In reply to Peter vis-a-vis Friedman's moral constraint/vision,
chapter 1 of his Capitalism & Freedom looks pretty straightforward to
me. Because people can and do have different private visions of the
good, their shared public value should be liberty. This is the basis
on which he reclaims the title of liberal (i.e., classical liberal)
from its having been tainted with wrong ideas (e.g., the New Deal).
Capitalism is simply liberty in economic interactions.
Excerpts:
"...in a society freedom has nothing to say about what an individual
does with his freedom; it is not an all-embracing ethic. Indeed, a
major aim of the liberal is to leave the ethical problem for the
individual to wrestle with. The 'really' important ethical problems
are those that face an individual in a free society--what should he do
with his freedom. Thus there are two sets of values that a liberal
will emphasize–the values that are relevant to relations among people,
which is the context in which he assigns first priority to freedom;
and the values that are relevant to the individual in the exercise of
his freedom, which is the realm of individual ethics and philosophy"
(12).
But then Friedman comes up with a condition:
“...it is important to preserve freedom only for people who are
willing to practice self-denial, for otherwise freedom degenerates
into license and irresponsibility" (18).
Finally, later in the book, reinforcing the centrality of the
principle of liberty.
"I am led to the view that it [the capitalist ethic] cannot in and of
itself be regarded as an ethical principle; that it must be regarded
an instrumental or a corollary of some other principle such as
freedom" (165).
Most interesting of all to me are the second thoughts expressed in the
"Preface, 2002" of the 40th anniversary edition:
"If there is one major change I would make, it would be to replace the
dichotomy of economic freedom and political freedom with the
trichotomy of economic freedom, civil freedom, and political freedom.
After I finished the book, Hong Kong, before it was returned to China
[i.e., under British rule], persuaded me that while economic freedom
is a necessary condition for civil and political freedom, political
freedom, desirable though it may be, is not a necessary condition for
economic and civil freedom. Along these lines, the one major defect
in the book seems to me an inadequate treatment of political freedom,
which under some circumstances promotes economic and civic freedom,
and under others, inhibits economic and civic freedom" (ix).
As to how the moral vision comes into existence, I'd have to say that
for Friedman the genesis is historical but the vision has a
natural-law air to it--a fulfillment of human nature--though the
qualifier is interesting: only those who practice self-denial deserve
freedom, which has an air of natural-selection in an evolutionary
sense, but an evolutionary sense that invokes a moral sense of desert.
That makes it sound like a variation on social Darwinism.
A chapter in my book, The Moral Rhetoric of Political Economy
(reviewed here last summer) assesses Capitalism & Freedom. Freidman's
argument is polemical, among other things,
Paul Turpin
University of the Pacific
On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 8:31 PM, Peter G. Stillman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I can agree that 'capitalism is advocated by Friedman within a moral
> constraint/vision', but I wonder about that constraint/vision. (This
> question may simply display my ignorance of some key texts, but:) Does
> Friedman explain how this moral vision comes into existence and how it is
> maintained (is it generated or supported by the practices of capitalism)?
> What is the relation between the on-going practice of capitalism and the
> "moral constaint/vision"?
>
> Thanks, Peter
>
>
>
>
>
>> Roger and Brad are to be congratulated for both the original NYT
>> publication and their r
>> esponse on this list. (Indeed, there are important genre differences.)
>> If they and the list-moderator don't mind, I would still like to press a
>> point about Friedman. I agree that Capitalism and Freedom provides very good
>> evidence for their main claim about him. But even so, it is misleading, I
>> think, to see him merely as advocate of "competitive capitalism" (understood
>> as "free private enterprise exchange economy" based on voluntary exchange.)
>> Friedman is an advocate of capitalism and (classical) liberalism. We can see
>> this quite easily when we conjoin to passages in Capitalism and Freedom:
>> first, "It isŠclearly possible to have economic arrangements that are
>> fundamentally capitalist and political arrangements that are not free
>> (Capitalism and Freedom, 10). Yet, Friedman does not rest content with
>> advocating competitive capitalism. For, a few pages down he writes, "To deny
>> that the end justifies the means is indirectly to assert that the end in
>> question is not the ultimate end, that the ultimate end is itself the use of
>> proper means. Desirable or not, any end that can be attained only by the use
>> of bad means must give way to the more basic end of the use of acceptable
>> means. To the liberal, the appropriate means are free discussion and
>> voluntary co-operation, which implies that any form of coercion is
>> inappropriate (Capitalism and Freedom, 22)."
>>
>>
>> That is to say, Capitalism is advocated by Friedman within a moral
>> constraint/vision. And this is compatible with the evidence that I provided
>> in earlier part of the exchange that Friedman believes that shared values
>> play a crucial background role in a society. (I have argued elsewhere that
>> this commitment also made Friedman vulnerable when dealing with societies
>> where no such shared values obtain.)
>> Sincerely,
>> Eric
>>
>>
>> BOF Research Professor, Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University,
>> Blandijnberg 2, Ghent, B-9000, Belgium. Phone: (31)-(0)6-15005958
>> Fall 2011: Visiting Associate Professor, UC, Santa Barbara
>> http://www.newappsblog.com/
>> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=649484
>> http://philpapers.org/s/Eric%20Schliesser
>>
>
>
> --
> Peter G. Stillman
> Department of Political Science
> Vassar College (#463)
> 124 Raymond Avenue
> Poughkeepsie, NY 12604-0463
>
> [log in to unmask]
> office: 845-437-5581
> FAX: 845-437-7599
>
> http://faculty.vassar.edu/stillman/
>
Paul Turpin, PhD
-- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- --
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
Senior Research Associate, The Jacoby Center for Public Service &
Civic Leadership
University of the Pacific, 3601 Pacific Ave., Stockton CA 95211
209-946-2507 (office/voicemail) 209-946-2694 (fax)
http://web.pacific.edu/x36943.xml
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