What does /sci/ think of Milton Friedman? I know he's not

>>8819737
Doesn't matter, this thread will degenerate into Free market/Socialist shitflinging in the first few posts, as people either support free market economics or oppose them. Does it make any difference if I belong on one camp or the other? No, it doesn't. I'll say however that there's a good reason economics discussions are kept off a board that has to be conclusive and rigorous about its conclusions.

Maybe >>>/biz/ will be more accommodating.

>>8819737
Extreme inequality and perfect egalitarianism are both entropically unfavorable and can't be maintained without force. The free market favors a gaussian distribution of wealth.

>>8819737
Hack who contributed very little, heralded by ideological partisans.

Economics is not science.

>>8820157
No it doesn't, wealth is extremely narrowly concentrated at the top percentages.

>>8820164
What is science?

He probably left the world worse than he found it. There is much less ambiguity about the kind of effect scientific advancement has (even if there is some). That's why this sort of thing is not discussed here.

>>8820174
Certainly economics isn't science. It has insane levels of nepotism and favoring of "research" from people at elite institutions. macroeconomics is no more predictive than random guessing. Economists don't seem to agree on anything except more free trade and more immigration, which are probably the two least-liked things in rich countries nowadays. On any other topic, they will find the result that they have been paid to find.

>>8820164
Why bring up Hayek?

Him and friedman agreed on a lot politically but could not have been further apart from a macroeconomic point of view.

>>8820816
>Economists don't seem to agree on anything except more free trade and more immigration

Is that a joke?

>>8821503
On basically any policy point X, you can find reputable economists supporting both X and not-X.

>>8821755

Like What?

>>8820816
Do you actually know what you're talking about, or are you making all this up because you don't actually know anything about economics?

My bets are on the second option.

>>8821907
So far, economics has not managed to produce a single theory that accurately models reality or has any predictive value. Every economic theory is merely a justification for ideology.

>>8819737

He failed his actuarial exams, so he gave up on being an actuary and became an economist instead. The big monetarist can't even math.

>>8821948
Name me five theories in economics. And don't just look them up on Wikipedia.

Monetarism is my favorite macro-economic school of thought

Keynesian retards kys, fiscal policy is never timely and stickey wages only exist because of unemployment benefits and unions

>>8820167
this

>>8820164
Economics is literally a soft science that models human behaviors and decisons

>>8821952
Keynesianism
Monetarism
Mercantilism
Malthusianism
Liberalism

Inb4 a bunch of psuedointellectual scientists who know nothing about economic theory , RP as socialists despite the fact that nearly all capitalist theory can be mathematically modeled and is extensively studied to be effective while socialist theory is literally just retarded horse shit made up by poor people who want to steal other peoples money cause they dont have marketable skills of their own

>>8821956

> stickey wages only exist because of unemployment benefits and unions

AKA "the real world". Unless you want to do a Pinochet and kill the poor and the unionized.

>>8821970
First of there is nothing wrong with Pinochet

Secondly you dont have to kill union members to criminalize unions but if it came to that it wouldn't really be such a bad thing 2bh

Privatized unemployment insurance would function a whole lot better than government versions, in terms of its long run sustainability, and would encourage people to voluntarily become unemployed far less

>>8821967
None of these are theories. These are schools of thought which each contain their own body of theories. Supply and demand is a good example of an economic theory, as it constitutes a model for how prices are determiend.

>>8821951
Source on him failing his actuarial exams?

>>8822000

Youtube vid, "Milton Friedman wanted to become an Actuary". it's an interview with him where he calls actuarial exams the most difficult exams in the world (which is bollocks - a mathematics grad wouldn't find it difficult, it's only difficult to business students who think they're good at mathematics). He says he failed some of the exams needed to become a fellow of society of actuaries.

>>8821974

> Nothing wrong with Pinochet

Ahahahahaaa good one, Adolf. You'll be one of the first up against the wall.

>>8822034
>hitler
>pinochet
>comparable

Pick 1

>>8822042

Insofar as they both rounded up unionists (which is what we're talking about) and slaughtered them, yes, they're comparable.

>>8822050
I only bite organic grassfed bait

That's some McBait right there

>>8822030
>a mathematics grad wouldn't find it difficult
Have you seen the exams, or is this something you're pulling out of your ass?

>>8822057

Whatever. It's true, though.

>>8822064

Yes, I have. They're no harder than upper undergrad/grad level stats. I'm not saying they're a piece of cake, but to call them "the most difficult in the world" is laughable and downplays what students have to face in other mathematically intensive fields.

>>8822077
Alright, fair enough then.

>>8821960
It's worsely politicized than even global warming.

>>8822030
>he failed his actuarial exams
>one of the most important economists of the 20th century, who was extraordinarily influential in setting economic policy, was too fucking stupid to pass an actuarial exam
They're always failed mathematicians.

He was a meme and his (((contributions))) were a meme, too.

>>8820174

The question you SHOULD be asking is "what is scientific economics?". To which the answer is certainly not Austrian Economics, which explicitly rejects the scientific method.

I can't assert whether he was a great economist theorist or not, but one of the best things he ever did was set up a commission to stop conscription, effectively saying that the state should have no right to interfere in whether to send people unwillingly into war.

Some Liberterianism and the idea of the erosion of the state does have some virtues or good leanings.

>>8819737
Thatcher was a real scientist, she was a research chemist for BX plastics

>>8820164

This. Economics as we knew it in the past was just psychology in the business world. It is not scientifically rigorous in the least, rather it is mired by dogma and ideology rather than objective truth seeking.

Modern economic research at the highest level is simply statistics, or 'econometrics' which is really just a fancy word for how economics like to conduct statistics. If economics as an academic field wants to be taken seriously by the sciences than it needs to focus more on econometrics and just leave the economic """""theory""""" (read: non-empirical garbage) aside or at most just a supplement to the statistical modelling.

>>8819748
>a board that has to be conclusive and rigorous about its conclusions
what alternate-universe /sci/ have you been browsing?
there's not a single rigorous thread on this board

>>8821967
hahahaha what a tard

>>8822640
Lmfao you shit scraping troglodyte without economic theory you would be in a 3rd world country, economic theory is almost always backed by mathematical models

>>8823436
Look at me! I can back up my social theories with math! That makes them indisputably true! You can't argue with me! They'll arrest you! They'll put you in jail!

>>8823453
social theories backed up by math may not be super reliable, but they sure as hell are better than the worthless social theories not backed by any math whatsoever.

>>8823460
This.

>>8823436
>>8823460

What mathematical models are you talking about? The only time economics uses math properly is in linear regression.

>>8823460
Social theories pretending to be scientific / mathematical are shit and trigger me

If you believe pretending to use math is better than not mentioning math at all is better, well, it's not a shit opinion but it really doesnt mean much

>>8819737
Like most economists he was a delusional cunt completly disenfranchised from physical reality, claiming market efficiency to be our hero and state capitalism to be free markets.
One of the many examples of why the Nobel prizes are the Grammys or oscars of science. Fucking ridiculous.

>>8821755
I've never said this but you are the most retarded person on 4chan. Your lack of knowledge is not even the worse part, it's the fact you act like you know anything. Take 5 minutes of an Econ course.

>>8821967
>Theories of Econ
Try harder anon

>>8824723
he is 100% more intelligent than you are and has contributed more SCIENTIFIC works than you ever will despite him only being in a soft science

>>8824723
also
>state capitalism

I'd love to hear why you think he supports that

>>8819737
>you cannot deny he's was an incredibly intelligent person
You underestimate our power of denial, Anon.

>>8823436
>implying a third-world country operates without some shit-tier economic theory