Capitalism and freedom

Content Description

The structure of the book is in addition to preamble and introduction, there are 13 chapters. Chapter 1 to Chapter 5, mainly explains the basic theoretical issues; Chapters 6 to 12 is the application of basic principles in various specific policies and measures to supplement and confirm the reliability of basic principles; The chapter is a summary of the book.

Its main content is: Opposing countries to intervene in social life, advocating the free market that is not subject to national restrictions, against the welfare state, and advocates shrinking the government's plan to minimize. Propose "Competitive Market Economy", not only to establish an economic liberty kingdom, but also establish political freedom. The market economy system is the necessary means of defending the political value of freedom. Freedom is the ultimate goal of politics, individuals are entities of society; everyone has the right to freedom, equal opportunity, in addition to freedom, there is no independent national goal or common good. It is believed that the guarantee must adhere to two principles: First, the government's scope must be limited; second, the government's power must be dispersed. The best way to achieve these goals is to establish a free economic market; the existence of a wide range of free markets can separate the economy from political power, restrict the scope of political mandatory means; the role of the government is to formulate competition rules, explain and implement Rules; the market is made to greatly reduce the scope of issues that must be decided through political means, and reduce the government directly involved in competition.

Works Catalog

Creative Background

Times Background

"Capitalism and Freedom" book is written in the United States. At that time, only 20 years of time is only less than 20 years. The American society has not been out of the shadow of economic panic, and the cold war has also begun to heat up, the US federal government has grown sharply in defense, social welfare, and public construction. Because the new politic generated by the economic panic is also supported by most social intellectuals and defends the government intervention with Cairnsian theory. Friedman strongly opposes these phenomena in the book and advocates the economic center of centralization to lead to the destruction of personal and political freedom.

Cheng Book Process

This book is Milton Friedman in June 1956 by John Fan Sishler and Benjamin Luo Hosting, and by the Walge Foundation's meeting and the speech made at the conference hosted by other state universities, through his wife Rosh Friedman, published in 1962.

Works Item

The main point of view of "capitalism and freedom" is: Opposing countries to intervene in social life, advocating the free market that is not subject to national restrictions; against Welfare Country I advocate the reduction of the government's plan to minimize; propose "competitive capitalism", not only to establish an economic liberal kingdom, but also to establish political freedom; think that capitalism is the necessary means of defending freedom of political value.

1. Relationship between economic freedom and political freedom

Friedman believes that the core of liberalism is to firmly believe in personal dignity, and firm people are not Under the premise of harming others, there is a freedom to use their ability and opportunities according to their own intelligence. The ideal economic system is the capitalism of free competition. The economic freedom is the main pillar of this social system. The economically freedom is the meaningful freedom and how to use people's freedom. The relationship between people in the capitalist society is the same as other socio-economic activities. The occurrence and development of economic activities is determined by people's nature. The nature of people is self-sufficient, and they should make production activities on a voluntary mutually beneficial basis according to the principle of self-interest. However, the development of personal interests and social coordination is mutually exclusive. The basic function of social organizations is to choose the right decision-making method to coordinate personal relationships with individuals, enterprises and enterprises, enterprises and countries. Its coordination method is induced by only two: first, the national intervention method of the central concentration system for mandatory means; second, the use of free market mechanisms automatically adjust the method. The economic system of capitalist freedom can only choose the latter method. The main feature of this method is the freedom of spending and resources, that is, consumers can choose how to use their hands in their hands to purchase their needs, production materials and production materials; producers can freely use the resources they own. This includes labor to use his labor resources to choose any profession. Manufacturers can also join other companies' ranks, and other manufacturers have launched freedom in terms of product variety and price. As long as there is a strict voluntary basis, there is no national forced intervention, and economic freedom can be achieved.

then Friedman also pointed out that in the free system, economic freedom and political freedom are neither in parallel status, nor is it isolated, and there is a state in which it is isolated. There is an interdependent, mutual restriction relationship between the two. The economic freedom determines political freedom, political freedom needs to rely on economic freedom and affect economic freedom. The economic freedom plays a double role in free society. On the one hand, it is an integral part of generalized freedom. On the other hand, economic freedom is the purpose of capitalism free society. Itself has a very important meaning that the effects will far exceed the effects of national interventions. For example, after the Second World War, the US government's intervention will bring inequality and not free consequences. At that time, the government's control of foreign exchange is essentially utilized to control the purpose of controlling political freedom; In addition, the government uses legal forced US citizens to use 10% of the revenue to purchase some of the retirement contracts in the government, which limits the development of the market and the freedom to choose their own career. This is essentially limited to the development of free competition, leading to the slow economic development.

Friedman further illustrates the reliability of his arguments with historical examples. Throughout human history, the ancient Greek golden age and early politics of the ancient Roman era are developed on the basis of the freedom of trading, the production and expansion of the market. It is because there is a free economic activity, it makes the slave to get personal freedom; it is because of the freedom of economic freedom, it produces ancient Greek and ancient Roman splendid ideological culture. It can be seen that political freedom in any human society is organized through the free market. Economic freedom is an essential condition for politics freedom. Since the national mandatory power threatens the freedom of realization, the direction of the road must be changed from the road.

II. The role of the government should start in the free society

The free system of capitalism must take the path of free market mechanisms, this is not doubtful . However, it doesn't mean that the market can do our best to coordinate the entire economic activity. Absolute freedom is impossible. In the commodity economy society, the freedom of each person is self-starting point, and everyone pursues individual private power motives and purposes will necessarily cause conflicts between each other. Therefore, the principle of adhering to the freedom market mechanism is not equal to complete freedom. A society requires a certain rule constraint transaction to follow it, and there is no external sanctions that have not been realized. This requires the government to set the economic behavior of the rules and ruling transactions. This is just like Friedman said: "The necessity of the government is that it is the 'competition rule' the formulars, which is to explain and enforce these have been decided. Rule of referee. " The market is made is the scope of the decision of political means to decide, and reduce the government directly involved in the competition.

Friedman also believes that the technical monopoly and narrowing the pseudogenic factors must be opposed by the government's strength. The existence of both makes the actual exchange freedom. First, due to the technical monopoly organization with labor productivity or technical patents, they can provide monopolistic prices with this advantageous monopoly product, which limits the choice of free people, constraints. The role of the free market mechanism affects the energetic energy. Therefore, the government must formulate measures against anti-monopoly organizations to limit the role of monopoly organizations. Second, "neighboring effect" refers to a person's actions forcing other people to pay a considerable price, but cannot make the former will compensate the latter; or individual action has a considerable benefit to others, but no This makes the latter to compensate for the former, so that voluntary transactions become impossible. In order to obey the free market mechanism, the government should do our best to eliminate the factors of this adjacent influence.

In summary, the government's functions are both necessary, but it must be restricted, and the government can only adjust economic activities through the role of the free market, only to the free economy. At the same time, the government's power must be dispersed, the better the grassroots unit. Only in this way can we achieve the economical free choice.

Work affects

"Capitalism and Free" published a huge sensational effect in society, in the theoretical circles set off a revolution. It fully introduces the economic liberal thinking of Friedman, enabling economic liberalism into every corner of the economics, and provides theoretical reference to the bourgeois ruler at the time. In particular, the research on the government's monetary policy and fiscal policy, and the investigation of various specific economic measures have brought a big impact on the society.

The impact of "capitalism and freedom" is very huge, except for Cairnsism, and some pragmatic recommendations given by Friedman in the book are also convertible. Practice initiatives, which have greatly influenced the economic and monetary policy of the United States in the 1980s and many other countries. For example, in Slovakia, the flat tax system is almost completely replaced by the floating exchange rate system of the Bretton Forest system, and the US government subsidized refugee students after the Hurricane Katrina, these have expressed the immortal of Friedman. Vision.

Publishing information

The book was issued in English in 1962, published by the Chicago University Press. The Chinese version was translated by Zhang Ruixu, and the Commercial Press published in 1986.

Author

Milton Friedman (1912-2006), American contemporary economist, Chicago economics, monetary school representatives, to study macroeconomics , Microeconomics, economic history, statistical and advocate free to let go of capitalism. His theory became one of the main economies of free Xinfeng, and has a great impact on the economic policies of many countries. Friedman won the Nobel Economics Award in 1976 to express his contribution to the category of consumption analysis, monetary supply theory and history, stable policy complexity.