諾貝爾經濟學獎得主佛利民有一段經典名言：「
花自己的錢辦自己的事，既講節約，又講效果；
花自己的錢辦別人的事，只講節約，不講效果；
花別人的錢辦自己的事，只講效果，不講節約；
花別人的錢辦別人的事，既不講效果，又不講節約。」
我們到巴里島……和希臘的羅德島一樣……特質已改變，觀光業吞噬了它。1963年來此地時，我們買回了漂亮的雕刻品……現在找不到和以前品質不相上下的小型雕刻品。這樣的東西肯定有，只是佔非常低比率的市場。
《兩個幸運的人》(Memoirs of Milton and Rose D. Friedman)台北：先覺社，1999，頁773
(這本書由兩人翻譯、所以某些名詞的翻譯不一致，譬如說某大學的校名。
對於身為Herbert Simon 的朋友的我們 Milton Friedman 的學說只是馬馬虎虎的"一流"作品
Stephen Moore: The Man Who Saved Capitalism
It's a tragedy that Milton Friedman-born 100 years ago on July 31-did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It's perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world's greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Mr. Obama and the country.
Friedman was a constant presence on these pages until his death in 2006 at age 94. If he could, he would surely be skewering today's $5 trillion expansion of spending and debt to create growth-and exposing the confederacy of economic dunces urging more of it.
In the 1960s, Friedman famously explained that 'there's no such thing as a free lunch.' If the government spends a dollar, that dollar has to come from producers and workers in the private economy. There is no magical 'multiplier effect' by taking from productive Peter and giving to unproductive Paul. As obvious as that insight seems, it keeps being put to the test. Obamanomics may be the most expensive failed experiment in free-lunch economics in American history.
Equally illogical is the superstition that government can create prosperity by having Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke print more dollars. In the very short term, Friedman proved, excess money fools people with an illusion of prosperity. But the market quickly catches on, and there is no boost in output, just higher prices.
Next to Ronald Reagan, in the second half of the 20th century there was no more influential voice for economic freedom world-wide than Milton Friedman. Small in stature but a giant intellect, he was the economist who saved capitalism by dismembering the ideas of central planning when most of academia was mesmerized by the creed of government as savior.
Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for 1976-at a time when almost all the previous prizes had gone to socialists. This marked the first sign of the intellectual comeback of free-market economics since the 1930s, when John Maynard Keynes hijacked the profession. Friedman's 1963 book 'A Monetary History of the United States,' written with Anna Schwartz (who died on June 21), was a masterpiece and changed the way we think about the role of money.
More influential than Friedman's scholarly writings was his singular talent for communicating the virtues of the free market to a mass audience. His two best-selling books, 'Capitalism and Freedom' (1962) and 'Free to Choose' (1980), are still wildly popular. His videos on YouTube on issues like the morality of capitalism are brilliant and timeless.
In the early 1990s, Friedman visited poverty-stricken Mexico City for a Cato Institute forum. I remember the swirling controversy ginned up by the media and Mexico's intelligentsia: How dare this apostle of free-market economics be given a public forum to speak to Mexican citizens about his 'outdated' ideas? Yet when Milton arrived in Mexico he received a hero's welcome as thousands of business owners, students and citizen activists hungry for his message encircled him everywhere he went, much like crowds for a modern rock star.
Once in the early 1960s, Friedman wrote the then-U.S. ambassador to New Delhi, John Kenneth Galbraith, that he would be lecturing in India. By all means come, the witty but often wrong Galbraith replied: 'I can think of nowhere your free-market ideas can do less harm than in India.' As fate would have it, India did begin to embrace Friedmanism in the 1990s, and the economy began to soar. China finally caught on too.
Friedman stood unfailingly and heroically with the little guy against the state. He used to marvel that the intellectual left, which claims to espouse 'power to the people,' so often cheers as states suppress individual rights.
While he questioned almost every statist orthodoxy, he fearlessly gored sacred cows of both political parties. He was the first scholar to sound the alarm on the rotten deal of Social Security for young workers-forced to pay into a system that will never give back as much as they could have accumulated on their own. He questioned the need for occupational licenses-which he lambasted as barriers to entry-for everything from driving a cab to passing the bar to be an attorney, or getting an M.D. to practice medicine.
He loved turning the intellectual tables on liberals by making the case that regulation often does more harm than good. His favorite example was the Food and Drug Administration, whose regulations routinely delay the introduction of lifesaving drugs. 'When the FDA boasts a new drug will save 10,000 lives a year,' he would ask, 'how many lives were lost because it didn't let the drug on the market last year?'
He supported drug legalization (much to the dismay of supporters on the right) and was particularly proud to be an influential voice in ending the military draft in the 1970s. When his critics argued that he favored a military of mercenaries, he would retort: 'If you insist on calling our volunteer soldiers 'mercenaries,' I will call those who you want drafted into service involuntarily 'slaves.''
By the way, he rarely got angry and even when he was intellectually slicing and dicing his sparring partners he almost always did it with a smile. It used to be said that over the decades at the University of Chicago and across the globe, the only one who ever defeated him in a debate was his beloved wife and co-author Rose Friedman.
The issue he devoted most of his later years to was school choice for all parents, and his Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice is dedicated to that cause. He used to lament that 'we allow the market, consumer choice and competition to work in nearly every industry except for the one that may matter most: education.'
As for congressional Republicans who are at risk of getting suckered into a tax-hike budget deal, they may want to remember another Milton Friedman adage: 'Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with.'
No doubt because of his continued popularity, the left has tried to tie Friedman and his principles of free trade, low tax rates and deregulation to the global financial meltdown in 2008. Economist Joseph Stiglitz charged that Friedman's 'Chicago School bears the blame for providing a seeming intellectual foundation' for the 'idea that markets are self-adjusting and the best role for government is to do nothing.' Occupy Wall Street protesters were often seen wearing T-shirts which read: 'Milton Friedman: Proud Father of Global Misery.'
The opposite is true: Friedman opposed the government spending spree in the 2000s. He hated the government-sponsored enterprises like housing lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In a recent tribute to Friedman in the Journal of Economic Literature, Harvard's Andrei Shleifer describes 1980-2005 as 'The Age of Milton Friedman,' an era that 'witnessed remarkable progress of mankind. As the world embraced free-market policies, living standards rose sharply while life expectancy, educational attainment, and democracy improved and absolute poverty declined.'
Well over 200 million were liberated from poverty thanks to the rediscovery of the free market. And now as the world teeters close to another recession, leaders need to urgently rediscover Friedman's ideas.
I remember asking Milton, a year or so before his death, during one of our semiannual dinners in downtown San Francisco: What can we do to make America more prosperous? 'Three things,' he replied instantly. 'Promote free trade, school choice for all children, and cut government spending.'
How much should we cut? 'As much as possible.'
這是 一個悲劇：米爾頓•弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)在1912年7月31日出生﹐但他沒能長命百歲活到今天﹐來對構成奧巴馬經濟(Obamanomics)核心價值觀的“大政府”理念進 行抨擊。也許更為悲劇的是﹐我們的現任總統奧巴馬在弗里德曼執教數十年的芝加哥大學(University of Chicago)畢業﹐卻從未受到這位捍衛自由市場理念的全世界最偉大領軍人物的半點感召﹐否則的話﹐我想奧巴馬和美國的日子都會好過得多。
弗里德曼一直在經濟學界有著重要的影響力﹐直到他於2006年去世﹐享年94歲。如果他還在世﹐他肯定會強烈質疑現如今美國政府為促進經濟增長推出的五萬億美元支出和發債擴張計劃﹐並揭下那幫嚷嚷著還要進一步強化刺激政策的經濟學蠢貨們的遮羞布。
20 世紀60年代﹐弗里德曼說了那句名言：“天下沒有免費的午餐”(there's no such thing as a free lunch)。如果政府花掉一美元﹐這一美元肯定來自於私有經濟中的產出者和勞動者﹐不存在所謂的把高產能彼得的一美元交給低產能保羅所帶來的神奇“乘數 效應”。這個道理看起來顯而易見﹐卻不斷受到挑戰和測試﹐而奧巴馬經濟可能是美國有史以來“免費午餐經濟學”各類嘗試中代價最為昂貴的一個。
同 樣不合邏輯的是一種近乎迷信的觀點﹐認為政府可以通過讓美聯儲(Federal Reserve)主席本•貝南克(Ben Bernanke)印刷更多的美元來創造經濟繁榮。弗里德曼證明﹐在很短一個時期﹐過量的貨幣供應會蒙蔽人們的雙眼﹐製造出一個經濟繁榮的幻覺﹐但市場很 快就會蘇醒過來進行調整﹐經濟產出並未增加﹐只會帶來更高的物價。
20世紀下半葉﹐除里根總統(Ronald Reagan)之外﹐全世界沒有任何一個人在經濟自由方面的影響力可以超過弗里德曼。弗里德曼個子很小﹐卻是一個偉大的智者。當絕大多數學者都沉迷於政府 是救世主的信條時﹐只有弗里德曼把政府宏觀調控的理論駁斥得分崩離析﹐從而拯救了資本主義。
弗里德曼在1976年獲得諾貝爾經濟學獎﹔在 此之前﹐幾乎所有此類獎項都被授予給社會主義者﹐這標志著自由市場經濟理論自20世紀30年代以來的首度回歸﹐打破了約翰•梅納德•凱恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)對經濟學領域的壟斷和劫持。弗里德曼1963年與安娜•史瓦茲(Anna Schwartz﹐於今年6月21日辭世)合著的《美國貨幣史》(A Monetary History of the United States)堪稱傑作﹐改變了人們對於貨幣所扮演角色的看法。
比 弗里德曼學術著作更具影響力的是他向大眾傳遞自由市場裨益所在的卓越溝通能力。他的兩本最暢銷書籍《資本主義與自由》(Capitalism and Freedom﹐1962年出版)和《自由選擇》(Free to Choose﹐1980年出版)至今仍受到廣泛好評。他在YouTub上討論資本主義價值觀的視頻精彩紛呈﹐經久彌新。
Corbis米爾頓•弗里德曼和露絲•弗里德曼
20世紀90年代 初﹐弗里德曼參加大型智庫“加圖研究所”(Cato Institute)的一個論壇﹐來到被貧窮問題所困撓的墨西哥城(Mexico City)。我記得他的造訪在墨西哥知識界和媒體掀起一場令人眩暈的激烈爭論：怎麼能讓弗里德曼這個自由市場經濟學使徒在一個公眾論壇上向墨西哥人灌輸他 那些“老掉牙”的理論？然而﹐當弗里德曼抵達墨西哥時﹐他受到了英雄般的歡迎﹐無論去哪兒﹐都有成千上萬渴望聆聽教誨的企業老板、學生和社會活躍分子簇擁 在其週圍﹐他就像一位現代搖滾巨星。
20世紀60年代初﹐弗里德曼給時任美國駐印度大使的約翰•肯尼思•加爾佈雷思(John Kenneth Galbraith)寫信﹐說自己要來印度做個演講。機智詼諧但觀點經常錯誤的加爾佈雷思回信道：“我實在想不出比印度更不適合接受你自由市場觀點的地方 了。”也許是命運使然﹐印度在90年代開始接受弗里德曼主義(Friedmanism)﹐經濟開始騰飛。中國最終也加入了這一陣營。
弗里德曼如同一位英雄﹐長期站在弱勢群體一邊﹐抗拒強勢的政府。他一直驚訝於自我標榜擁護“還權於民”的左翼知識分子經常在政府壓迫個人權利時還為其歡呼雀躍。
弗 里德曼質疑幾乎每一個國家集權理論﹐無畏地抨擊美國民主黨和共和黨都奉上神壇的東西。他是第一個對美國社保體系(Social Security)鳴響警鐘的學者﹐認為其對年輕人不公平──他們被迫加入社保﹐但從社保拿回的錢太少﹐還不如自己存起來。他質疑一切職業許可證存在的必 要性﹐從開出租車的經營許可、當律師的資格考試﹐一直到執醫所需的醫學博士(M.D.)文憑等﹐斥責這些許可證是在變相設置門檻。
弗里德 曼喜歡舉例說明政府監管帶來的壞處往往多於好處﹐從而在意識形態上扭轉自由派(liberal)的不利局面。他最喜歡舉的一個例子是美國食品藥品管理局 (Food and Drug Administration, FDA)﹐其監管政策經常導致拯救生命的藥物遲遲不能面世。弗里德曼問道﹐“FDA標榜其批准的一個新藥每年能拯救一萬人的生命。但有多少人因為FDA沒 能早一年允許該藥上市而死去？”
弗里德曼支持毒品合法化（這讓右翼思想的支持者大感意外）﹐尤其為自己在20世紀70年代結束美國征兵制 度的過程中成為一個有影響力的聲音而感到自豪。有些人批評弗里德曼讚成軍隊的傭兵化﹐對此弗里德曼反唇相譏：“如果你們一定要把自願當兵的人稱為‘傭 兵’﹐那我就可以將那些被你們強制征兵入伍的人稱為‘奴隸’。”
順便說一句﹐弗里德曼極少發怒﹐即使在與對手激烈辯論﹐把對方批得體無完膚時﹐他也幾乎永遠面帶微笑。人們常說﹐幾十年來在芝加哥大學乃至放眼整個世界﹐唯一能在辯論中擊敗弗里德曼的人﹐就是他摯愛的妻子及合著者羅斯•弗里德曼(Rose Friedman)。
晚 年的弗里德曼把大多數精力放在為全天下的父母增加孩子的教育選擇權上﹐他發起的“弗里德曼教育選擇基金會”(Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice)就致力於此。他經常痛惜一件事情：“我們允許幾乎每個行業都開放市場、鼓勵競爭﹐增加消費者的選擇權﹐唯獨遺漏了一個可能是最重要的領域： 教育。”
國會的共和黨人提出通過加稅來解決政府的財政赤字﹐這是要冒很大風險的。我想提醒他們弗里德曼的另一句名言：“增加稅收永遠無法減少財政赤字﹐政府會花掉收上來的每一分錢﹐並把責任推得幹幹淨淨。”
毫 無疑問﹐由於弗里德曼思想的長盛不衰﹐左翼陣營試圖將弗里德曼及其自由貿易、低稅收和放鬆監管等原則與2008年的全球金融危機掛上鉤。經濟學家約瑟夫• 斯蒂格利茨(Joseph Stiglitz)指責以弗里德曼為首的“芝加哥學院派要承擔責任﹐因為其提供了一個看似合理的理論基礎﹐認為市場能夠自我調節﹐政府最好是無為而治。” 佔領華爾街運動(Occupy Wall Street)的示威者經常穿一件T恤﹐上面寫著“米爾頓•弗里德曼：全球痛苦的傲慢之父”(Proud Father of Global Misery)。
但事實恰恰相反：弗里德曼反對21世紀頭十年美國政府大肆擴張的財政政策﹐他厭惡住房抵押貸款公司房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)這樣的政府影子企業。
哈 佛大學(Harvard)的安德魯•施萊弗(Andrei Shleifer)近期在《經濟文獻雜志》(Journal of Economic Literature)發表了一篇紀念弗里德曼的文章﹐將1980-2005年稱為“米爾頓•弗里德曼時代”(The Age of Milton Friedman)﹐這個時代“見證了人類卓越非凡的進步﹐全世界接受自由市場的經濟政策﹐生活水準大幅提高﹐平均壽命、教育水平和民主程度都有改善﹐絕 對貧困有所減少。”
對自由市場的再發現把兩億多人從貧困中解放出來。現在﹐眼看全世界又要踉蹌步入另一場經濟衰退﹐各國領袖需要緊急行動起來﹐重新認可弗里德曼的價值所在。
我記得在弗里德曼去世前一年左右﹐我曾在舊金山舉辦的一次半年晚宴中問過他：我們該做些什麼﹐才能讓美國的前景更美好？“要做三件事。”弗里德曼馬上答道﹐“促進自由貿易、增強所有孩子的教育選擇權、削減政府支出。”
那要削減多少呢？“越多越好。”弗里德曼如是說道。
Two lucky people:
memoirs
InTwo
Lucky People, Rose and Milton Friedman provide a memorable and lively
account of their lives, the people they knew, and the work they shared.
Their involvement with world leaders and many of this century's most
important public policy issues moves their memoir beyond the merely
personal and makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the
history of twentieth-century ideas. "The Friedmans come across as the
last Enlightenment thinkers in a post-modern world. . . . This is a book
that restores your faith in reasoned discourse. . . . There really are
people who believe in scholarly exchange as a way to discover
truth."--David Brooks,New York Times Book Review "The Friedmans are a
feisty couple, who clearly delight in their lives and each other. And
shining through their reticence, and their conservatism, is a decency
that even liberals will recognize."--Milton and Judith Viorst,Washington
Post Book World "This engaging book recounts the life and contributions
of one of America's most influential writers and economists in the
second half of the twentieth century. And her husband's no slouch
either. . . . An indispensable guide through the evolution of economic
thought."--Stephen Moore,National Review "A thought-provoking book and
one rich in history, the personal history of the Friedmans . . . and the
cultural and political history of our country."--Steve Huntley,Chicago
Sun-Times Books "[Two Lucky People] is almost like a letter from a
couple of old friends--a couple of old friends who had a long,
compelling intellectual journey, came to know some of the great world
leaders of this century,andhad 60 years of happy, supportive
marriage."--N. Gregory Mankiw,Fortune "A rich autobiographical and
historical panorama."--William P. Kucewicz,Wall Street Journal
John Milton (1759-1805): English poet who wrote the great epic poem Paradise Lost in blank verse; he was a champion of love-centered marriage
注意 上文年代錯誤 應該是1608-1674 今年誕生 400周年
他的簡短傳記--三聯--和部分主要作品有翻譯
Wikipedia article "John Milton".
他是自學有成的
晚年目力大損
我們SIMON UNIVERSITY 曾討論過一轉引的2004/2005
謝謝瑞麟兄（RL）今天提起我很久以前問的
HC（4/5）：「這是 英文-法文-中文 回譯的問題，不知你是否有解？
「傳主米勒看到John Milton的「沉默聆聽時的心曠神怡。」深受感動。不過，羅曼‧羅蘭更正那是法國誤譯，原文應是「「沉默聆聽時是令人愉快的。」
我想請較英文的原文。」--羅曼‧羅蘭 《大地的畫家米勒》 冷杉 楊立新譯，山東畫報出版社，2004，p.96，注一」
RL(4/5)：「很遺憾無法根據函中提供的線索逆推出處或原文
「沉默聆聽」是很怪的中文語法」
RL (5/11/2004)：「下午閱讀環華百科出版社以諾貝爾文學編譯委員會為名所翻譯的《羅曼羅蘭作品選》，
在該書中的〈米勒傳〉裡（p.291）讀到近似的句子：
quote「……據我所知，最快樂的事情便是靜和沉默。」……
unquote注：原文出處仍無著落」
HC（4/5）：「這是 英文-法文-中文 回譯的問題，不知你是否有解？
「傳主米勒看到John Milton的「沉默聆聽時的心曠神怡。」深受感動。不過，羅曼‧羅蘭更正那是法國誤譯，原文應是「「沉默聆聽時是令人愉快的。」
我想請較英文的原文。」--羅曼‧羅蘭 《大地的畫家米勒》 冷杉 楊立新譯，山東畫報出版社，2004，p.96，注一」
RL(4/5)：「很遺憾無法根據函中提供的線索逆推出處或原文
「沉默聆聽」是很怪的中文語法」
RL (5/11/2004)：「下午閱讀環華百科出版社以諾貝爾文學編譯委員會為名所翻譯的《羅曼羅蘭作品選》，
在該書中的〈米勒傳〉裡（p.291）讀到近似的句子：
quote「……據我所知，最快樂的事情便是靜和沉默。」……
unquote注：原文出處仍無著落」
Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot
By Anna Beer
John Milton
Heavenly muse
Feb 28th 2008
From The Economist print edition
PEOPLE quail slightly at the thought of John Milton: the Latin, the theology, the school memories of “Paradise Lost”—there is something inhospitable about it all. A scholar himself, Milton seems to belong to scholars and teachers. Very little is known about his private life. There is a haunting sonnet to a dead wife, but he wrote nothing else about any of his three wives, two of whom died soon after giving birth, nor about his three daughters, nor even about his dead infant son. Anna Beer, in this fair-minded and scholarly biography, cannot disguise her frustration. Could he even have erased them from the record, she wonders, as “beneath his notice”? From The Economist print edition
Milton, who was born 400 years ago this year, saw himself as a man set apart. Born into an upwardly mobile family, Cambridge educated, trained to dispute in Latin, he seemed cut out for academia, the church or the law. Instead, he saved himself for poetry, with a reading programme and an eye on immortality. He wanted to be the national voice of England, no less. But it wasn't until he was blind and in his 50s that he embarked on “Paradise Lost”, his great epic about the fall of man, about good and evil, reason, free will and authority, which would indeed immortalise him.
What happened in between was England's own fall—its descent, in the 1640s, into civil war and a kind of politics driven by just those philosophical and moral questions. This is the heart of Ms Beer's book, the aspect that brings the reader closest to the man. The bitter dispute between king and parliament about the nature of good government exploded in a storm of ephemeral pamphlets furiously arguing and counter-arguing.
With the fate of the nation at stake, this was Milton's moment. He piled in with pamphlets of his own; tracts expressed in a vivid, word-coining, muscular English, at times high-flown, at others colloquial, sometimes downright rude, but always engaged. What fires him is the whole principle of debate, the battle of wits: “Who ever knew Truth put to the worse”, he wrote, “in a free and open encounter.”
“Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind,” Milton once wrote. It expresses the principle behind his attacks on all the intellectual oppressions of his day, on church dogma, on censorship and monarchical absolutism. And it led, ultimately, to his pamphlet in support of the regicides. Milton was no saintly liberal. His divorce tracts, written when his first wife temporarily left him, are tainted by self-regarding sophistry. He wasn't above working as official censor to the Commonwealth and he failed to question the standard misogyny of the day. Ms Beer makes no apology for him—though she does her best to soften the charge of misogyny in his treatment of Eve in “Paradise Lost”.
Ms Beer roots Milton in his period very well, both historically and physically—in the streets of booksellers and printing presses around St Paul's cathedral in London, near where he lived. But with the restoration of King Charles II, he did become a lonely figure: refusing to flee, suffering arrest and imprisonment, and continuing to tackle the grand questions of life and destiny. Despite her frustrations, Ms Beer clearly admires him, and one can't help doing so too.
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