More...
More...
Read "The Shock Doctrine".
I disagree[not that it was or wasn't a great explanation but your point about designing an economy], there are plenty of economic schools of thought with plenty of controls - the trick is too find out what works for any given period of time.
Some of which fall under the umbrella of our various protectionisms.
Last edited by Vilifier of Zombies; 04-26-2012 at 01:09 AM.
Smith was a proponent of anti-mercantilism, putting less value on production (workers) in favor of more consumption (consumers), disregarding domestic and foreign investment in the process.
"With employment less than full and Net National Product suboptimal, all the debunked mercantilist arguments turn out to be valid." ~ Paul Samuelson
Some of which fall under the umbrella of our various protectionisms.[/QUOTE]
I don't disagree that we can make small, local, incremental, experimental interventions, perhaps at the state level.
Seems to me though, listening to Friedman, economists have generally decided tariffs are not beneficial except to special interests.
Paul Samuelson was in favor of tariffs on some exports and he'd wrote a weekly column along side Milton Friedman where they represented opposing sides, of course there are economists that'll argue for tariffs - shortly after Smith's time John Stuart Mill was in favor of exports and in this day and age, aside from Samuelson, Joseph Stiglitz also has also suggested tariffs on exports.
"Virtually" probably means any economist that didn't share his point of view...
Actually, one of my arguments with Smith is he followed a labor theory of value, a source, along with Ricardo, iirc, of Marx's theories.
Is Samuelson another generalist and macro economist? Yep, http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Samuelson.html: "...unlike Friedman, he did not and does not have a passionate belief in free markets—or for that matter in government intervention in markets. His pleasure seemed to come from providing new proofs, demonstrating technical finesse, and turning a clever phrase."
I'm not gonna down Friedman, even he understood that there were limits to some of his ideas , for example his thoughts on the gold standard from when he was younger and how they differed when he'd gotten older, that showed me that somewhere somehow he was at times a realist.
I'd like to keep in mind though that there are several trains of thought regarding protectionisms from other economists, some of whom also have earned a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and are held in just as a high regard as Friedman is. It doesn't mean they're all right or never wrong, just different sides of the same coin - it's good that you've taken an interest in Friedman, it wouldn't hurt to branch out, see what some of the others have to say then decide for yourself what might or might not work.
Last edited by Vilifier of Zombies; 04-25-2012 at 11:44 PM.