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Free To Choose 1980 - Vol. 01 The Power of the Market - Full Video — Transcript

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0:01Hello, I'm Robert McKenzie.
0:03You join me here in this fine old library
0:05on the campus of the University of Chicago.
0:07We are about to see the first of 10 films by
0:09Milton Friedman, an economist of
0:11international repute, winner of the
0:13Nobel Prize, one of the most controversial
0:16and stimulating Americans of our time.
0:18In the weeks that lie ahead as Friedman’s
0:20first major television series unfolds,
0:22the famous and influential men and women
0:24who’ll occupy those seats are going to
0:26have a lot to say about Friedman’s view
0:28of the society in which we live today,
0:30and his solutions for the ills of our time.
0:33For that’s what the series is about:
0:34Milton Friedman's view of the way
0:36we live now, and where we’re headed.
0:38Now like some people here
0:39you may be appalled by his ideas,
0:41like others, extremely enthusiastic about
0:43about them. Whichever way it goes,
0:45I think you will be fascinated by
0:46what Milton Friedman has to say.
0:51(opening music)
1:24(radio newscast of morning weather)
1:32Milton Friedman's voice:
1:33Once all of this was a swamp,
1:36covered with forest.
1:39The Canarsie Indians who lived here
1:40traded the 22 square miles of
1:42soggy Manhattan Island to the Dutch
1:44for $24.00 worth of cloth and trinkets.
1:47(seagulls squawking)
1:48The newcomers founded a city,
1:50New Amsterdam, at the edge
1:51an empty continent.
1:53In the years that followed,
1:54it proved a magnet for millions of
1:56people from across the Atlantic,
1:58people who were driven by fear and poverty,
2:01who were attracted by the promise
2:02of freedom and plenty.
2:04They fanned out over the continent
2:05and built a new nation with their
2:07sweat, their enterprise and their vision
2:09of a better future.
2:12For the first time in their lives,
2:14many were truly free to pursue
2:16their own objectives.
2:17That freedom released the human
2:19energies which created the United States.
2:23For the immigrants who were
2:25welcomed by this statue,
2:26America was truly a
2:27land of opportunity.
2:31(steamboat horn)
2:39They poured ashore in their best clothes,
2:42eager and expectant, carrying
2:43what little they owned.
2:45They were poor, but they all had
2:47a great deal of hope.
2:49(people walking, talking)
2:54Once they arrived,
2:54they found, as my parents did,
2:56not an easy life, but a very hard life.
2:59But for many there were
3:00friends and relatives to help them
3:01get started -- to help them
3:03make a home, get a job,
3:04settle down in the new country.
3:07(trolley bell and horses clip-clopping)
3:12There were many rewards for
3:13hard work, enterprise and ability.
3:16Life was hard, but opportunity was real.
3:22There were few government programs
3:24to turn to and nobody expected them.
3:26But also, there were
3:27few rules and regulations.
3:30There were no licenses,
3:31no permits, no red tape
3:32to restrict them.
3:34They found, in fact, a free market,
3:36and most of them thrived on it.
3:41Many people still come to the United States
3:43driven by the same pressures
3:45and attracted by the same promise.
3:47You can find them in places like this.
3:49It's Chinatown in New York, one of
3:51the centers of the garment industry,
3:53a place where hundreds of thousands
3:54of newcomers have had their first
3:56taste of life in the new country.
4:01The people who live and work here
4:02are like the early settlers.
4:04They want to better their lot and they are
4:05prepared to work hard to do so.
4:10Although I haven't often been in factories
4:12like this, it's all very familiar to me,
4:15because this is exactly the same kind of
4:17a factory that my mother worked in
4:20when she came to this country
4:21for the first time at the age of 14,
4:24almost 90 years ago.
4:27And if there had not been
4:28factories like this here then at which
4:30she could have started to work
4:31and earned a little money
4:34she wouldn't have been able to come.
4:35And if I existed at all, I'd be
4:37a Russian or a Hungarian
4:38today, instead of American.
4:41Of course she didn't stay here a long time.
4:43She stayed here while she learned
4:44the language, while she developed
4:47some feeling for the country,
4:48and gradually she was able to
4:50make a better life for herself.
4:53Similarly, the people who are here now,
4:55they are like my mother, mostly
4:57immigrants from a distant country.
4:59They came here because they liked it
5:01here better and had more opportunities.
5:03A place like this gives them a chance
5:05to get started.
5:06They are not going to stay here
5:07very long or forever.
5:09On the contrary, they and their children
5:11will make a better life for themselves
5:13as they take advantage of the opportunities
5:16that a free market provides to them.
5:20The irony is that this place violates many of
5:23the standards that we now regard as
5:25every worker's right.
5:26It is poorly ventilated,
5:28it is over-crowded,
5:29the workers accept less than union rate-
5:31it breaks every rule in the book.
5:33But if it were closed down,
5:35who would benefit?
5:36Certainly not the people here.
5:37Their lives may seem pretty tough
5:39compared to our own,
5:41but that’s only because
5:42our parents or grandparents
5:43went through that stage for us.
5:45We’ve been able to start at a higher point.
5:54Frank Visalli's father was 12 years old
5:57when he arrived all alone
5:58in the United States.
5:59He had come from Sicily.
6:00That was 53 years ago.
6:06Frank is a successful dentist
6:08with a wife and family.
6:09They live in Lexington, Massachusetts.
6:12(pouring wine, chatting with wife)
6:20There is no doubt in Frank's mind
6:21what freedom combined with opportunity
6:23meant to his father and then to him,
6:26or what his Italian grandparents would think
6:28if they could see how he lives now.
6:31They would not believe what they would see,
6:34that a person could emigrate
6:36from a small island and make such success
6:39out of their life,
6:40because to them they were mostly related
6:43to the fields,
6:45working in the field as a peasant.
6:47My father, he came over,
6:49he made something for himself,
6:51and then he tried to build a family structure.
6:55Whatever he did was for his family.
6:57It was for a better life for his family.
7:00And I can always remember
7:02him telling me that,
7:03you know, the number one thing in life
7:05is you should get an education
7:07to become a professional person.
7:09(dinner conversation, dishes clinking)
7:15The Visalli family,
7:16ike all of us who live
7:18in the United States today,
7:19owe much to the climate of freedom
7:21we inherited from the founders
7:23of our country,
7:23the climate that gave full scope
7:25to the poor from other lands who came
7:27here, and were able to make better
7:28lives for themselves and their children.
7:36But in the past 50 years,
7:38we've been squandering that inheritance
7:40by allowing government to control
7:43more and more of our lives,
7:44instead of relying on ourselves.
7:46We need to rediscover the old truths
7:48that the immigrants knew in their bones;
7:50what economic freedom is,
7:52and the role it plays
7:54in preserving personal freedom.
7:57(gong and Oriental music)
8:06That's why I came here
8:08to the South China Sea.
8:10It's a place where there’s
8:11an almost laboratory experiment
8:13in what happens when government is limited
8:15to its proper function and leaves people free
8:18to pursue their own objectives.
8:24If you want to see how the free market
8:26really works this is the place to come:
8:30Hong Kong, a place with hardly
8:32any natural resources.
8:34About the only one you can name
8:36is a great harbor.
8:37Yet the absence of natural resources
8:39hasn't prevented
8:40rapid economic development.
8:47Ships from all nations come here
8:49to trade because there are no duties,
8:51no tariffs on imports or exports.
8:56The power of the free market
8:57has enabled the industrious people
8:59of Hong Kong to transform
9:01what was once barren rock
9:03into one of the most thriving
9:04and successful places in Asia.
9:09Aside from its harbor,
9:10the only other important resource
9:12of Hong Kong is people -
9:14over 4½ million of them.
9:20Like America a century ago,
9:21Hong Kong in the past few decades
9:23has been a haven for people
9:25who sought the freedom to make the most
9:27of their own abilities.
9:28(traffic and marketplace sounds)
9:32Many of them are refugees from countries
9:35that don't allow the economic
9:36and political freedom
9:37that is taken for granted in Hong Kong.
9:39Despite rapid population growth,
9:41despite the lack of natural resources,
9:43the standard of living
9:45is one of the highest in all of Asia.
9:50(sewing machine & factory noises)
9:52People work hard,
9:53but Hong Kong's success
9:55is not based on the exploitation of workers.
9:57Wages in Hong Kong have gone up
10:00four-fold since the War,
10:01and that's after allowing for inflation.
10:08The workers are free;
10:09free to work what hours they choose,
10:11free to move to other jobs if they wish.
10:14The market gives them that choice.
10:17It also determines what they make.
10:19You can be sure that somebody somewhere
10:21is willing to pay for these cheap,
10:23plastic toys.
10:25Otherwise they simply wouldn't be made.
10:32Competition from places like
10:34South Korea and Taiwan
10:35has made cheap products less profitable,
10:41so Hong Kong businessmen
10:43have been adapting.
10:50They have been developing
10:51more sophisticated products
10:52and new technology that can match
10:54anything in the West or East,
10:56and their employees have been
10:58developing new skills.
10:59(high-tech machinery sounds)
11:05Hong Kong never stops.
11:07There's always some business to be done,
11:09some opportunity to be seized.
11:11It’s long been a tourist center
11:13and a shopper’s paradise,
11:14and it's now one of the business centers
11:16of the East.
11:21It's the ordinary people of Hong Kong
11:23who benefit from all this
11:24effort and enterprise.
11:26(bustling street sounds)
11:34This thriving, bustling, dynamic city
11:37has been made possible by the free market-
11:40indeed, the freest market in the world.
11:42The free market enables people
11:44to go into any industry they want,
11:46to trade with whomever they want,
11:47to buy in the cheapest market
11:49around the world,
11:50to sell in the dearest market
11:51around the world.
11:52But most important of all,
11:54if they fail, they bear the cost.
11:57If they succeed, they get the benefit.
12:01And it's that atmosphere of incentive
12:05that has induced them to work,
12:07to adjust, to save, to produce a miracle.
12:14This miracle hasn't been achieved
12:16by government action,
12:17by someone sitting in one
12:18of those tall buildings
12:19telling people what to do.
12:21It's been achieved by allowing
12:23the market to work.
12:32Walk down any street in Hong Kong
12:34and you will see the impersonal forces
12:36of the market in operation.
12:40Mr. Cheung makes metal containers.
12:42Nobody has ordered him to.
12:43He does it because he has found
12:45that he can do better for himself that way
12:47than by making anything else.
12:49But if demand for metal containers
12:51went down,
12:52or somebody found a way
12:53of making them cheaper,
12:55Mr. Cheung would soon get that message.
13:01A few doors away,
13:02Mr. Yu's firm has been making traditional
13:04Cantonese wedding gowns for 42 years.
13:08But the demand
13:08for these elaborate garments is falling.
13:10The firm has already gotten that message
13:13and is now looking for another product.
13:16The market tells producers
13:18not only what to produce,
13:19but how best to produce it,
13:20through another set of prices:
13:22the cost of materials,
13:23the wages of labor, and so on.
13:29For example,
13:30if these workers could earn more
13:31doing something else,
13:32Mr. Ho would soon find a way
13:35to mechanize his picture frame production.
13:40Inside this Chinese medicine shop,
13:42a market transaction is going on.
13:45The customer's confidence
13:47that this painful-looking ordeal
13:49will help him doesn't rest
13:50on any official certification
13:52of the bone doctor's qualifications.
13:54It comes from experience,
13:55his own or his friends’.
13:57In his turn,
13:58the doctor treats him not because
14:00he has been ordered to,
14:01but because he gets paid.
14:03The transaction is voluntary,
14:05so both parties must expect to benefit
14:08or it will not take place.
14:17Believe it or not, this backyard
14:19is the entrance to a factory.
14:26(factory noise)
14:27The workers here are some of the
14:28best paid in Hong Kong.
14:34It's hot, sticky, and extremely noisy.
14:38The workers are highly skilled,
14:40so they can command high wages.
14:44They could induce their employer to improve
14:47working conditions by offering to work for
14:49less, but they would rather accept the
14:51conditions, take the high wages,
14:53and spend them as they wish.
14:55That's their choice.
15:00The best-known statement of the principles
15:02of a free market, the kind of free market
15:04that operates in Hong Kong,
15:05was written on the other side of the world.
15:11(river running)
15:18(bagpipes playing)
15:25Two-hundred years ago, in Scotland,
15:27Adam Smith taught at
15:28the University of Glasgow.
15:34His brilliant book, The Wealth of Nations,
15:36was based on the lectures he gave here.
15:40(birds singing)
15:43The basic principles underlying the
15:45free market, as Adam Smith taught
15:47them to his students in this university,
15:50are really very simple.
15:54Look at this lead pencil.
15:56There is not a single person in the world
15:58who could make this pencil.
16:00Remarkable statement? Not at all.
16:03The wood from which it's made,
16:05for all I know, comes from a tree that
16:07was cut down in the State of Washington.
16:09To cut down that tree, it took a saw.
16:12To make the saw, it took steel.
16:15To make the steel, it took iron ore.
16:18This black center, we call it lead but it's
16:21really graphite, compressed graphite,
16:24I'm not sure
16:25where it comes from, but I think it comes
16:27from some mines in South America.
16:30This red top up here, the eraser,
16:33a bit of rubber, probably comes from Malaya,
16:36where the rubber tree isn't even native.
16:39It was imported from South America
16:40by some businessmen with the
16:43help of the British government.
16:45This brass feral--I haven't the slightest idea
16:48where it came from, or the yellow paint,
16:52or the paint that made the black lines,
16:54or the glue that holds it together.
16:57Literally thousands of people cooperated
17:00to make this pencil, people who don't
17:03speak the same language, who practice
17:05different religions, who might hate
17:08one another if they ever met.
17:10When you go down to the store and
17:12buy this pencil, you are in effect,
17:15trading a few minutes of your time for
17:18a few seconds of the time of
17:21all of those thousands of people.
17:24What brought them together and induced
17:26them to cooperate to make this pencil?
17:28There was no commissar sending out offices,
17:30sending out orders from some central office.
17:34It was the magic of the price system,
17:37the impersonal operation of prices that
17:41brought them together, and got them to
17:43cooperate to make this pencil so that
17:45you could have it for a trifling sum.
17:48That is why the operation of the free market
17:53is so essential, not only to promote
17:57productive efficiency, but, even more,
18:00to foster harmony and peace among
18:03the peoples of the world.
18:05These people are crossing between
18:07two very different societies.
18:12This is Lo Wu, the official border crossing
18:14point between China and Hong Kong.
18:17Nowadays there's a considerable amount
18:18of traffic at this border.
18:20People cross a little more freely
18:21than they used to.
18:28Many people from Hong Kong trade in China,
18:30and the market has helped bring the two
18:33countries closer together,
18:36(train sounds)
18:39but the barriers between them
18:41are still very real.
18:45On this side of the border,
18:47people are free not only in the marketplace,
18:50but in all their lives.
18:51They are free to say what they want,
18:53to write what they want,
18:54to do pretty much as they please.
18:57Not so over there.
18:59That is why people in China who
19:01cannot get permission to leave,
19:04go to desperate lengths to escape.
19:07They risk their lives in the process.
19:09Many lose their lives, but that
19:11doesn't keep others from following.
19:13Some are attracted by the higher material
19:15standard of life in Hong Kong, but more
19:18by the natural human desire to be free.
19:23The people who get official permission
19:25to leave China are fortunate.
19:27They are going to be able to enjoy
19:28the benefits of the economic freedom
19:30they will find in Hong Kong.
19:33But more important, that will
19:35give them a much wider freedom.
19:40Human and political freedom has never
19:43existed, and cannot exist, without a
19:46large measure of economic freedom.
19:49Those of us who have been so fortunate
19:51as to have been born in a free society tend
19:54to take freedom for granted, to regard it
19:56as the natural state of mankind, it is not.
19:59It is a rare and precious thing.
20:02Most people throughout history,
20:03most people today,
20:05have lived in conditions of tyranny
20:08and misery, not of freedom and prosperity.
20:12The clearest demonstration of how
20:14much people value freedom is the way
20:17they vote with their feet, when they
20:18have no other way to vote.
20:28Of course, many of the people who pour into
20:30Hong Kong will end up in conditions that
20:32most of us in the West would find appalling.
20:36Hong Kong is very far from utopia.
20:39It has its slums, its crime,
20:42its desperately poor people.
20:46(boat engines)
20:55But the people are free.
20:57That's, after all, why so many of them
20:59have come here, despite having to
21:01live in leaky house boats in one of
21:03Hong Kong's many small harbors.
21:05Here they have the freedom and the
21:06opportunity to better themselves,
21:08to improve their lot, and many succeed.
21:17There's appalling poverty in Hong Kong,
21:19it's true, but the conditions of the people
21:21have been getting better over time.
21:24They're far better off now
21:26than they were when they first
21:27came across the border from China.
21:29And that poverty, appalling to us,
21:31because we're accustomed to much
21:33higher standards of life, is not poverty as
21:36viewed by most of the people in the world.
21:39It's a poverty to which they would aspire.
21:41A state of affairs they would like to achieve.
21:49There is an enormous amount of poverty
21:51in the world everywhere.
21:52There is no system that's perfect.
21:54There is no system that's going to eliminate
21:56completely poverty, in whatever sense.
21:59The question is:
21:59Which system has the greatest chance?
22:03Which is the best arrangement for
22:06enabling poor people to improve
22:08their life, and on that, the evidence of
22:11history speaks with a single voice.
22:14I do not know any exception to the
22:15to the proposition that, if you compare like
22:19with like, the freer the system, the better
22:21off the ordinary poor people have been.
22:27Ask yourself what it is that assures these
22:29garment workers in Hong Kong a good
22:31wage-- not high by Western standards,
22:33but high enough to enable them to live
22:35far better than most people in the world.
22:40It’s not government or trade unions that
22:43do it. These workers do well because there
22:45is competition for their labor and skills.
22:54When a businessman faces trouble,
22:57a market threatens to disappear, or a new
22:59competitor arises, there are
23:01two things he can do.
23:02He can turn to the government for a tariff
23:04or a quota or some other restriction on
23:06competition, or he can adjust and adapt.
23:11In Hong Kong, the first option is closed.
23:14Hong Kong is too dependent on
23:16foreign trade, so that the government
23:18has simply had to adopt a policy of
23:20complete non-interference.
23:23That's tough on some individuals, but it’s
23:25extremely healthy for the society as a whole.
23:28Only the businessmen who can adapt,
23:31who are flexible and adjustable, survive,
23:35and they create good employment
23:36opportunities for the rest.
23:39The complete absence of tariffs or any
23:41other restrictions on trade is one of
23:43the main reasons why Hong Kong has
23:46been able to provide such a rapidly
23:48rising standard of life for its people.
23:52Even Communist China recognizes
23:54Hong Kong's success.
23:56It set up shop here and now accepts
23:59the universal symbol of capitalism.
24:04The Bank of China, the official bank
24:06of Communist China,
24:07is the largest bank in Hong Kong.
24:10There's no doubt that Communist China
24:12recognizes the power of the market.
24:16In all this, the government of Hong Kong
24:19has played an important part;
24:21not only by what it has done, but as much
24:23by what it has refrained from doing.
24:25It has made sure that laws are
24:27enforced and contracts honored.
24:29It has provided the conditions in which
24:32a free market can work.
24:34Most importantly, it has not tried to direct
24:37the economic activities of the colony.
24:45No government official is telling
24:46these people what to do.
24:48They are free to buy from whom they want,
24:49to sell to whom they want,
24:50to work for whom they want.
24:52Sometimes it looks like chaos and so it is,
24:54but underneath it's highly organized by
24:57the impersonal forces of a free marketplace.
25:03(outdoor marketplace sounds)
25:18The impersonal forces of a free marketplace
25:21at work back here in the United States.
25:27Prices are the key.
25:29The prices that people are willing to pay
25:31for products determines what's produced.
25:34The prices that have to be paid for raw
25:36materials, for the wages of labor,
25:38and so on, determine the cheapest
25:39way to produce these things.
25:42And in addition, these self same prices,
25:44the wages of labor, the interest on capital,
25:47and so on, determine how much each
25:50person has to spend on the market.
25:53It's tempting to try to separate this final
25:56function of prices from the other two,
25:58to think that some how or other you can use
26:01prices to transmit the information about
26:03what should be produced and how it should
26:05be produced, without using those prices to
26:08determine how much each person gets.
26:10Indeed, government activity over the past
26:13few decades has been devoted to little else.
26:16But that's a very serious mistake.
26:18If what people get is not going to be
26:20determined on what they produce,
26:22on how they produce it,
26:23on how successfully they work,
26:25what incentive is there for them
26:27to act in accordance with the
26:28information that is transmitted?
26:30There is only one alternative:
26:32Force, some people telling
26:35other people what to do.
26:40(vendors selling, people shopping)
27:15The fundamental principle of the
27:17free society is voluntary cooperation.
27:20The economic market,
27:21buying and selling, is one example.
27:24But it's only one example.
27:25Voluntary cooperation is
27:27far broader than that.
27:29To take an example that at first sight
27:31seems about as far away as you can get,
27:33the language we speak, the words we use,
27:36the complex structure of our grammar.
27:39No government bureau designed that.
27:41It arose out of the voluntary
27:43interactions of people seeking to
27:45communicate with one another.
27:47Or consider some of the great
27:48scientific achievements of our time:
27:51the discoveries of an Einstein or a Newton,
27:55the inventions of a Thomas Alva Edison
27:59or an Alexander Graham Bell.
28:00Or even consider the great charitable
28:02activities of a Florence Nightingale
28:04or an Andrew Carnegie.
28:06These weren't done under orders from
28:08a government office.
28:09They were done by individuals deeply
28:12interested in what they were doing,
28:13pursuing their own interests,
28:14and cooperating with one another.
28:17This kind of voluntary cooperation is built
28:20so deeply into the structure of our society
28:22that we tend to take it for granted.
28:24Yet the whole of our Western civilization
28:27is the unintended consequence of
28:29that kind of a voluntary cooperation,
28:32of people cooperating with one another
28:35to pursue their own interests,
28:36yet in the process building a great society.
28:40(music)
28:43McKenzie: We are here at the Harper Library
28:44at the University of Chicago to
28:46Our distinguished guests have
28:47their own ideas, too.
28:48So, let's join them now.
28:50It seemed to me he was saying that
28:51the golden age for America,
28:53when it was truly a land of opportunity,
28:55was the late 19th, early 20th century,
28:57no regulations, no permits, no red tape.
29:00I would argue that the government
29:02played a decisive role in an enormous
29:04grant to the railroads in creating
29:05an America capitalist economy.
29:07And secondly,
29:08if you go back to that golden age,
29:09you find that the government constantly
29:11intervened in a rather characteristic way,
29:13it used troops against strikers.
29:16American labor history has been the most
29:17violent, bloody class struggle anywhere
29:20in the world, and the government,
29:22up until 1932, the law, the courts,
29:24the society, always sided with business,
29:28always sided against working people.
29:30Therefore I would argue that both
29:32economically and in terms of repressing the
29:34attempts of people to assert their freedom,
29:37our government prior to the rise of
29:38the welfare state in this country was
29:40more or less owned by business.
29:42Milton Friedman.
29:43Michael Harrington is seeing the
29:45hole in the barn door and he's
29:46not looking at the barn door itself.
29:48The plain fact is during the whole of
29:50that period, while government did intervene
29:52from time to time, and mostly to do harm,
29:54I agree with him that government
29:56intervention was, in the main,
29:57not a good thing, tariffs for example.
30:00On the other hand, throughout
30:02that whole period government spending,
30:04federal government spending,
30:06central government spending, never was
30:07more than 3 percent of the national income.
30:09It was trivial.
30:10The land grants to the railroads
30:13were a minor factor.
30:14I'm not--I don't approve of them.
30:16I'm not saying they were a good thing,
30:17but they were a very minor factor.
30:19One has to have a sense of proportion
30:21and that goes to the whole discussion.
30:23I am not an anarchist.
30:25I am not in favor of eliminating government.
30:27I believe we need a government,
30:28but we need a government that
30:30sets a framework, and rules within which
30:33individuals, pursuing their own objectives,
30:36can work together and cooperate together,
30:38and they work together and cooperate
30:39together not only in economic areas.
30:41I want to hold you for a moment,
30:42though, to that golden age theory,
30:44that we were best when we were regulated
30:46least in the late 19th and early 20th century,
30:48because remember the sweatshop analogy
30:50comes out of there, when there was no
30:51attempt to restrict hours of work or to
30:53regulate working conditions.
30:55Now, is that a view you accept
30:57of that period?
30:59Well I think it's necessary to contrast
31:00what's happened in the interim.
31:02I don't see how we can talk about that
31:04without comparing it with the interim period.
31:06Now you talked earlier about the fact that
31:10during the last fifty years
31:11we had squandered some
31:14of our inheritance of freedom.
31:15FRIEDMAN: Absolutely
31:16And I believe during the last fifty years
31:18we really have improved our freedom.
31:21I spent over half that time working for one
31:23of the world's largest industrial companies,
31:25the Dupont Company, deeply involved with
31:28the launching of new ventures, and got to
31:29know the free enterprise system well,
31:31and have a very healthy respect for it.
31:33But during that interval,
31:35and particularly during the last few years
31:37when I have been more involved with
31:38government and with environmental matters,
31:40I have become convinced that our freedom
31:44was improved when the people are allowed
31:46to add to their freedom in the marketplace.
31:49The freedom for voting with their dollars in
31:51the market place, the freedom to vote
31:53with their ballots in the polling place,
31:56to put some restraints on the excesses
31:58of the marketplace, particularly when
32:00you're concerned with such things as the
32:03long-term impact on our health from the
32:06pollution of our environment, the
32:07introduction of carcinogenic materials,
32:10or the radiation of our
32:11of our people with nuclear products.
32:13What about putting some restraints on
32:15the excesses of government?
32:17Hasn't that become an ever
32:18more serious problem?
32:19How is it that a government of the people,
32:21supposedly, does things which a very large
32:24fraction of the people would really prefer not
32:26to have done, such as over-tax them,
32:29over-govern them, over-regulate them?
32:31I think you're looking, again,
32:33at one side and not the other.
32:35And of course I agree we have to look
32:37at what's happened in the interim.
32:38We're better off than
32:39we were fifty years ago.
32:41Never would deny that.
32:42But we stand on the shoulders of
32:44the people that went before us.
32:46We have to look at how much they achieved
32:48from where they started, and that was
32:50the period in which you had the tremendous
32:52influx of immigrants from abroad,
32:55millions and millions and millions of them,
32:57when you opened up a new continent,
32:59when you had achievements.
33:00Milton, are you saying, though,
33:02that there's any sense, in which you'd rather
33:03go back to those circumstances where
33:05there are no regulations of factory work,
33:07no hours, limitations of hours worked?
33:09Do you want to return to that
33:10or do you just say that was a
33:12stepping-stone to where we are now?
33:13It depends on what you mean
33:14by circumstances.
33:16I don't want to have to go back to using a
33:17horse and buggy instead of an automobile,
33:19but I would prefer to go back to the
33:22kinds of governmental regulations,
33:23or absence of regulations,
33:25the greater degree of freedom which was
33:27given to individuals to pursue one activity
33:29or another, which prevailed then,
33:32than which prevails now.
33:34I think that, really,
33:35our industrial leaders have been
33:37dragged into the future screaming.
33:40They resisted the Child Labor laws;
33:41they resisted Social Security, labor unions,
33:44and now the environmental movement.
33:46Once the government forced them to pay
33:48attention to those, by the voting of the
33:50people in the ballot box and in the polling
33:52place, then the industrial leaders,
33:55business leaders, paid attention to those
33:57rules and have done a good job in
33:59most cases of abiding by them.
34:00FRIEDMAN: Excuse me.
34:01Now Bob Galvin is an industrialist,
34:03now come on, is that a fair statement?
34:04Maybe the industrialists have a clearer
34:08view of history and its prospects.
34:11The most precious asset we possess is
34:14freedom. The easiest way to lose one's
34:16freedom is to go into receivership,
34:18and I mean economic receivership.
34:21Because a receiver is a dictator.
34:23And to the degree that we employ
34:26the costs and the burdens of government
34:29that lead us in the direction of further debt,
34:32ultimate receivership,
34:34and then the political consequence of the
34:37imposition of the political dictator over
34:41the economic and the job and the living
34:44rights of the individual, maybe the
34:46industrialists can see farther down the pike
34:48as to the consequence of all this.
34:49Michael Harrington.
34:51I just think that -- two things.
34:53One, to view freedom positively:
34:55I think people over 65 years of age
34:58in the United States today are freer
34:59now because of Medicare.
35:02I do not think that the freedom to die from
35:04the lack of medicine was a very good thing.
35:07Secondly, related to industrialists,
35:09I think that one of the startling things about
35:13American history is that when Franklin
35:15Roosevelt was saving the system from itself,
35:17the main beneficiaries were screaming
35:19bloody murder at him for being a traitor
35:21to his class, when he was in fact
35:23the salvation of that class.
35:25And I think if you, therefore,
35:27if you look at our history,
35:27I do think you find a tremendous myopia on
35:30the part of industrialists, and you find that
35:33the positive increments to our freedom,
35:36interestingly enough, have not come from
35:37the college graduates, but often from
35:39people with -- not from the best people.
35:42It's come from working people,
35:43it's come from poor people, it's come from
35:44blacks and Hispanics and the like.
35:47Milton, would you reply,
35:48but then tell us why you took us to
35:49Hong Kong to prove something.
35:51Sure.
35:51Unaccustomed as I am to agreeing with
35:53Michael Harrington, I will agree in part
35:55with what he's just said. I do not believe
35:58it's proper to put the situation in terms
36:01of industrialist versus government.
36:03On the contrary, one of the reasons why
36:06I am in favor of less government is:
36:09because when you have more government
36:10industrialists take it over, and the two
36:12together form a coalition against the
36:15ordinary worker and the ordinary consumer.
36:18I think business is a wonderful institution
36:20provided it has to face competition in
36:22the marketplace and it can't get away
36:24with something except by producing a
36:26better product at a lower cost,
36:27and that's why I don't want government to
36:29step in and help the business community.
36:32Now I want to go to your
36:33question about Medicare.
36:36There are many people who have
36:37benefited from Medicare,
36:38but you're not looking at the cost side.
36:40What has happened to the people who are
36:41paying for it? It isn't -- we don't have a free
36:44good, it isn't coming from nowhere.
36:46And are they benefiting from it in a cost
36:49effective way? Those are the questions.
36:51It's demagoguery, if you'll pardon
36:52me, Michael Harrington, to say the people
36:56who have Medicare are freer.
36:58Of course, in one dimension.
37:01But they themselves have been paying all
37:02their lives, and have they gotten a good
37:05bargain? At the moment they have.
37:07The young men, the young working people
37:09who are going into Social Security now,
37:11they're going to get a very raw deal indeed.
37:13Milton, interestingly on that point,
37:16people over 65 are paying more of their
37:18spendable income for medical care now,
37:21than they were before Medicare was enacted.
37:23It's been not a very successful program.
37:25Government doesn't do things well.
37:27It doesn't do things well if it hasn't
37:28done things well in Britain, in Canada,
37:30in the United States.
37:31Now, Milton, then you took us to Hong Kong
37:33on exactly that point. That here you said
37:36was a true model of the market operating.
37:40Now is that really the fair
37:42description of Hong Kong?
37:44At the moment, yes. It's not -- again,
37:47there aren't any such things as a hundred
37:48percent one way and a hundred percent
37:50the other. Everything is mixed, of course.
37:52Hong Kong has a government, and it
37:55happens to be a government in this case --
37:57there's no democracy in Hong Kong.
37:58It's run from Britain. It's a Crown Colony of
38:01Britain, and the British governor general
38:04and so on, and financial secretary run it.
38:07But the situation in Hong Kong is:
38:10That there is very little
38:12government regulation of industry.
38:13There's complete free trade.
38:14There are no tariffs,
38:16there are no export subsidies,
38:18there are no restrictions on
38:19the purchase and sale of monies,
38:24so that it is,
38:25comes about as close to
38:26a complete free market
38:28as you can find in the world today.
38:30And there is no doubt
38:31that the main beneficiaries
38:33have been the low-income people,
38:37the poor people who have poured
38:38into Hong Kong by the hundreds
38:39of thousands and millions,
38:41out of Red China and who keep on trying
38:43to get in there.
38:44This goes to Michael Harrington's question,
38:46if an industrial system,
38:47if a free enterprise system
38:49is a system in which the poor are ground
38:51beneath the heels
38:53of the rapacious industrialists
38:56he's worried about,
38:57how would he explain the success
38:59in Hong Kong,
39:00the extent to which people continue to vote
39:02with their feet to go there?
39:03You're not asking us to make
39:05of the United States one gigantic
39:07Hong Kong, or a sweatshop,
39:09or whatever you want to call it.
39:10You would acknowledge that there is
39:13a historical development of an economy,
39:17and what may be right for one stage
39:20in the development of an economy
39:21may not be right for another stage.
39:23Isn't the issue, where do we go from here?
39:26What pragmatic decisions do we make
39:30about the direction
39:30of the American economy?
39:32Should it be toward
39:33more and more government,
39:34or should it be trying to preserve
39:36an adequate balance between
39:37freedom of choice
39:39and government intervention?
39:40Again, the problem is
39:42to distinguish two things.
39:44This comes back to an earlier comment.
39:47The circumstances in terms of
39:48the physical arrangements,
39:50and the circumstances in terms of the rules
39:53that guide the society.
39:55Now in the case of Hong Kong,
39:57of course I'm not asking that we crowd
39:59our people to a density of population
40:02such as Hong Kong has.
40:03Hong Kong is a marvelous example
40:05just because its circumstances
40:06are so terrible,
40:07it's physical circumstances.
40:09And the people in Hong Kong would love
40:10to get elsewhere,
40:11into less crowded circumstances,
40:13if other people would let them in.
40:15This is the problem of immigration,
40:16which is a very important restriction
40:18on human freedom.
40:19In the period before 1913 we had complete,
40:22a hundred percent freedom of immigration
40:24into the United States.
40:24We don't now, but go back to your question.
40:27Do you think Hong Kong would exist
40:28if it weren't in close juxtaposition
40:30to Communist China?
40:32Hong Kong would exist.
40:33It is very dubious that it would have
40:36the policies it has now if it weren't
40:38in close juxtaposition
40:40to Communist China.
40:41Well, now, but to answer
40:42your question directly:
40:43Yes, I am in favor of the United States
40:47having not the circumstances,
40:50not the physical circumstances,
40:51but the policies that Hong Kong
40:54has had of zero tariffs,
40:55of complete free trade,
40:58of no restrictions on exports,
41:00no restrictions on monetary transactions,
41:04of a far greater degree of...far
41:06lesser degree of governmental regulation.
41:09I agree with what Russell Peterson
41:11said before,
41:12that there are third-party effects.
41:13There are things like pollution.
41:14The question is whether we're handling them
41:16in the right way,
41:17and I think we're not.
41:18I want to bring Bob Galvin in here.
41:19Bob, the beginning of Milton's agenda there,
41:21no tariffs, for example,
41:23no restrictions, no quotas.
41:25Now, will business, big business,
41:27wear that kind of policy?
41:28I think big business and all business
41:31could wear that kind of policy
41:33if we could find the appropriate balancing
41:36factor that in the rest of world trade,
41:39where we trade outside our border,
41:41and as others come in,
41:42we are required to trade against
41:45socialized institutions.
41:48That's a very different kind of an institution
41:51than the private institution.
41:53The private institution can clearly operate
41:56more efficiently if it is not imposed upon
42:00by an artificial price
42:02from the socialized institution
42:04across the seas.
42:05So I think there has to be,
42:07not protectionism,
42:09but there has to be an international rule
42:12of the road that prevents
42:14the socialized institution
42:16from subsidizing and taking advantage
42:19of the private institution.
42:21Do you include the nine countries
42:22to the Common Market,
42:23though, as socialist countries,
42:24or are you prepared to open competition
42:26from all the nine countries
42:27in the Common Market?
42:28The nine countries
42:30of the European Common Market
42:31engage in the most dramatic
42:34of the socialized institutions.
42:36I don't agree with him at all.
42:38We are hurting ourselves
42:39by restricting trade from abroad.
42:41Other countries are hurting
42:42themselves and us
42:43by the measures you describe,
42:45but we're only hurting ourselves
42:47even the more if we imitate them.
42:49I don't think, Dr. Friedman,
42:51that your mother would get a job
42:53sewing today in America
42:56if we had no tariffs at all.
42:58What would happen is:
42:59there wouldn't be any sewing jobs
43:01in America,
43:01we'd be making nothing but computers.
43:03But then there would be
43:04some other kinds of jobs.
43:06Then she would get a job
43:07at a very low level in making computers.
43:09Yeah. Although you face the problem
43:10that you've had both a leading businessman
43:13and a leading conservative congressman,
43:16not accepting your prescription
43:18of sweeping away-
43:19But, of course, the two greatest enemies --
43:21I would say the greatest enemies
43:24of free enterprise and of freedom
43:26in the world
43:26have been on the one hand the
43:28industrialists, and on the other hand
43:30most of my academic colleagues,
43:31who end up in government.
43:32For opposite reasons.
43:34For opposite reasons.
43:36Michael Harrington, I guess,
43:36would agree with this.
43:37People like Michael Harrington
43:38and my academic colleagues
43:39want freedom for themselves.
43:41They want free speech,
43:42they want freedom to write,
43:44they want freedom to publish,
43:45to do research,
43:45but they don't want freedom
43:46for any of those awful businessmen.
43:48Now the businessmen are very different.
43:50Every businessman wants freedom
43:51for somebody else,
43:52but he wants special privilege for himself.
43:55He wants a tariff from congress,
43:57and the congressmen --
43:59well the way in which congressmen
44:01get elected is by performing favors
44:03to constituents.
44:04And if indeed you were to wipe out
44:07completely all tariffs,
44:08if you were to reduce government controls
44:10in this country to what they are now,
44:12I do not think that would be
44:13in the self-interest of --
44:14Well, then -
44:15-- even Barber Conable,
44:16for whom I have the very greatest respect,
44:18or Bob Galvin,
44:20for whom I have the respect.
44:21I think it would be in the self-interest
44:22of Michael Harrington.
44:23Now let's ask what the American people
44:25want and will wear,
44:26because you're saying, in effect,
44:28that to get elected
44:28the congressman is giving the people
44:30what they want.
44:31Now, aren't you saying in the end, then,
44:33the people don't want this
44:34or don't understand the advantage of it?
44:36I'm saying that my whole function
44:37and purpose is to try to persuade the people
44:40to make a different thing
44:42politically profitable.
44:43I'm trying to persuade the people
44:45to make it clear that congressmen
44:48who pursue these policies
44:49are gonna lose their jobs.
44:50And if we do that,
44:51congressmen are pursuing
44:53their self-interests.
44:54They're in a market,
44:55there's a political market.
44:56They've got a product to sell, and they've
44:58got to appeal to their customers.
45:00And I am just engaging
45:01in the kind of advertising Mr. Galvin
45:04and other companies use.
45:05...very experienced politician,
45:06Governor Peterson.
45:07Well, let me ask you how
45:08you would cope with this problem,
45:10Dr. Friedman.
45:10The people decided that they wanted cool air,
45:13and there was tremendous need,
45:15and so we built a huge industry,
45:17the air conditioning industry,
45:19hundreds of thousands of jobs,
45:21tremendous earnings opportunities
45:22and nearly all of us now have air conditioned
45:24homes and cars and offices.
45:26Then the people decided
45:27they wanted clean air,
45:28and they couldn't buy it in the marketplace,
45:31so they voted at the polling place.
45:33They got elected representatives
45:35to go to the congress and say,
45:37we are going to have clean air.
45:39Now overnight there was a new market,
45:41and the free enterprise system
45:42responded to that, and now
45:43there's a big environmental industry
45:45making earnings,
45:46providing jobs,
45:47but also serving this public need
45:50to have the freedom to breathe clean air.
45:54You grossly underestimate the extent
45:56to which the private market is able to do it.
45:58It's not an accident that the air,
46:01before you had any of this legislation,
46:03air and water were cleaner
46:05in the United States today
46:06than they were in the United States
46:08a hundred years ago.
46:09You know the automobile added
46:11one kind of pollution,
46:12but it eliminated a far worse
46:14kind of pollution.
46:15If you consider what the streets of New York
46:17would look like today
46:18if you were still transporting people
46:21by horse-drawn vehicles,
46:22you would have pollution on a scale
46:24that would stagger you.
46:25In the same way,
46:26it's not an accident that the air is cleaner
46:29and the water purer in those countries today
46:32that are the most advanced,
46:33than they are in the backwards country.
46:35It's not been in Afghanistan
46:37that you find clean air and water.
46:38It's in the advanced countries.
46:40So the market is a very much more
46:42subtle mechanism than people
46:45give it credit for being.
46:46I would like to get this back to the
46:47real world, because in the real world
46:49there is no possibility
46:51that American business,
46:52which is a welfare-dependent
46:54business system,
46:55is going to adopt these ideas.
46:57What these ideas function as
46:58in the real world
46:59is a rationalization for the myth
47:02of free enterprise,
47:03which disguises the fact
47:04of state capitalism as an argument
47:07against social intervention,
47:09in a society that does intervene
47:11on behalf of the steel industry very quickly.
47:13Finally in terms of
47:15the American political process,
47:17I don't believe that the political process
47:19is so simple as having the people
47:20elect the government.
47:22The fact is:
47:23that when a Jimmy Carter
47:24is elected president
47:25on a relatively liberal platform,
47:28he then has to win business confidence,
47:31because of the control
47:33of the investment process
47:34by corporate power.
47:35And I think that fact,
47:37corporate power,
47:38rationalized by free enterprise myths,
47:41is the central problem of freedom
47:43in our time,
47:44and that's what has to be attacked.
47:45Before we come to Milton again -
47:46No, no.
47:47I've got to comment on this,
47:49because I think we mustn't let words
47:50get in the way of what really is the case.
47:53I take it you think we don't have socialism.
47:56I would say to you that 46 percent
47:59of every corporation in this country
48:01is owned by the U.S. Government.
48:02That's the corporate income tax,
48:05that means out of every dollar
48:06of profits the corporation makes,
48:0846 cents goes to the U.S. Government.
48:10The actual tax is far higher than that
48:13because you tax that doubly
48:14when it comes to the individual.
48:15The extent to which corporations control
48:19their investment decisions
48:20has been increasingly reduced.
48:22The government is dictating what they
48:24spend their investment funds on
48:25in the name of pollution control,
48:27in the name of other things.
48:29It's a myth to suppose
48:30that there is some kind of
48:32a big corporate power over here.
48:34There was a time when corporations
48:35were more influential than they are now,
48:37but at the moment I think they're
48:39a beleaguered minority
48:41rather than the dominant majority.
48:44I'd like to take the others
48:45into this for a moment.
48:46What is the process,
48:47for those of you who want to
48:49roll back the state,
48:50or to push back governmental influence,
48:53on the operation of the economy?
48:54Before we let Milton in on that,
48:56what would you do as an active politician,
48:59as another politician, and a businessman?
49:02Well, I personally think we ought to restrain
49:04the growth of government in the future.
49:05How?
49:06By putting some sort of limit
49:07on government expenditures.
49:09I would like to see
49:11a constitutional amendment doing that,
49:12otherwise we're going to continue
49:14to have the government growing faster
49:16than the economy and thus pushing more
49:17and more of the gross national product
49:19through the tin horn of government.
49:20I think that would be a mistake.
49:22It's a difficult thing to do.
49:24I hope we can find some way
49:26to do it without making ourselves
49:28less free in some way.
49:29Governor Peterson, can it be done?
49:31Yes, I think we can make
49:32substantial headway by furthering
49:35our pluralistic society,
49:36by encouraging,
49:39educating more people
49:40to think comprehensively.
49:42I think one of the big problems in our world
49:45is that leaders in government
49:46and in industry are shortsighted.
49:48They don't look at the long-term impacts
49:50of their decisions.
49:51And in a democracy such as ours
49:54the power is with the people,
49:55just like the textbooks say.
49:57And if they get this more
49:58comprehensive understanding
50:00and knowledge,
50:00they're gonna see to it
50:01that the special interests
50:03of the elected officials
50:04will be in tune with getting reelected,
50:07and they will look at the long-term views
50:09just like the citizenry is.
50:11So I am all in favor
50:12of an all-out push
50:13to get this freedom to vote
50:15in the polling place,
50:17added to the freedom of the marketplace,
50:19because that's a potent combination.
50:21But voting in the polling place
50:22is a very different kind of freedom
50:24than voting in the marketplace.
50:25When you vote in the polling place,
50:27it is important,
50:28but it's very different.
50:29When you vote, you vote for a package.
50:31And, if you are in the minority, you lose.
50:35you don't get what you want.
50:36When you vote in the marketplace
50:38everybody gets what he votes for.
50:39If you vote for a --
50:42I vote for a green tie, I get a green tie.
50:45You vote for a blue tie, you get a blue tie.
50:47If we do that in the polling booth,
50:49if 60 percent of us vote for a green tie,
50:52you have to wear a green tie.
50:53Oh, but the 40 percent don't just shut up.
50:55They can try to influence
50:56decision-making to their own.
50:57Of course they can try to influence
50:57but it's a very different
50:59and less efficient mechanism
51:00for matching performance, matching results,
51:03to individual taste and preference.
51:05Whatever kind of car I buy,
51:06I still get dirty air.
51:08There are good people running this society,
51:10and most of the people
51:11that we're talking about work someplace,
51:14and they know that their company
51:15is doing something pretty good,
51:17or trying to do something pretty good.
51:19I think the people are going to
51:22start telling the leaders
51:23where they've gone wrong
51:25and start to redress it
51:26by the direction of the ballot box.
51:29The people in general are more conservative
51:31and in particular are more liberal.
51:32That is to say,
51:33if you ask the people in general,
51:34what do you think of government,
51:35"Get it off my back, less taxes."
51:37If you ask in particular what about health,
51:38national health;
51:39what about full employment,
51:40government is the employer of last resort.
51:42What about pollution, do something about it.
51:44Everett Ladd had an article
51:45in Fortune about a year ago,
51:47which is hardly a radical left-wing journal,
51:49showing this contradiction.
51:51And I think that there is
51:53in the United States today
51:54a rapid movement to the left,
51:56right and center, which I, obviously,
51:59hope will be resolved
52:00not by an across-the-boards cut
52:02aimed primarily at poor and working people,
52:05but by an increasing democratization
52:09of economic power,
52:09and an increasing democratization
52:11of the government.
52:11I think that in this complicated society
52:14of huge institutions and bureaucracies,
52:16if we talk about freedom,
52:17one of the things I would like to see
52:19would be a law providing funds
52:22for any significant minority
52:24to buy the research to counter the majority.
52:26If you don't have the expertise,
52:28the knowledge technology today,
52:30you're out of the debate.
52:31And I think that we have to
52:33democratize information and government
52:35as well as the economy and society.
52:37I am sorry to say Michael Harrington's
52:39solution is not a solution to it.
52:41He wants minority rule, I don't.
52:43I want individual rule.
52:44I want human beings separately
52:46and individually
52:46to have control of their lives.
52:48I don't believe that a minority
52:49that differs with me should have the right
52:51to take money out of my pocket
52:52to do research for them.
52:55They should go out
52:55and try to persuade people
52:57to contribute to them.
52:58I should be free to get people
52:59to contribute to me to present my ideas.
53:02But the idea of having some kind of
53:04an official government agency
53:06that is going to finance dissidents--
53:08in the first place,
53:09anybody who has any sense of realism
53:12about the way government operates at all
53:14will know that will end up
53:15in the hands of the majority
53:16and not the minority.
53:17But can government
53:18in this extremely interdependent,
53:21complex world economy which is developing,
53:24can you have a mystical belief
53:27in the invisible hand of Adam Smith?
53:28I happen to think that Adam Smith
53:30was one of the greatest intellectual figures
53:31in the history of the world,
53:32and that capitalism was one
53:34of the greatest advances
53:35that humankind has ever made.
53:36But precisely because I put this
53:38in historical context; capitalism,
53:41as a friend of mine by the name of Karl Marx
53:43predicted some time ago,
53:44has developed tremendous tendencies
53:46towards monopoly, concentration,
53:48multinational corporations,
53:50money supplies that are not controlled
53:53by the Federal Reserve Bank
53:54or even the president
53:55of the United States anymore.
53:56And to think that you can respond
53:58to this radically new environment
54:00by an 18th century solution,
54:02I think really comes down to
54:05an intellectual exercise whose practical,
54:07political effect is to rationalize
54:09conservative power in America.
54:10This is a myth, a complete myth,
54:13that the development
54:16of an inter-developed country
54:17in a more complicated world
54:19necessitates greater
54:21government intervention.
54:22Government intervention has not grown
54:24in those areas which arise out
54:26of the complexity and interdependence
54:28of the world.
54:28It's grown where?
54:29In taking money from some people
54:32and giving it to others.
54:32All I have to say is that government,
54:34Dr. Friedman, has to live in the 20th century,
54:37Of course.
54:38-- much less the 19th or the 18th.
54:40And we have to take society
54:42as it exists today
54:44and build on that.
54:45To me, the decisive thing at issue here
54:47is an essentially mythic,
54:50nonhistorical presentation
54:52of an abstract solution,
54:54taken out of time,
54:55which does not look to the tremendous
54:59evolution of capitalist society,
55:01the tremendous interdependence
55:02of the world,
55:03the fact that we now have
55:03not only national economic planning,
55:05but at the Tokyo summit we have
55:08institutionalized international
55:09economic planning
55:10of the major industrial capitalist powers.
55:13And under those circumstances,
55:15granted the enormous achievement
55:17of Adam Smith,
55:18granted the enormous achievement
55:19of the capitalist society,
55:21under this radically changed
55:23historical situation
55:24to propose those classic old solutions,
55:26I think is to propose something
55:28nonserious which, however,
55:30does function seriously to rationalize
55:32conservative corporate economic
55:34and political power.
55:36The great achievements
55:37of the 19th century came from --
55:39by departing from the kind of system
55:40you now want to reimpose.
55:42You want to take us back to
55:43the 18th and 17th century
55:45when we had a corporate society,
55:49when we had government controlling things.
55:51The whole issue is not
55:53what somebody is proposing
55:56in the 20th, or the 19th and the 18th,
55:57the whole issue is
55:58what is the right thing to do?
55:59What is the best way
56:00in which we can widen our opportunities,
56:03preserve our freedom,
56:04maintain our prosperity,
56:07and it seems to me the kind of solutions
56:09you would propose involve more of the same,
56:12more of the measures that have failed
56:16over and over again
56:17to achieve the objectives.
56:20Well, we leave the debate there this week
56:21and we hope you'll join us again
56:23for the next edition of Free To Choose.
56:25(closing music)

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