Idea Channel: Free To Choose (1979) 'Milton Friedman: The Power of Choice'

Source:Idea Channel- Professor Milton Friedman, from part of his 1979 documentary, Free To Choose.

"An excerpt from the biography of Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman." 

From the Idea Channel

The power of choice: what does that mean exactly and I'm being serious at least for a second? Well, if you look at that phrase, the answer is in that phrase: choice is the freedom to choose, the Freedom for people to choose for themselves how to live their own lives. Put all the options on the table and let people decide for themselves what's best for them and their families. 

Freedom to choose is anti-monopoly (public and private) but its pro-unlimited, open free and fair competition. Don't let anyone control too much of the market and prevent and punish unfair abuses in the system. This is a concept that not only real Libertarians (not Anarchists) believe in, even though they may of invented the phrase, but something that Liberals and Conservatives believe in as well and I'm not talking about Democratic Socialists or Christian-Fundamentalists,  but the real things. 

The freedom for people to live their own lives as they see fit as long as they are not hurting any innocent person with their freedom to live their lives. At risk of sounding partisan: a concept thats not popular with Socialists and other authoritarians. Their faith in people is lacking to put it mildly, especially compared with these other political factions. They essentially believe at least in some cases that people can't be trusted with freedom to live their own lives and that they essentially need to be taken care of by the central government, with a vast welfare state and in authoritarians case restrictions on how people can live their own lives. Even if they aren't hurting people with what they are doing. 

I recently got in a debate online with a Socialist on health care reform and this person was obviously in favor single payer health insurance. And I support a system of unlimited free and open competition thats regulated properly. And this person asked me what type of health insurance system I'm in favor of. And I said which I am and if you read this blog on a regular basis, you know that I'm in favor of a health insurance system that has freedom of choice for the patients to decide for themselves where they get their health insurance and health care. And that there could even be public health insurance as well as health care in this system. But the people would decide for themselves where they get their health insurance and health care. 

I basically laid out the French health care system in this discussion which is the main difference between a system like this and a single payer health care system. The person I debated literally did not understand the concept of freedom of choice and I explained it to them, but I did it in a humorous way, saying think about freedom of choice the freedom to choose, the answer is literally in those two phrases. 

One problem that I believe Socialists have with this phrase, is how simple it is. That they are used to complex things and policies, where people who are more in favor of individual freedom. Understand this phrase very well because its something they've always believed in.