What Nobel Prize Winning Jewish Economist wrote the following in a 1992 white paper?
When the incentives for productivity become negative due to capital welfare in excess of the economic growth rate, wealth is structurally centralized at the expense of others in the economy. The absolute level of net assets owned by the general population actually decreases so as to increase the net assets of the wealthy. This not only removes all incentives for production and entrepreneurial investment from the economy, but consumer demand collapses as credit is liquidated to pay for necessities. Depression ensues. It is under these circumstances that demands for socialist intervention in the economy via “public investment” take on an air of urgent legitimacy.
In such a desperate environment, Marx’s arguments in “Das Kapital” appear as rational and appealing as any made by Schumpeter, Laffer or even Adam Smith. It is therefore critical to understand to what extent socialist criticisms of capitalism are valid so we can credibly argue against their fallacies—particularly when they are promoted during obvious manifestations of capitalism’s flaws.
Answer: None.
Next question: When will this question appear on the economics graduate school admissions tests for the University of Chicago, Columbia, MIT, CalTech, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown and George Washington University?
Posted by Drifter on Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:00 | #
Milton Friedman is a big name in those circles.