Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
I watched and paused when I had something to say:

I think the guys questions are great, though in the third part he misses the point of the theft.

The point of the theft is that you can't stop it - you'll never bring it to 0, because the basic currency of the natural world is some form of violence and what makes a gov't is by winning the last war and/or preventing the next. Everything Milton talks about forgets this.
It's not evident in this video, but Friedman is a "the federal government should tax and spend on national defense" guy. After I put some thought into it, it is possible I will disagree with his logic (or maybe I'll agree with it), but it basically goes that he thinks the federal government should do nothing other than protect national security and constitutional liberties. Everything else should be handled by local governments; the more local the better.

"Spending isn't good, what's good is producing" But you produce to be consumed so that you can consume in turn. If there's no one else to buy from you, you're wasting a lot of your own time producing.
Maybe it's best to think of consumption as an effect or as dependent on production. One can only consume that which is produced. Take a steak dinner for example. Your desire to consume a steak dinner does not create a steak dinner. You have no increase in well-being just by wanting a steak dinner. It is only after production of a steak dinner that the potential for greater well-being is created.

His answer to the first part is "of course" and that's wrong. He cites most of human history and I counter cite it for why he's wrong.
Yeah, it would be "most of modern history." It's only after free enterprise became culturally accepted that it began determining the directions of the countries that accept it.

"We express values through co-operation"
He didn't say that. He said, "The question is 'what is the most effective way in which, we as people, can jointly, cooperatively, express our values?'" He's basically saying that the question is about how societies best organize. Friedman makes the case that value judgments are by people, and that there isn't something unique about governments that would have them create value judgments that people can't.