Posted on 01/30/2007 12:21:42 PM PST by freemarket_kenshepherd
American taxpayers are making possible the January 29 airing of a documentary in praise of one of the 20th century’s greatest free market advocates. And that doesn’t sit well with New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante, who complained of an imbalanced presentation.
Bellafante lamented that Friedman’s theories were only criticized once in the January 29 documentary on Friedman’s life and economic thought entitled “The Power of Choice: The Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman.”
“The film is so unabashedly venerating… that it ultimately does its subject a disservice,” Bellafante complained, adding later in her review that “nowhere” in the documentary “is the downside of the massive deregulation that Reagan eventually implemented given much attention.”
Bellafante complained that the late John Kenneth Galbraith, long a critic and rival of Friedman’s, scored the only critical sound bite of Friedman in “Power of Choice.”
The Times reviewer left the reader uninformed that Galbraith is famous for, among other things, insisting during the 1980s that the Soviet Union had a fundamentally stronger economy than the freer market capitalism that typified the United States economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessandmedia.org ...
Clearly, Bellafante has some kind of agenda here and, as pointed out in the article, didn't do the research. As to John Kenneth Galbraith, perhaps some of you don't know that he's a very tall man...6'7" I believe...and once made the comment: "I've never met another economist I looked up to." And he meant that in the worst way.
Most of the ideas that he built his reputation on were stolen from Thorsten Veblen and Veblen's thoughts on conspicuous consumption. Further, Galbraith's reliance on Russian statistics is also dangerous. The Russian system was based on either 5 or 7 Year Plans (depending on the time frame) using production quotas. One of my grad school profs spent a year in Russia and got to know the man in charge of the Moscow - Vladivostok rail line. Near the end of the 7 year plan deadline, he was almost a million metric-ton miles short of his quota. So, he got this huge train of gondola cars, filled them with crushed rock, and ran then back and forth between Moscow and Vladivostok. He exceeded his quota and got a bonus "for his good work". Such behavior shows up in Russian statistics as "real" output. If one is to believe JKG's conclusions of what a great economic power Russia was, one is hard-pressed to explain the grinding poverty that most Russian citizens experienced.
In my opinion, JKG would be about the last person on the planet I would use to discredit Milton Friedman.
The liberal elitists who read the Times won't watch the documentary, anyway.
Looks like that stupid kid ended up writing for the New York Slimes where Keynes is still god, Galbraith is still considered smart and Marx never goes out of style.
The best compliment I ever heard of Freedman was from a Socialist Econ Professor I had in college. The guy was actually a pretty good instructor who made no secret that he was a socialist but who taught Economics straight down the middle without letting his bias sneak in. He said that he didn't agree with Freedman but he honestly didn't know why and couldn't poke a hole in anything Freedman taught.
After getting to know him over the years hanging out in the local pub over beers, it turns out the guy was a socialist more out of envy then any real intellectual reason. He was a very bright, well educated guy but didn't fit any corporate mold and was jealous that people far less "intelligent" than he were running large corporations and making more than he ever would.
Melanie Morgan of KSFO reported that the Times forced the "reporter" to apologize for making such an unseemly statement!!!
It musta been too much "Triumphalism" and too politickly incorrect!!!
I watched it last night. After 24 wrapped up I was flipping through the channels and found the Friedman bio on KQED. At first I thought "Whoa, I can't believe they're running this." In the course of the program they managed to:
- Show the downside of FDR's New Deal
- Compliment Nixon for his intellect
- Laud Pinochet's economic sense in Chile
- Show Carter's ineptitude
- Praise Reagan to the rafters
- Interview Dr. Thomas Sowell
Somebody was asleep at the wheel when they gave this the green light.
nice...nothing to add here.
Well, okay, something..
The only thing to add is that I told my wife "Im glad I was sitting down when I watched this".
Only negative toward PBS is that it could have been more "prime-time", but maybe that would be asking too much.
"After getting to know him over the years hanging out in the local pub over beers, it turns out the guy was a socialist more out of envy then any real intellectual reason."
Sounds like his Mommy forgot to tell him that "no one said that life would be fair".
Thomas Soul wrote that he struggle through one of Dr. Friedman's economic classes at University of Chicago. Ginia Bellafante would have been a casualty. I am however waiting for her critique of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Perhaps she could shed some light on the Bohr - Einstein debate. Does God play dice with the Universe?
Ginia Bellafante's logical deduction: I don't understand why X is true therefore it is false. I'm sure she learned that Studying Aristotle.
Yeah, PBS can put out a thousand programs which support a communist viewpoint (sometimes entire programs, others just include a false statement or phrase which is included as if it were true), and that's OK.
Let one pro-America, pro-freedom program get through the "commie only" filters and it's scandalous.
True Friedman would free the American taxpayer from funding PBS.
Don't be ludicrous. Aristotle is a DWM, and therefore of small worth.
There is if you are incapable of competing. In a related note, I look forward to the NYT critique of Gore's little film. I'm sure it is just FULL of the sort of contrary points of views from theory critics she demands.
Because the democrat party must have victims in order to survive.
Because a prosperous America with low unemployment, high economic growth and an increasing standard of living means government subsidy to individuals is not needed.
Central planning and economic equality, in poverty if necessary, is the goal of the left.
Thoroughly enjoyed the PBS presentation.
Have his newspaper writings been collected and published as a book yet?
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