Scrapbook: Battle for free-market agenda is only half won

Milton Friedman on Socialism and the Free Market

Found among the pages of The Australian:

After World War II, opinion was socialist while practice was free market; currently, opinion is free market while practice is heavily socialist. We have largely won the battle of ideas; we have succeeded in stalling the progress of socialism, but we have not succeeded in reversing its course. We are still far from bringing practice into conformity with opinion. That is the overriding non-defence task for the second Bush term.

Friedman is of course right. Many a conservative will complain about the current course of goverment (and the Republican Party for that matter) as one that talks a good game, but in practice is seemingly offering very little.

The good news is that no one labels themselves as proponents of socialism anymore, but few people truly practice open market ideals in governance. We’ll see.