09/11/2007 11:45:18 am
Friedman and Pinochet. Naomi Klein and her informal staff of propaganda-makers at the alleged "Culture" pages of several newspapers lie and mislead in order to turn people′s perception of society upside down. One very concrete point is their allegation that Milton Friedman was an advisor of Chile′s military dictator Pinochet. Their message is, thus, that Friedman approved of oppression and that the ideas of a free economy are somehow tied to political dictatorship.

Of course both the very issue and the example are completely wrong. Milton Friedman went to Chile and gave a lecture at a University about the need for both economic and political freedom. He met Pinochet one, a brief meeting, as he always tried to convince people about the need for freedom. He did the same thing in China. Now, both these countries did adopt several of his economic ideas, with enormously positive effects in terms of increasing living standards and decreasing poverty.

Chile is also today a democracy, which Milton Friedman believed would be the case after introducing economic freedom. That is unfortunately not yet the case of China. But to say that the messenger of freedom approved of oppression is perverted. To lie about a person whose ideas have benefited so many people who have been lifted out of poverty is a disgrace. This probably says a lot about the charachter of people who give this message.

Read more here.