marshall wrote:
The "Austrian school" is the ideological one. The Chicago school is the more pragmatic one. Milton Friedman actually supported the ultimate sin of outright wealth redistribution to the poor. He did it through a simplified "negative income tax" formula. There's no way any Austrian economist would accept that.
Friedman was the ultimate pragmatist on that one. He reasoned thus: if we are going to have redistribution, for pity's sake, let us do it as efficiently and as inexpensively as possible. The negative income tax is the best way of implementing a bad policy. Two cheers for Friedman on that one.
The negative income tax would eliminate an entire layer of burocracy from our government and put some money in the hands of the poor, many of whom would use it to buy booze or non-nutritious edibles.
ruveyn
24 Feb 2011, 8:34 am
