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John Cochrane on the Milton Friedman protest letter
Read John's response here (the original letter is here). In my view the damning bit is this one:
...it is to me sadder still how atrociously written this letter is. These people devote their lives to writing on social issues, and teaching freshmen (including mine) how to think and write clearly. Yet it’s awful.
Recommended for those who like polemic and mutual recrimination.
I thank a loyal MR reader for the pointer.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 31, 2008 at 09:42 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Tyler, you act as if these professors are pure academics. They are a bunch of ideological liberals who dislike ideological conservatives. It's a political battle in the midst of academia. Instead of talking about the real issues and the fundamental questions, as Friedman always has, they want to shoot him down. I go to the U of C and I can tell you, professors hate the Econ department - all for no academic reason but one that is ideological. Read my letter to the Chicago Tribune: http://www.nolanchart.com/article4080.html.
Posted by: Christopher Espinal at Jul 31, 2008 10:29:30 AM
I'm not a Friedman fan but that original petition is embarrassing.
Posted by: meter at Jul 31, 2008 10:30:54 AM
As my professor once told me, "the feuds are so vicious because the stakes are so low".
That original letter is painful to read...
Posted by: guest at Jul 31, 2008 10:41:17 AM
"Milton Friedman stood for freedom, social, political, and economic. He realized that they are inextricably linked. If the government controls your job or your business, dissent is impossible. He favored, among other things, legalizing drugs, school choice, and volunteer army. To call him or his political legacy “right wing” is simply ignorant ..."
Slam dunk.
I think there are two basic ways one can be against what the great Milton Friedman stood for. 1. You can simply be ignorant of what he said and did. 2. You can simply dislike free markets (and likely misunderstand them) and individual liberties.
Posted by: Speedmaster at Jul 31, 2008 10:44:08 AM
I read the letter and I'm impressed by this "many" person. He seems to get around.
"Many colleagues are distressed by..."
"Many would argue that..."
"many would question..."
"Many of us are also perturbed..."
"many of us feel that..."
I guess it's just many being many.
Posted by: Eddy Elfenbein at Jul 31, 2008 10:47:25 AM
The authors of the original letter should not be concerned that the public would be worried that there is not enough diversity in academia.
The public generally thinks academics are wankers in any case, and who needs a diverse collection of wankers?
Posted by: loki on the run at Jul 31, 2008 10:48:33 AM
That was easily one of the most enjoyable readings I've had for quite some time. I love being entertained by academic ripostes. I imagine Mr. Cochrane wont be so popular at the next interdepartmental faculty dinner.
Posted by: Noah at Jul 31, 2008 11:04:42 AM
Note the number of economists that signed the petition.
Posted by: Mark N. at Jul 31, 2008 11:06:04 AM
Actually there is one....his name is Ralph Austen.
Posted by: Christopher Espinal at Jul 31, 2008 11:09:25 AM
Don't these people realize that an academic institute is just a shingle over a door so and a PO box for the funding checks?
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 31, 2008 11:17:46 AM
Further, don't these people also know that the ONLY thing people like me know or care about the Chicago school is The Chicago School?
I think they need to change the text of the letter to that of a resignation announcement.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 31, 2008 11:20:41 AM
Seems an attempt at censorship. To hell with the free and open exchange of ideas: anyone who disagrees needs to be stopped.
In addition to disclosing, for example, "Professor of Inane Intellectual Twaddle" each signatory should disclose "Sworn Enemy of the Private Sector."
I don't see an Accounting, Engineering, or Finance prof signing.
Posted by: T. Shaw at Jul 31, 2008 11:24:05 AM
Hmmm, one has to wonder if any of the whiners who claim, "We are concerned, additionally, that this endeavor could reinforce among the public a perception that the University’s faculty lacks intellectual and ideological diversity" didn't either read Professor Friedman's seminal work, Free To Choose or didn't understand it...
Everyone of them are free to go somewhere else...
Posted by: juandos at Jul 31, 2008 11:42:30 AM
If these people don't like the Milton Friedman Institute being funded, they can always stand under the helicopter distributing the loot and take their share.
Really, another English professor from the University of Chicago (and a regrettably bygone era), Richard Weaver, was right. Ideas have consequences. Even Naomi Klein's ideas.
Posted by: jack at Jul 31, 2008 11:52:24 AM
Michael Gordon, I think you're too simplistic in your categorization. All four of these "conservative" groups support "free markets," but not the full extent libertarians do, and only for their own political gain. The concept of "free markets" is much broader and richer than what you've presented here, and when analyzed closely, one sees the other 3 "conservative" groups detesting ideas of libertarians.
For example: organ donation markets, open-borders to immigrant workers, legalization of drug and prostitution, FREE TRADE*, etc. I could go on.
*While it's true the other 3 conservative sub-groups sometimes support free trade, it's tepid at best, and only at times of political expediency
You can call these libertarian positions as pertaining to social issues, but they're very much economic.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 31, 2008 11:54:06 AM
T Shaw, I hope your last line is a joke, since there are no finance, engineering or accounting profs at UChicago.
Quest, I like your quote, but I'd apply it more to the response than to the initial letter. The letter writer sounds like a pretentious academic. Cochrane sounds like a college freshman whining about how pretentious all his professors are.
Posted by: Ben at Jul 31, 2008 12:10:42 PM
I know the University of Chicago for only two things: Jim Watson was a student there, and it is home to the Chicago School. The 100 illiterate nonentities should go and boil their heads.
Posted by: dearieme at Jul 31, 2008 12:18:21 PM
If Chicago doesn't want it, I'm sure GMU would be willing to host the MFI.
"Many being many"... hysterical!
Posted by: Rich at Jul 31, 2008 12:37:48 PM
When did Friedman start calling himself conservative? In this video he pretty clearly states that he is not conservative, but this video is very old.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en-us&resnum=0&q=milton%20friedman&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#
Posted by: josh at Jul 31, 2008 12:42:38 PM
As a U of C alum, the petition has really irked me. Milton Friedman is, unquestionably, the greatest thinker to come out of Chicago (and possibly any University) in the last 50 years.
I doubt one prof on that petition has read Capitalism and Freedom. They can all take a hike, as far as I'm concerned. Even if you could logically object to the free-market model (which is impossible IMO), Chicago academics ought to at least respect Friedman's many contributions to our society.
My donations are going to be earmarked to the Graduate School of Business and Department of Economics from now on...
Posted by: Greg at Jul 31, 2008 12:52:10 PM
Ben, Chicago GSB has finance and accounting, I'm pretty sure. Don't know about engineering.
Posted by: Jay at Jul 31, 2008 1:30:45 PM
In the previous post, Tyler said
"2. My tone stems from my personality, namely that I rarely get mad. And in any policy debate, I don't assume that the people on my side intellectually are somehow morally superior or more honest. In any particular case I usually give that 50-50."
This strikes me as an issue where, frankly, you should assume that those signing the original petition are morally inferior and dishonest. Their economics views are deeply and profoundly ingnorant, and they have the intelligence and academic qualifications to be aware that they are ignorant of the discipline of economics, thus they are assumed to be dishonest. The implementation of various governments of the policies they admire (ie. those disparaged by Friedman) would be exceedingly detrimental to much of the world's population, especially many of the poor, and thus their views cannot be considered morally neutral. They attempt to preclude the naming of a UoC institute after a particular economist - not from a principled position that no institute should be named after anyone, lest academic freedom be hampered, but from an ill-informed dislike of the one after whom the institute will be named. They have all the credibiility of a group of economists weighing in on a dispute between two factions within the Visual Arts.
One wonders whether, in their words, the departments of Art History, political development, History of Christianity, and various other non-disciplines, are "powerful magnet(s) for scholars and donors who share a specific set of interests and values to the exclusion of others, whether this is openly acknowledged or not."
Posted by: Timothy at Jul 31, 2008 1:36:55 PM
"Note the number of economists that signed the petition.
Posted by: Mark N. at Jul 31, 2008 11:06:04 AM
Actually there is one....his name is Ralph Austen.
Posted by: Christopher Espinal at Jul 31, 2008 11:09:25 AM"
***Isn't he a History Prof?***
Posted by: Dan at Jul 31, 2008 1:37:05 PM
For those who lack the time to read both letters, I can sum up the original (link is second in Tyler's post) letter for you:
Daddy, my brother has a new toy. That's not fair, I want one too. By the way, I hate my brother. Waaaaaa! Waaaaa!
My apologies for not thinking of a way to write my summation in passive voice.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Jul 31, 2008 1:45:04 PM
"Michael Gordon, I think you're too simplistic in your categorization. All four of these "conservative" groups support "free markets," but not the full extent libertarians do, and only for their own political gain. The concept of "free markets" is much broader and richer than what you've presented here, and when analyzed closely, one sees the other 3 "conservative" groups detesting ideas of libertarians."
-- Andrew
Andrew: I would like to reply, but it seems as if my original post here to which you refer has been removed.
The key linguistic points remain all the same. In the US, the huge bulk of the electorate regards libertarians as "conservatives" . . . libertarian candidates for any political office seldom, if ever, pulling in more than 3-4% of the local vote. That tag is applied by both Republicans and Democrats alike.
In the wider world, you are dubbed "liberals" or "neo-liberals".
.....
You might not like these tags, but then I suppose the New Left radicals in our universities and elsewhere don't like being dubbed "politically correct" ideologues either. And yes, Milton Friedman did say in that Der Spiegel interview --- it was printed in German (though the interview was undoubtedly in English) --- that in the US context he's a conservative, but in Europe, given that conservatism means statist-conservatism (even the small Tory wing of the Conservative Party in Britain fits that term down to the Thatcher era), he should be regarded as a "liberal".
...
Michael Gordon, AKA, the buggy professor: http://www.thebuggyprofessor.com
Posted by: the buggy professor at Jul 31, 2008 1:58:44 PM
