Dakota Beacon

Capitalism. For many people this ten-letter dirty word is born of ignorance. Can anyone identify the last time capitalism was touted in a positive light by Hollywood in a TV or movie production? Name a novel in which the protagonist representing capitalism saved the day.

Economics instruction at the university level is too often tainted with Marxist socialist influence at the expense of capitalism. High school students graduate with the notion that capitalism equals greed.

So, who will sing the virtues of capitalism?

Milton Friedman is known as the father of the modern Chicago school of economics. From 1946 to 1977 he was the intellectual leader of the Chicago economists who challenged the postwar ideas that called for a large and active government.

Friedman, while professor of economics at the University of Chicago, wrote his well-known book “Capitalism and Freedom.” Friedman’s book offers an eloquent discussion explaining and justifying capitalism in the context of freedom. His volume became a classic defense of competitive capitalism. He thoroughly developed the premise that economic freedom, i.e., the freedom to make and spend income as one sees fit as long as it does not restrict another person’s freedom, is fundamental as an end in itself and as a condition for political freedom.

Here is Friedman in his own words from “Capitalism and Freedom.”

“How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat to freedom? Two broad principles embodied in our Constitution give an answer that has preserved our freedom so far, though they have been violated repeatedly in practice while proclaimed as precept.”

“First, the scope of government must be limited. Its major function must be to protect our freedom both from the enemies outside our gates and from our fellow-citizens: to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets.”

“The second broad principle is that government power must be dispersed. If the government is to exercise power, better in the county than in the state, better in the state than in Washington.”

Milton Friedman may be tagged with the slanderous ad hominem as a member of “the vast right-wing conspiracy’ by the left, but for decades he was regarded as one the preeminent economists of the Twentieth Century.

To continue, “Collectivist economic planning has indeed interfered with individual freedom….The basic problem of social organization is how to coordinate the economic activities of large numbers of people….Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion – the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals – the technique of the marketplace….The possibility of coordination through voluntary cooperation rest on the elementary – yet frequently denied – proposition that both parties to an economic transaction benefit from it, provided the transaction is bilaterally voluntary and informed….Exchange can therefore bring about coordination without coercion. A working model of a society organized through voluntary exchange is a free private enterprise exchange economy – what we have been calling competitive capitalism.”

Critics seldom mention the wide array of benefits deriving from competitive capitalism. Products, foods and services once considered luxuries are now, over a short period of time, regarded as necessities. At first fresh meat and white bread were luxuries affordable only by the well-to-do. As time passed, sewing machines, bicycles, automobiles, washing machines and dryers, televisions, air conditioners, freezers and cell phones became common necessities available to all.

Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” remains one of the most popular contemporary defenses of personal liberty and limited government. Would that more politicians took his recommendations to heart.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).