A better review than I expected. Of course, low expectations are just begging to be exceeded.

The technology section of the nytimes is the only part of the nytimes I can stand to read on any kind of regular basis.

Speechless isn’t exactly the right word.

“… the successes of the New Deal…”

“The global warming debate is coalescing around a “cap and trade” solution in which energy-efficient companies would be rewarded by the market.”

“He skates over other questionable matters, too: for instance, that Friedman advised the murderous Pinochet regime in Chile; that Merwin Hart “infected his free-market thought with anti-Semitism”; and that Rothbard supported Strom Thurmond’s segregationist campaign for president in 1948 (because, Doherty casually observes, “he admired Thurmond’s states’ rights position”).”

“The book fails to ask why people who claim to love freedom have so often had a soft spot for those who would deny it to others.”

“David Leonhardt writes a weekly economics column for The Times.”

God help us.

This is one of the more egregiously (and, no doubt, deliberately) woeful misrepresentations of libertarianism I’ve ever seen. I’d say that it’s up there with Ulrike Heider’s deplorable “Anarchism: Left, Right, and Green”.

First of all, what kind of advice did Milton Friedman lend Generalissimo Pinochet? It’s pertinent to ask, of course. Leonhardt evidently fails to realize that you or I or anyone can lend advice. The crucial matter is whether or not that advice is taken and, in the case of Pinochet, it largely wasn’t. The message Friedman’s former students delivered to Chile was liberalize, liberalize, liberalize (that Friedman ever advised the Pinochet regime is more myth than anything else). Pinochet’s election to leave office ought to correctly be scored a victory for libertarians and not, as has been the case, utilized as an albatross to tie around their necks.

Okay, Merwin Hart didn’t like Jews. Merwin Hart – like Friedman – I wouldn’t find very libertarian at all, but that’s inconsequential. Why is the onus placed on libertarians to explain this kind of smear away? I could pose the question back to Mr. Leonhardt – could you, please, explain Werner Sombart or… hell, Marx himself… for their anti-Semitism. What a smokescreen!

I mean that line of analysis is intellectually lazy, dishonest, and predictable. Only the gumpuses – majority though they may be – fall for it.

The global warming argument is just silly. If – as this maroon states – energy-efficiency shall be rewarded by the market, then, yay, libertarianism. But what he really means, of course, is that the state shall reward those quasi-private entities who match state-mandated efficiency goals, to the detriment of those firms that do not. What does that have to do with “the market”?

Rothbard was 21 and 22 in 1948 and had yet to cement his views concretely. If in 1948 Thurmond represented the closest approximation of a decentralist – and decentralism is your bag – far better to go with candidate Thurmond if you’re going to go with anybody. Note, I say, that Leonhardt has nothing to say about the mass-murdering, power-aggregating, warmongering Truman. Segregation is a pitiful historical episode, no doubt, and hardly libertarian. This should be self-evident. Rothbard did not support segregation. Shouldn’t this be crucial? Apparently not, instead Leonhardt is content to make the insinuation that Rothbard was a racist and supported Thurmond rather than the fact that Thurmond was possibly the most palatable candidate of the three major candidates, certainly quite possibly the least murderous.

I mean, did this guy even read the book? Rothbard – an anarchist – supporting a presidential candidate? It’s preposterous on the face of it.

Here, Mr. Leonhardt. To pop-culturalize the situation. Here, on the left, you have “Gigli”. And, on the right, you have “Leonard: Part 6″. Choose. Whichever you decide, regardless of the degree of reluctance, I shall then deduce you betray a “soft spot” for your selection.

What a douchebag.

Pardon my use. Oh, yeah… and what New Deal successes?

It’s quite standard for the state to blaim peaceful trade for problems the state creates and to say that all good things are because of their applied restrictions on peaceful trade.

This should not come as a surprise.

The state is a racket. Peace is therefore always demonized and brutality is always celebrated.

I commented on this review on my blog. I had never heard of Merwin Hart.

Friedman never directly advised the Chilean government. His University of Chicago had an exchange student program with a university in Chile (don’t remember the details of it), a program that was in function before the days of the Pinochet regime, and at one time Friedman held a series of lectures in the country, just like he in China and many other countries.

Further details of the matter her:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3540561.html

This comment about Friedman is a one that the Left has repeated for decades, and repeated enough times to make it the “truth” of the matter. I’m not sure the NYT reviewer is repeating bullshit because he doesn’t know better, or because he has nothing against dishonesty when it fits his personal political cause.

The technology section of the nytimes is the only part of the nytimes I can stand to read on any kind of regular basis.

Mmmm… I think you’d lose that source of enjoyment if you just happened to be a specialist in the areas covered by the stories. Their technology and science journalism, if anything, even worse than political.

Geir Said:

“I’m not sure the NYT reviewer is repeating bullshit because he doesn’t know better, or because he has nothing against dishonesty when it fits his personal political cause.”

Since we are talking about the paper that hired Walter Duranty & Jason Blair, I’d say the latter.

For Iraq reconstruction as an application of “free market” ideology, see:

Naomi Klein (2004). “Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in Pursuit of a Neocon Utopia”, Harpers (Sept.)

Bassam Yousif (2007). “Economic Restructuring in Iraq: Intended and Unintended Consequences”, Journal of Economic Issues, V. 41, N. 1 (March): 43-60

I think this and ron pauls appearence on bill mahers show are unfortunately harbingers of what is to come. I used to listen to al franken radio show and loved his books. I was excited when he had pat buchanan on as a guest as they were two of my favorite critics of this administration. instead of those issues, Franken pulled out that sheet of politically incorrect stuff buchanan has said over the years. it’s been floating around the net for years something about integration and jews and MLK. it was a wasted show.

to make a long story short, There are an army of out of touch politically correct losers out who’s knee jerk reaction to libertarian ideas will prevent people from hearing the ones that they need to hear.