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Summary: ABC of Simple Facts with Intellectual Honesty - A Great Mind
Review: When I first literally fell onto this book something like almost twenty years ago, I immediately had the impression I was onto something different. I was jogging above the lake of Zurich when I saw a bunch of books dropped to be picked up by the garbage man in front of a little mansion. Lowering myself (in sweat and heavy breathing) for a quick check, I came up with an exemplary of Milton Friedman's Free to Chose. Not only did I have the feeling of having acquired a bargain, but I was actually onto something valuable. I did not read the book from cover to cover, but the selected parts I did read were to have a lasting influence on my thinking and world view. That is, to me, it worked a bit like an inoculation, and I still think it works the same way for a lot of things, that is if some principles do not grab someone straight away, some people can be talked to for years with facts and figures, it just won't make a difference. They just don't seem to be able to grasp the concepts, as simple as they are. So much for political education. Today, almost twenty years later, I still find myself peering over this book once in a while, with a mixed feeling of envy, admiration and pleasure.Although Russia (before being handed over to the mafia) and the Eastern Block were under communist rule and the European nations were zigzagging between fabian socialism and social capitalism, I believe Europe still has some kind of a hangover of collectivist thinking overshadowing its (many) institutions. After the collapse of the Soviet Empire, eastern collectivist ideals seem to have somehow pervasively invaded Europe's political (and bureaucratic) landscape in strange form of regulated and controlled capitalism. Some of the simple truths distilled in this book therefore seem to be still in need of being preached, especially in Europe, and although the book might appear outdated, Milton Friedman's pragmatic no-nonsense intellectualism is still as valid today as when Friedrich Hayek wrote Road to Serfdom in 1944 (good thinking always lasts). And last but not least, this is also one of the few political and economic world views that is compatible with various biblical christian point of views that preach contentment with one's own situation before revolution and wealth-redistribution tactics. The soundness of the facts and principles described in this book overcome many blurred utopic reasonings (an earthly paradise of evenly distributed wealth is irrational and could not last for more than five minutes without a dictature, as men and nations are not created equal, neither in physical features, nor in ability or talent), and it is therefore only a question of time (and of the global price to be paid) before people will opt for more sensible attitudes. If charity and kindness of heart should be more of personal concern rather than being socially institutionalized, they have historically been proven as most inefficient, partial and unjust when becoming part of planified political agendas. In the same vein, freedom cannot be forced upon individuals and societies if there is no real longing for it. Free To Choose is what one may call an economic analysis of politics for the layman. The works of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises offer more in-depth studies on economics, social and behavioural sciences. For a more philosophical approach of the libertarian ideology, I recommend some of the works written by Ayn Rand and co-authors. Gary North has, with his studies on Christian Biblical Economics, done something similar to Richard Posner's Economic Analysis of Law, but applied it to the writings of the Bible in what one could call an economic analysis of Christian Scriptures (you do not necessarily have to share his postmillennial, anti-dispensationalist point of view). There are many sound students/authors of economic analysis and its many ramifications, and many are highly recommended. Finally, Max Weber in his Spirit of Protestantism was the first to have an objective sociological glance at the impact of various christian confessions (and puritan faith in the after-life) upon the psychology of worldly economic behaviour, where saving one's soul for the heavenly kingdom often also implied saving one's money for noble causes (also a must read if you wish to widen your horizontal frontiers) but of course, the list of authors that have attempted to gain a behavioural insight into the activities of man with an economic telescope doesn't end here... The fact is that everything could be analyzed from the point of view of economics and the costs of opportunity (witness Richard Posner's Sex and Reason), so that economic analysis remains a very powerfull tool that opens up a vast and almost endless amount of subjects to rational enquiry...
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