This extraordinary video (HT: Recursive Hypocrisy) begins with Milton Friedman being asked by the interviewer if he still beats his wife. Well, not exactly, but it’s close. Friedman’s response is masterful. Actually, it’s better than that. Help me find the words.
I don’t know what’s more entertaining, Friedman’s answers or the interviewer’s distaste and disbelief that someone actually holds these views. The interview is from the 1960′s I’d guess. The tone of the interviewer tells you how much the terms of the policy debate have changed over the last 40 years, the point Milton and I discuss here.
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Judo. Friedman engages in rhetorical judo, accepting the parry or weight and motion of the attacker and uses skill and technique to send the attacker off balance.
Delightful to watch. If only my foolish "liberal" friends would take the 30 minutes to watch this…
Wonderful, thanks!
That tape should be shown in every high school economics class.
As I was listening to them discuss Social Security, I couldn't help but think of the adage that 'the more things change, the more they remain the same.' 40 years later, and we've got the same issues, same problems, same debate…..and the same unwillingness of politicians to be honest with the American public.
Overall, a great interview & thanks for posting the link.
Stuff like this makes me despair. How many more decades of logic will it take to convince the collectivists of their folly. I fear it is hopeless.
wow. i'm always wondering how someone could someone watch that and disagree re, e.g., minimum wage. but some certainly would.
Stuff like this makes me despair. How many more decades of logic will it take to convince the collectivists of their folly. I fear it is hopeless.
But the labor unions that Friedman worried about had already hit their peak at that point and have declined greatly since. Britain — which Friedman had nearly given up for dead — was transformed by Thatcher and now has a pro-market labor government rather than socialist/communist labor party it used to have. Nixon instituted wage and price controls — which are completely unthinkable now. There has been a lot of progress in the last 30-40 years.
Fascinating interview. Would definitely be appropriate for every high school economics class.
A couple of logistical notes.
1) the date of the episode is 7 Dec 1975, the year before Prof. Friedman was awarded the Nobel prize. Why it is in Black and White, I don't know. I too would have guessed it was from the 1960s, just as Dr. Roberts did.
2) The Open Mind digital archive has a transcript of this show on the same page from which you may download the video.
http://www.theopenmind.tv/tom/searcharchive_episode_output.asp?id=494
3) FWIW, Wikipedia has a page on both the series (Open Mind) and on the host (Richard Hefner).
I've watched this piece twice, and started downloading other stuff on there which has Friedman. The man's a genius.
Plainly the interviewer disagreed with Friedman, but I do think the "beat your wife" comment was a bit OTT.
I agree with Ben; I think the interviewer was quite open to Friedman's points, and was asking questions that (deliberately) let him attack his critics. I actually wish some of the TV interviewers these days worked like that (agree or disagree).
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