I’m in a race and ethnicity poli sci class at my college. The professor touched on Friedman today and Keynesian economics. Now, granted this college is in NYC I expected a subtle left leaning hint. But he basically said “Friedman’s students couldn’t get academic jobs so they took jobs at the IMF. They decided to take their ideas about no regulation and apply them to countries who later when bankrupt.” He also characterized his economic philosophy as a “Get rid of the weak” idea. Now, I’m new to studying this stuff, but can someone help me out here? Tell me more about what he meant? Everyone else just laughed and he kept going. I didn’t say anything because I dont know enough to argue.
I don’t have a lot to add, except I find it very funny that an academic thinks the failures go to work for the IMF and the real men of genius teach 20-somethings abstract Marxism.
I wouldn’t be suprised it what he said was correct as far as it goes, but I could be mistaken.
He was discussing Keynesian economics and said that Keynesians went to work for the IMF where they tried to apply their “no-regulation” ideas and failed. These things don’t add up:
- Keynesians are all for regulation, especially when the state gets to spend large amounts of cash
- The IMF does not engage in free market activities as far as I know.
- Friedman was from the Chicago school of economics.
Your professor is probably like most professors of political science: a jackass who pretends to know what he’s talking about. I wouldn’t argue though, as you’ll never win against the professor. Plus the other students don’t really care about what’s going on in the class anyway. They’re just there for the grade, and you wasting the professor’s time will just piss them off.
If you want to make waves though, study the contributions to mainstream economics from the Austrian school, and bring up any relevant ideas or personages during economic discussions. He’ll probably have no clue what you’re talking about. That’s as much as you can hope to get out of this IMO.
I think you misunderstood the OP.
I think maybe you’re right. Still, Friedman is hardly the champion of “no-regulation”.
Your professor is wrong that Friedman’s students couldn’t get academic jobs. For example one of his students, Thomas Sowell, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who has published quite a few books. I’m sure that there are many of Friedman’s students who have academic jobs.
I think that his reference to the IMF is also incorrect. He is probably thinking of the economic reforms that the group known as the Chicago Boys instituted in Chile in 1974. These were based largely on the ideas of Friedman and had nothing to do with the IMF. The reforms resulted in a remarkable increase in economic prosperity beginning in 1975 (albeit under a military dictatorship) that Friedman called ”the Miracle of Chile.” Chile has since had a couple periods of financial crisis but remains one of the most prosperous economies in South America.
Keep in mind that Friedman was a monetarist, not an Austrian. The monetarists and Austrians are in agreement in many respects but disagree sharply on monetary policy.