Whether giving a lecture on an economics in a dictator's country and then endorsing a few of one's colleagues to advise that government's economic policymakers entails approving of whatever vile methods that dictator may or may not be using is, I think, a little up for debate than that.
True enough. However, it's my belief (admittedly based largely on Klein's book) that Friedman actively supported Pinochet's "experiment". I suspect he considered the dead and mutilated to be nothing more than "collateral damage".
...the trouble comes when trying to square that with the rest of the picture. Friedman's body of work is near-singlemindedly dedicated to the question of how to increas human freedom, in the negative freedom-from-coercion sense...
And Rand would say the same. The fact (or "fact") that, when given the opportunity, Friedman cooperated with and supported a death-squad using dictatorship kind of renders whatever he may have written moot. Which more or less relates to the point I was trying to make about philosophers who place theory over reality. You can talk 'till you're blue in the face about liberty and "freedom from coercion", but if you need to murder opponents to put your theory into practice, there's something wrong with your theory.
So into this we must fit that he somehow, for the brief period he lectured in Chile, decided to start approving of the worst kind of repression — starkly counter to the ideas he professed — and then stopped just as quickly.
Did he ever disavow his support for Pinochet? If so, I'm not aware of it.
And I'd agreee that attempted dictator removal can lead to Iraq, but I'd add it especially leads to Iraq if it's assumed to be quick and easy, which it most certainly is not.
Re: On The (Relatively) Judicious Use of the Word "Evil"
Whether giving a lecture on an economics in a dictator's country and then endorsing a few of one's colleagues to advise that government's economic policymakers entails approving of whatever vile methods that dictator may or may not be using is, I think, a little up for debate than that.
True enough. However, it's my belief (admittedly based largely on Klein's book) that Friedman actively supported Pinochet's "experiment". I suspect he considered the dead and mutilated to be nothing more than "collateral damage".
...the trouble comes when trying to square that with the rest of the picture. Friedman's body of work is near-singlemindedly dedicated to the question of how to increas human freedom, in the negative freedom-from-coercion sense...
And Rand would say the same. The fact (or "fact") that, when given the opportunity, Friedman cooperated with and supported a death-squad using dictatorship kind of renders whatever he may have written moot. Which more or less relates to the point I was trying to make about philosophers who place theory over reality. You can talk 'till you're blue in the face about liberty and "freedom from coercion", but if you need to murder opponents to put your theory into practice, there's something wrong with your theory.
So into this we must fit that he somehow, for the brief period he lectured in Chile, decided to start approving of the worst kind of repression — starkly counter to the ideas he professed — and then stopped just as quickly.
Did he ever disavow his support for Pinochet? If so, I'm not aware of it.
And I'd agreee that attempted dictator removal can lead to Iraq, but I'd add it especially leads to Iraq if it's assumed to be quick and easy, which it most certainly is not.
No arguments from me on that one!