Book Review: Free to Choose

I recently finished Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton and Rose Friedman.  This book was part of the Red State Book Notes Project.  Think of this as a conservative online book club.  I wrote a number of posts on this book for Red State, here is a link to the first one.

I am amazed at how relevant this book is in today’s world.  The copy I have is an updated version from the late 1970’s.  And yet, some of the sections could come straight from political discussions today.  There are many discussions in today’s papers about the founding fathers, and what they meant in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.  For example, what does the phrase “created equal” mean in the Declaration?  The Friedmans answer, “The clue to what Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries meant by equal is in the next phrase of the Declaration — ‘endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’  Men were equal before God. Each person is precious in and of himself.”  Todays progressive movement does not wants to guarantee equality before the law based on an equality before God.  They want to guarantee an equality of outcome.  Those who favor a redistribution of wealth, Obamacare, and the many laws that claim to defend the poor, try to obtain this “equality of outcome.”  However, if an equality of outcome can be guaranteed, it can only be at the lowest available level.  We can all be poor, we can’t all be super rich.

The conclusion of the book includes a number of recommendations for how we should proceed forward.  These recommendations include a number of constitutional amendments.  Amendments are tough to get passed, but they have one advantage:  the states can force them against the will of congress.  The Friedmans recommend a number of different amendments.  My favorite one is “Congress shall make no laws abridging the freedom of sellers of goods or labor to price their products or services.” If this were added to the Constitution today, years of minimum wage and pro-union laws would unravel in an instant.  I think that would be a great way to spur our economy forward.

Free to Choose is a great read, and a conservative classic.  It can be picked up for around $10.  It’s very enjoyable and you might find yourself reconsidering your views on a few issues.