Free To Choose?

Most Americans today are clueless as to why our country is prosperous and many other countries are poor. Most in government today think that more and more government control of our medical system and our economy is a good thing.

Milton Friedman (1912-2006) understood before most of us that a free society was the route to a prosperity. I read his book, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, during college, and it has influenced my thought ever since. 

Mart Laars, however, read his book as Estonia was achieving its freedom from the Soviet Union. At 32 years of age, Laars became Estonia's prime minister and instituted Friedman's ideas (for example, a flat tax, and privatizing industries). Estonia's prosperity has been a resounding success, while other former soviet states are mired in poverty, governed by statist thugs.

John Stossel, as always, introduces these ideas of freedom with clarity on his network television show. If you want intellectual ammunition to argue against the government takeover of medicine and of the economy, the ideas of Milton Friedman (and John Stossel!) are a good place to start.