeah. What, exactly, does that mean? Are you sure he is it? U sure? Really? What, exactly, is the difference between a 'liberal' and a 'neo-liberal', other than one is an actual school of thought and the other a slander against people who believe in ideas that by their very success embarrass fools on the left that believe in planned economies.
The KR were direct products of the French communists with Sarte playing a deep role. I suggest you spend some time brushing up on your intellectual history. |
BJWD, after your "spy ridden Korean government" conspicracy theories, your credibility is looking shaky, and making outlandish claims about Sartre and the Khmer Rouge isn't going to help.
Instead of sneering, and saying people need to look closer, implying there's an obvious connection, I'd suggest the burden of proof is on you. Yes Sartre was part of an ideological movement that encompassed French Communism, and yes Pol Pot was in France as a student at the time, and, by all accounts, influenced by what he saw there.
I'm going to suggest that's all you got, because that's all there is. Googling "Sartre" and "Khmer", as you suggest, only brings up a diatribe against academics with Sartre mentinoned in passing at the end, from rabid right wing crackpot site, the Front Page. Taking my cue from there and googling "Sartre's Children" only gets a hate site with all it's bile directed at the left and communism.
http://markhumphrys.com/modern.left.html
Even here they have a go at Sartre, but don't give any details, argument, or analysis, just a series of generic links.
Isn't there this kind of like the moral relativism the right are always banging on about?? Someone attacks Friedman, so you attack Sartre?? What is this line of argument even achieving??[/quote] |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
| happeningthang wrote: |
| BJWD wrote: |
You haven't ever even read one word that he wrote. Full stop, end of discussion. You say you have, but you haven't. This is very apparent by all of your comments. You haven't a clue as to what he advocated, or why.
You slander a great man without knowing the first thing about his ideas at all. Neo-liberal, eh? Yeah. What, exactly, does that mean? Are you sure he is it? U sure? Really? What, exactly, is the difference between a 'liberal' and a 'neo-liberal', other than one is an actual school of thought and the other a slander against people who believe in ideas that by their very success embarrass fools on the left that believe in planned economies.
The KR were direct products of the French communists with Sarte playing a deep role. I suggest you spend some time brushing up on your intellectual history. |
BJWD, after your "spy ridden Korean government" conspicracy theories, your credibility is looking shaky, and making outlandish claims about Sartre and the Khmer Rouge isn't going to help.
Instead of sneering, and saying people need to look closer, implying there's an obvious connection, I'd suggest the burden of proof is on you. Yes Sartre was part of an ideological movement that encompassed French Communism, and yes Pol Pot was in France as a student at the time, and, by all accounts, influenced by what he saw there.
I'm going to suggest that's all you got, because that's all there is. Googling "Sartre" and "Khmer", as you suggest, only brings up a diatribe against academics with Sartre mentinoned in passing at the end, from rabid right wing crackpot site, the Front Page. Taking my cue from there and googling "Sartre's Children" only gets a hate site with all it's bile directed at the left and communism.
http://markhumphrys.com/modern.left.html
Even here they have a go at Sartre, but don't give any details, argument, or analysis, just a series of generic links.
Isn't there this kind of like the moral relativism the right are always banging on about?? Someone attacks Friedman, so you attack Sartre?? What is this line of argument even achieving?? |
[/quote]
My reputation. Are you that much of a lonely nerd that you concern yourself with your eslcafe reputation?
And I'm not "right", but a libertarian.
Either way, my point wasn't to attack Sarte. Had you read along (maybe you were dreaming about childrens cartoons..) you would have found my purpose for bringing it up.
Step slammed Friedman, without knowing the first thing about the man. He did this cause this is what his lefty profs and such told him to do. And they hid from him the abject failure that are the ideas of the left. So, Friedman bad, even though he helped create the only weathly-ish state in LA and the collection of lefty fools that still get "taught" are sill good. I've pointed out to him the nonsense that was some of his "education" and I'm sure he will reflect upon that while trying to fall asleep tonight. But, to be sure, he will have a stiff upper lip on this site, not wanting to ruin his eslcafe reputation and all. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Slep
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:20 am Post subject: |
|
|
| BJWD wrote: |
You haven't ever even read one word that he wrote. Full stop, end of discussion. You say you have, but you haven't. This is very apparent by all of your comments. You haven't a clue as to what he advocated, or why.
You slander a great man without knowing the first thing about his ideas at all. Neo-liberal, eh? Yeah. What, exactly, does that mean? Are you sure he is it? U sure? Really? What, exactly, is the difference between a 'liberal' and a 'neo-liberal', other than one is an actual school of thought and the other a slander against people who believe in ideas that by their very success embarrass fools on the left that believe in planned economies.
The KR were direct products of the French communists with Sarte playing a deep role. I suggest you spend some time brushing up on your intellectual history. |
I have read his readings. His ideas can be characterized as economic neo-liberalism. Also called hte washington consensus, the bretton woods system or called thatcherism. The chicago boys, Reagan, Thatcher, Mundell, et al were all propenents of this economic system.
Since you don't seem to believe me, lets see what wikipedia has to say about neo-liberalism and whether it has anything to do with Milton Friedman shall we?
| wikipedia says wrote: |
| Neoliberalism's economic roots begin with the re-establishment of international monetary stability with the Bretton Woods system, which fixed currencies to the U.S. Dollar to gold. As an ideological movement, it became increasingly prevalent based on the work of Robert Mundell and Arthur Flemming. The Mont Pelerin Society, founded at about the same time by thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Michael Polanyi created free-market think tanks and advocacy groups in the United Kingdom and the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. They drew upon the theories of the Austrian School of economics and monetarism. Neoliberalism argued that protectionism and government programs produced economic inefficiencies, and that developing nations should open their markets to the outside, and focus on exporting. Also emphasized was the liquidation of state-owned corporations, and the reduction in rules designed to hinder business. Neoliberal ideas found expression in a series of trade talks to form the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as well as regional free trade agreements such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberal
Seems like neo-liberalism to me.
I'm starting to wonder how much of Friedman you've read. I start to use the economic terms that relate to his theory, you claim i'm slandering him by naming his theories. If naming his theories is an act of slander, i'd hate to think what actual criticism is.
Now, you can either go back to slandering me (in the true sense of the word, not by just saying my name), or you could start discussing. In western culture we use metaphors associated with battles when we debate thigns. In some cultures, they use dancing. Try to look at this as a dance, you'll be a bit kinder.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Slep
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
| BJWD wrote: |
| happeningthang wrote: |
| BJWD wrote: |
You haven't ever even read one word that he wrote. Full stop, end of discussion. You say you have, but you haven't. This is very apparent by all of your comments. You haven't a clue as to what he advocated, or why.
You slander a great man without knowing the first thing about his ideas at all. Neo-liberal, eh? Yeah. What, exactly, does that mean? Are you sure he is it? U sure? Really? What, exactly, is the difference between a 'liberal' and a 'neo-liberal', other than one is an actual school of thought and the other a slander against people who believe in ideas that by their very success embarrass fools on the left that believe in planned economies.
The KR were direct products of the French communists with Sarte playing a deep role. I suggest you spend some time brushing up on your intellectual history. |
BJWD, after your "spy ridden Korean government" conspicracy theories, your credibility is looking shaky, and making outlandish claims about Sartre and the Khmer Rouge isn't going to help.
Instead of sneering, and saying people need to look closer, implying there's an obvious connection, I'd suggest the burden of proof is on you. Yes Sartre was part of an ideological movement that encompassed French Communism, and yes Pol Pot was in France as a student at the time, and, by all accounts, influenced by what he saw there.
I'm going to suggest that's all you got, because that's all there is. Googling "Sartre" and "Khmer", as you suggest, only brings up a diatribe against academics with Sartre mentinoned in passing at the end, from rabid right wing crackpot site, the Front Page. Taking my cue from there and googling "Sartre's Children" only gets a hate site with all it's bile directed at the left and communism.
http://markhumphrys.com/modern.left.html
Even here they have a go at Sartre, but don't give any details, argument, or analysis, just a series of generic links.
Isn't there this kind of like the moral relativism the right are always banging on about?? Someone attacks Friedman, so you attack Sartre?? What is this line of argument even achieving?? |
|
My reputation. Are you that much of a lonely nerd that you concern yourself with your eslcafe reputation?
And I'm not "right", but a libertarian.
Either way, my point wasn't to attack Sarte. Had you read along (maybe you were dreaming about childrens cartoons..) you would have found my purpose for bringing it up.
Step slammed Friedman, without knowing the first thing about the man. He did this cause this is what his lefty profs and such told him to do. And they hid from him the abject failure that are the ideas of the left. So, Friedman bad, even though he helped create the only weathly-ish state in LA and the collection of lefty fools that still get "taught" are sill good. I've pointed out to him the nonsense that was some of his "education" and I'm sure he will reflect upon that while trying to fall asleep tonight. But, to be sure, he will have a stiff upper lip on this site, not wanting to ruin his eslcafe reputation and all.[/quote]
You flatter me, i doubt i've been here long enough to have a reputation. You seem to think university imposes ideology on people (ironic considerinng you're defending Bretton Woods et al) yet that's hardly the case. In university, i studied various political, moral and economic theories. Some resonated with me, others didn't.
I guess we'll continue this dance, i'll bring up facts, ideas or analysis, you'll tell me i've ben brainwashed, moraly bereft etc..
Sounds like fun. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Slep wrote: |
| BJWD wrote: |
You haven't ever even read one word that he wrote. Full stop, end of discussion. You say you have, but you haven't. This is very apparent by all of your comments. You haven't a clue as to what he advocated, or why.
You slander a great man without knowing the first thing about his ideas at all. Neo-liberal, eh? Yeah. What, exactly, does that mean? Are you sure he is it? U sure? Really? What, exactly, is the difference between a 'liberal' and a 'neo-liberal', other than one is an actual school of thought and the other a slander against people who believe in ideas that by their very success embarrass fools on the left that believe in planned economies.
The KR were direct products of the French communists with Sarte playing a deep role. I suggest you spend some time brushing up on your intellectual history. |
I have read his readings. His ideas can be characterized as economic neo-liberalism. Also called hte washington consensus, the bretton woods system or called thatcherism. The chicago boys, Reagan, Thatcher, Mundell, et al were all propenents of this economic system.
Since you don't seem to believe me, lets see what wikipedia has to say about neo-liberalism and whether it has anything to do with Milton Friedman shall we?
| wikipedia says wrote: |
| Neoliberalism's economic roots begin with the re-establishment of international monetary stability with the Bretton Woods system, which fixed currencies to the U.S. Dollar to gold. As an ideological movement, it became increasingly prevalent based on the work of Robert Mundell and Arthur Flemming. The Mont Pelerin Society, founded at about the same time by thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Michael Polanyi created free-market think tanks and advocacy groups in the United Kingdom and the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. They drew upon the theories of the Austrian School of economics and monetarism. Neoliberalism argued that protectionism and government programs produced economic inefficiencies, and that developing nations should open their markets to the outside, and focus on exporting. Also emphasized was the liquidation of state-owned corporations, and the reduction in rules designed to hinder business. Neoliberal ideas found expression in a series of trade talks to form the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as well as regional free trade agreements such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberal
Seems like neo-liberalism to me.
I'm starting to wonder how much of Friedman you've read. I start to use the economic terms that relate to his theory, you claim i'm slandering him by naming his theories. If naming his theories is an act of slander, i'd hate to think what actual criticism is.
Now, you can either go back to slandering me (in the true sense of the word, not by just saying my name), or you could start discussing. In western culture we use metaphors associated with battles when we debate thigns. In some cultures, they use dancing. Try to look at this as a dance, you'll be a bit kinder. |
I study monetary policy at the graduate level. I'm forced to read MF on a weekly basis.
Now we are going to argue the meanings of his ideas. If it at all matters, which I'm sure to you it won't, he called himself a "limited government libertarian" and was quite outspoken about the so-called Washington consensus for the emphasis placed on "shock therapy" which he characterized as only being able to create millionaires out of bureaucrats. After the Asian Financial Crisis he became even more outspoken still about the need to privatize now and build institutions later.
But I certainly appreciate wikipeida as a source.. Though, Hayek and Mises would certainly hate being grouped together with the monetarists. Anyhow, that you don't know this, and use wikipeida as a source for a topic that would produce thousands upon thousands of articles from msm sources says quite a bit about my assertion that you haven't a clue about the man.
What you have done, is taken every idea that isn't "left", and could be characterized as even slightly market-friendly and thrown it under the umbrella of "neo-liberalism", which I think supports my statement that neo-liberalism isn't an intellectual movement but a slander. You should look into the origins of the actual phrase "neo-liberal". Some woman in South America. I think she writes for Znet. She never did define what exactly it means or to whom it applies. But everybody that the left disagrees with certainly gets called it.
Mises would roll in his grave if he knew he was being associated with Friedman. They had quite the falling out. Rothbard (the "dean" of the Austrian school) called him a "bloody socialist" for supporting public schooling. Those damned neo-liberals.
And in the end, I don't really care if you know the first thing about MF. My problem with you is that you slandered a man, a great man, without knowing the first thing about him. I could give two *beep* about what you wrongly believe to be true in the world of ideas and economics. But MF did more for free people the world over, and for you (ever wonder why prices are stable???) then the vast majority of humanity could ever dream of doing. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Slep wrote: |
| You seem to think university imposes ideology on people (ironic considerinng you're defending Bretton Woods et al) the case. |
You just don't get it.
Libertarians don't support Breton Woods. Free traders support free trade. Men like MF, Hayek and other classical liberals see institutions like BW as an affront to what trade is supposed to be. If MF were to design a world trading system, there would be zero tarrifs or barriers to trade. No IMF. No World Bank. No WTO. Just free trade. Even the WTO is called the "deal with the devil" in libertarian/classical liberal circles.
Get with it..
And Jesus Christ. Breton Woods used the GOLD STANDARD. Do you think MF would support an institution designed around the bloody gold standard? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
happeningthang
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 3:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| BJWD wrote: |
My reputation. Are you that much of a lonely nerd that you concern yourself with your eslcafe reputation?
And I'm not "right", but a libertarian.
Either way, my point wasn't to attack Sarte. Had you read along (maybe you were dreaming about childrens cartoons..) you would have found my purpose for bringing it up.
Step slammed Friedman, without knowing the first thing about the man. He did this cause this is what his lefty profs and such told him to do. And they hid from him the abject failure that are the ideas of the left. So, Friedman bad, even though he helped create the only weathly-ish state in LA and the collection of lefty fools that still get "taught" are sill good. I've pointed out to him the nonsense that was some of his "education" and I'm sure he will reflect upon that while trying to fall asleep tonight. But, to be sure, he will have a stiff upper lip on this site, not wanting to ruin his eslcafe reputation and all. |
I'm not that concerned with your reputation BJWD, rather I mentioned your credibility was in question. That is, as someone who makes up facts, and offers no argument to support his 'plucked from air' statements is perhaps, someone who is unconvincing, and not to be believed.
But by all means...respond with insults and sneers, that passes for reasonable debate all the time. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Slep wrote: |
Well done. I give specific examples of how the neo-liberal policies he advocated have not worked and you accuse me of straw man. I've studied his work, i don't know how many times i must repeat it. I find it particularly odious his notion of what a moral CEO represents, as its completely stripped from actual morality, the landbase, etc...
Unfortunately, i think due to the overarchign conflict of his time b/w the US and the USSR, he assumed that large social services and other forms of beaurocracy were an impediment to individual liberties. If anything, social services can be a guarentee of positive rights, something I think Mr. Freidman failed to recognize.
|
To be fair to Mr Friedman, he did (at least according to some people I was chatting with from the economics department) start to swing away from his position in the years before his death, realising that a lot of what he advocated had been very harmful. Interesting. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 8:27 am Post subject: |
|
|
Wiki is completely wrong lumping those people together. If anyone doesn't recognize that wiki's info in this case is simplistic to the point of being inane and not fact then they haven't studied economics in any depth.
Wiki is just wacky and no place to learn economics. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
