Colonialism and Prosperity

Thanks for posting this link. It was interesting to see the similarities in the approach used by the student questioning Milton Friedman and the students of today’s left. When asked to get to the question, he says, “I would like a little free speech here too.” He doesn’t realize that the constraint of time means that his monopoly of everyone else’s time is infringing on the free speech rights of others. There appeared to be some minor attempts to talk over Friedman, but I think that the make up of the room probably was more evenly divided between free market types and socialist types (and fat lips could have resulted from such rude behavior).

What was also similar was the cocksure attitude of the questioner. He had no facts to back up his statements, but he looked as though he was certain that he was pinning Friedman into a corner. I wonder if Friedman’s facts hit him like a 2×4 or if he just through them out the window as they did not fit with his pre-constructed narrative. I would have liked for the camera to focus on the questioner’s face just to see what the reaction was.

I always enjoy Friedman’s ability to communicate with an audience like this. It is an important gift – shared by the Cafe’ s hosts – to convey important concepts to the lay person.