No Free Lunch: Milton Friedman views ‘Liberty’ and ‘Welfare’
Forward Article to a Friend
Print Article
One of the most famous maxims among conservative economic circles since the 1960s is the tenet, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow and the celebrated economist who coined the phrase, was proven wrong last week when the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) treated one hundred students from universities all over California to lunch and a speech by Dr. Friedman at Tresidder Union--all for free.
Or so it seemed. “You were promised a free lunch, but that’s not strictly true. Now you have to listen to me speak,” said Friedman two weeks ago in his speech about individual freedoms. Friedman’s was the keynote address at a conference sponsored by the IHS to provide a forum for conservative thought and “the principles of a free society.” Other speakers included Professor Ralph Raico from SUNY College, Professor Ronald Howard from Stanford’s Engineering-Economic Systems Department, and James Powell of the Cato Institute.
Friedman, the 1976 Nobel Prize winner for excellence in economics, is widely regarded as the leader of the Chicago School of monetary economics, a school of economic philosophy stressing the importance of the quantity of money as an instrument of government policy. An informal economic advisor to Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Friedman is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1946 to 1976.
Now 81 years of age, Friedman, who received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1946, recalled his youth in New York City. “Back in the 1940s, I had no trouble finding an apartment,” he said. “They were cheap, they were available. Nowadays, the best way to find an apartment in New York City is to monitor the obituaries.”
Friedman laid the blame for this housing shortage squarely on the government, pointing out that rent controls, which impose ceilings on what landlords can charge, eliminate the incentive to build new apartment buildings and therefore limit the stock of housing.
With his usual sharp eye for results of government policies that are inconsistent with intentions, he added, “Most tenants in rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan are relatively wealthy, and could afford higher rents, but the landlords have suffered so much from rent controls and other regulations that they mostly qualify as lower middle-class to middle-class. Rent controls therefore effectively transfer wealth from the poor landlords to wealthy tenants.”
Friedman also criticized the Democratic National Convention, where, he said, one-third of the delegates were members of teachers’ unions. Continuing, he ran through his usual proposals to cut taxes and spending, but reserved his most passionate words to attack American drug policy.
Long an advocate for the legalization of drugs, he indicated that “the U.S. government has unwittingly become a protector of the drug cartels. They have imposed such huge barriers to entry in the drug market that small businessmen are forced out, and the only the big cartels have the resources to overcome the barriers.”
He also cited a study that estimated that there would be 10,000 fewer homicides in America every year if drugs were legalized. Friedman has often been at odds with conservatives who want to crack down on drugs, but in recent years prominent conservatives such as William F. Buckley Jr. have been won over to the pro-legalization contingent because of Friedman’s passion and persuasiveness.
One of the highlights of the day involved a young black man in the audience who openly disagreed with Friedman’s stance on welfare. The man, a student at Santa Clara University, stood several times to ask pointed questions of the speakers, especially Friedman.
At one point, the man challenged Friedman’s entire speech “Dr. Friedman, unless you specifically address the plight of minorities, I think what you’re saying is quite ludicrous. I mean what do blacks do once welfare is cut?” Friedman replied wryly, to applause from the crowd “They’ll go work.”
But the young man was not done; he continued to engage Dr Friedman in cross-debate, refusing to confine himself to one question. Bothered members of the audience repeatedly exhorted the man to ask a question or to sit down, but the young man refused and continued his tirade against Dr. Friedman.
Finally, Professor Ronald Howard, one of the day’s speakers, stood up and told the man, “Ask a question or sit down - you’re not on the panel here, you’re not the speaker. Ask a question.”
The exasperated man said, “Fine, all right, I’ll ask a question. What is the price of a life?” Without missing a beat, Professor Howard retorted, “A dollar ninety-eight.”
The young man took his seat.
