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Milton Friedman produced millions of millions of Tank Men

Iqbal Latif - 4/20/2008

In response to: ''Do u guys like the ideas that inspired Tieanenman Square or the ideas of Pinochet? I think u'll find they took many of their ideas from Friedman. Have a think about whether u want to be his fans in the light of that? I'm off out of here (i.e. I joined just to post this and am leaving his fan group now.'

The greater revolution that he helped create was in the minds of people; the change of mind, minds are not ready to accept slavery, they want freedom. Those not ready to coexist in perfect harmony with the rest of the world are discarded and removed. Seasons of revolution in the 90's has a lot to do with free markets. He adamantly argued that if capitalism, or economic freedom, is introduced into countries governed by totalitarian regimes, political freedom would tend to result.

"Tank man" is the nickname of the anonymous man who became internationally famous when he was filmed and photographed standing before a line of seventeen or more tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 in the People's Republic of China. The incident ironically took place on the Chang An Da Dao, or "Great Avenue of Everlasting Peace", just a minute away from the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which leads into the Forbidden City, Beijing, on 5 June, 1989, the day after the Chinese government began cracking down violently on the protests. The man stood unwavering and alone in the middle of the road as the tanks approached him. He appeared to be holding two bags of some sort, one in each hand. As the tanks came to a stop, he appeared to be trying to wave them away. In response, the front tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank. After about half an hour of blocking the tanks, the man climbed up onto the top of the lead tank and had a conversation with the driver. Reports of what were said to the driver vary, including "Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you;" "Go back, turn around, and stop killing my people;" "Go away." Finally, anxious onlookers pulled the man down and absorbed him into the crowd and the tanks continued on their way. 1

Milton Friedman wrote extensively on the Great Depression, which he called the Great Contraction, arguing that it had been caused by an ordinary financial shock whose duration and seriousness were greatly increased by the subsequent contraction of the money supply caused by misguided policies of the directors of the Federal Reserve. His student, ‘Bernanke,’ has just saved USA from the hands of hedge fund vandals. The Fed did what it had to do to stave off crises made far worse by extreme manipulation of credit default swaps. If the Fed in 1929 had been more accommodative than restrictive, what became a depression would have been restricted to a garden variety recession...

Very few people in this world can take the credit for fresh ideas that have changed the course of civilisations' history. His thought, ‘A FILLED STOMACH DEMANDS HIGHER FREEDOMS,’ definitely changed the course of contemporary history.

His ideas are not just adopted by the mainstream, but mankind as a whole has discovered the benefits of incentive-based minds. Milton Friedman gave us tools not to be just free marketeers, but also helped establish a cadre of new freedom seekers like Kasparov and others who want to break totalitarian societies; communists could only flourish in a closed society. His free market and new affluence of mankind plus new freedoms and fall of communism are interrelated phenomena. These credits he rarely gets.

He is no ordinary man, no less a person than Alan Greenspan stated, "There are very few people over the generations who have ideas that are sufficiently original to materially alter the direction of civilization." Adoption of his laissez-faire ideas by Reagan-Thatcher gave our world a new machine of wealth generation that has now enveloped the entire world. It is free market economy that has helped China address its totalitarianism and poverty. It is laissez-faire ideas that are helping poor and wretched economies to reach out to the lowest stratas. If 250 million strong middle class is emerging in South Asia, it is only due to death of Nehruvian socialism. The present premier Manmohan Singh was the author of Friedman policies adopted by the Indians; laissez-faire capitalism decentralized capital, and enabled individuals to choose how they participate in the system that brought about greater economic equality and wealth to everyone. Millions today are reaping the benefits of mass poverty eradication; with filled stomachs shall come better level of freedom and economy. Incentive-based minds tend to be liberated - and that is a 'Friedman windfall.'