If you’re in the Chicago area, don’t forget to visit the Milton Friedman Institute website for event updates, including the upcoming workshop on Ronald Coase!

Well, not quite. Although the above is exactly what faculty opposing MFI, CORES, led the campus to believe would happen, it can’t be further from the truth.  In fact, the first (as far as we can tell) guest lecture hosted by MFI centers on synergies between the behavioral sciences and economics by one of the most important scholars in the field.  This intersection of social sciences is exactly where economics seems to be headed, and the MFI can only help the University of Chicago in its interdisciplinary efforts by bringing scholars like Fehr to campus.

Ernst Fehr, University of Zurich, presents:  ”Social Preferences – A Foundation of Cooperation, Competition, and Incentives”

Thursday, May 7:  3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Classics 110,  1010 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637

This lecture examines how the consideration of social preferences affects economic outcomes.  For a long time, the behavioral sciences – including economics – have largely neglected people’s social motives. However, evidence suggests that a substantial number of people exhibit social preferences, which means they are not solely motivated by material self-interest but also care positively or negatively about the material payoffs to other persons.  Evidence will be presented indicating that economists fail to understand fundamental economic questions when they disregard social preferences.  In particular, when social preferences are ignored, it is not possible to adequately understand  (i) the effects of competition on market outcomes, (ii) the forces governing cooperation and collective action, (iii) the effects and the determinants of material incentives, (iv) which contracts and property rights arrangements are optimal, and (v) important forces shaping social norms and market failures.

Although his thesis appeals to some scholars and media outlets, it is as false as any claim can be.  To say that we have been living in a laissez-faire system, as Sanders claims, is to ignore everything relevant about our current regulatory system.  Today Cato Unbound published economics professor Lawrence H. White’s discussion of “What really happened.” An excerpt:

The actual causes of our financial troubles were unusual monetary policy moves and novel federal regulatory interventions. Regulatory distortions intensified in the 1990s. Poorly chosen public policies distorted interest rates and asset prices, diverted loanable funds into the wrong investments, and twisted normally robust financial institutions into unsustainable positions.

We can group most of the unfortunate policies under two main headings: (1) Federal Reserve credit expansion that provided the means for unsustainable mortgage financing, and (2) mandates and subsidies to write riskier mortgages. The enumeration of regrettable policies here is by no means exhaustive.

Professor White’s article is a summary of a more thorough briefing paper on the economic crisis, which we encourage everyone to read before believing Sanders’ bilge wholesale.

*It should also be noted that Sanders holds a BS in a non-economic field and does not hold a higher degree in that area (or any other area).

A coalition of student and faculty groups at the University of Chicago proudly announces:

“Milton Friedman’s Legacies: On the U.S. Economic Crisis.”  featuring Senator Bernie Sanders

Tuesday, December 2 at 7:30 PM, at Kent Hall, 107

Senator Sanders (I-VT), a 1964 graduate of the College, will address questions about the contemporary economy, such as: is the current economic crisis part of Milton Friedman’s legacy?  Will ongoing revelations about the failure of the market to regulate itself–to protect the goods it holds and the people it serves–change how the public and the government think about what constitutes a strong economy and a strong society? 

Senator Sanders’ talk is the third in a series of events responding to the creation of the Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics: the first having been Naomi Klein’s October 1 lecture, “Disaster Capitalism: Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys”; the second, the October 14 roundtable discussion featuring supporters and opponents of the Institute.  This event is sponsored by The Committee for Open Research on Economy and Society (CORES), Students for CORES, Chicago Society, Students for a Democratic Society, and Stand-Up for Progress.  It is funded in part by Student Government.

People with disabilities who think they may need assistance should contact Luis Brennan (631-664-5779). Further inquiries about this event may be addressed to Lauren Berlant (773-493-6202) and Andrew Yale (773-288-9006).

To be fair, Sen. Sanders opposed the Wall Street bailout (both times). This is good (although he may have voted for some of the wrong reasons). A question to ask Sen. Sanders when he comes to Chicago: What financial regulations have actually been lifted in the past few years?

And if he admits that none were lifted and gives the “asleep at the switch” answer, kindly ask him if any government or bureaucracy can truly ever be aware of all of the intricacies of a complex, “free” economy such as ours.

For the first time in many years we have the opportunity to debate the types of knowledge produced at this institution and the decision-making process that governs it. Let’s not waste it.

Academic freedom is widely acknowledged as crucial to a vibrant university, so we don’t feel the need to belabor that point.  Sign the petition today in support of the Friedman Institute and academic freedom.

Read the whole anti-MFI invitation here (PDF). Personal email addresses are censored, but you can contact us here.

Anyway, if you want to print some pro-Friedman literature to put under windshield wipers please consider downloading our flyer. We handed this–and another piece–out on Wednesday at the Naomi Klein event. It defines free markets, gives a little bit of history on Dr. Friedman, and provides an excellent quotation on why he supports limited government:

“One of the reasons why I’m in favor of less government, is because when you have more government, industrialists take it over.” — Milton Friedman

Friedman Flyer (PDF)

We were outright rejected.  We were told that it was too late to add additional speakers, although the event had only recently been announced.  It is clear that the organizers did not go out of their way to bring in opposing views to the University prior to our contact with them.  Their group did not reach out to any opposing groups on campus for suggestions.  They did not contact journalists of Klein’s stature who oppose her views.   Instead, by their own admission they only contacted several faculty members at the University of Chicago, those primarily involved with the Friedman Institute, and used these individuals’ reasonable demurrals to imply that everyone is afraid of the formidable Klein.  Although this was likely not premeditated, it illustrates their lack of interest in a real debate.

We here at FriedmanFacts.com are interested in facts, not distortions.  And even though a response was not permitted at the Klein engagement itself, we hope to present facts the here.  Please contact us if you would like to help.

Hummers bring out Klien’s “nasty side.”

Her feelings on Hummers have changed recently with the increase of the price of gas.

There are many reasons to oppose the MFI–it’s expensive, takes resources away from the university. It might stifle intelllectual diversity.

The MFI would be the academic equivolent of the big, yellow Hummer sitting in your driveway.

The economic chaos that we’re seeing on Wall Street right now are due to the ideas of MF.

We’ve been living a liberation movement–liberation of capital from restraint.

“Ideas have consequences.” -Rumsfeld

MF had the ability to have people fall in love with his seductive ideas. He had the dream of the perfect, utopian market.

I’m not here to discuss theory, but the way in which the real world works.

The Friedmanites in the room will object that the events in Chile, Russia and the USA are distortions of MF’s beliefs.

My grandparents were pretty hardcore Marxists. They had their dreams shattered, and the Left has had a healthy reexamination of their ideology.

Chilean Foreign Minister: “This was a concerted effort to tranfer a far-right ideology.”

“What’s interesting about the New Left in Latin America is that it’s based on democracy.”

GWB has overseen a destruction of the beliefs of the far-right libertarians.

“Right-wing trotskyists,” a frozen-in-time quality.

“Are these people fuelled by belief or by greed?”

Expounding on the links between the cuurent crisis and MF: Degregulation.

There will be three big banks in the USA.

Phil Gramm did the most to advance the legislative agenda of the Friedmanites.

Schwarzenegger’s intro to Free to Choose is not to be missed.

Friedmanism has an appeal to politicians who don’t know much about the economy.

Friedmanism neglects the public sphere. Infrastructure is going to be subject to the next wave of privatization.

The voucher system implemented in NO after Katrina is neglect of the public sphere.

Regarding the bailout: People are untrustworthy and shouldn’t have a say in the economy, Friedman would say.

The GW Bush administation is the culmination of laissez-faire economics.

The Obama campaign is a referendum on Friedman’s ideas.

Milton Friedman understood the utilty of crisis: “Only a crisis produces real change.”

We need to have better ideas laying around.

We’re throwing very profitable ideology around.

Government is spending Obama’s promises away (health care for all, green jobs, clean energy).

The MFI is about recapturing a moment of ideologicl certainty.

Join us in the real world.

My iPhone died as we went into Q&A. I’ll post some additional observations in a different post soon.

What: Naomi Klein Speaks Against Friedman Institute
When: Wednesday Oct. 1, 7pm
Where: University of Chicago, International House

For more on Naomi Klein’s serious allegations against both Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, please read this 20-page report, or the shorter piece in reason magazine.  You can also watch Johan Norberg clear up the record on Friedman on Youtube.  Also, check out Klein debates Friedman onYouTube.