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March 22, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
09:08
Free Market Economists: Should They Join the Free Market?
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All right.
Hi again.
Are you familiar with Milton Friedman's economic philosophies?
I do not think he was a fan of tariffs.
I know that Trump is using them as a negotiation tool, but is he impinging on the free market?
I did not and do not have much respect for free market academics.
I just don't.
In fact, I really don't.
But let me double check.
I'm pretty sure he was an academic.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Nobel laureate, American economist.
Yes, but in what way?
Academic employment.
Right. Oh, unable to find academic employment.
What happened here?
Oh, I began employment with the National Bureau of Economic Research.
I'm pretty sure American...
Oh, private nonprofit research organization.
Okay, so that's, you know, I want to be fair about that.
Oh, yeah.
Assistant professor teaching economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But then he returned to government service.
Right. So government service, academic career.
And he joined the Division of War Research at Columbia University.
Oh, my God.
He worked as a mathematical statistician focusing on problems of weapon design, military tactics, and metallurgical experiments.
Oh, yes.
University of Chicago.
Right. Right.
So, let me tell you.
Let me tell you.
And I'm going to be insane about this.
I have a personal stake in this.
Which I won't go into.
Said fellow will remain nameless.
But I have a personal stake.
So, to all of the academic free market philosophers, quick fucking question.
Just a little question.
You say that government monopolies are bad, and then you take a government monopoly position based upon your credentials.
Because you have to have the stamp of approval from the government through a PhD.
In order to be able to teach or a master's or whatever, right?
So if government's corrupt and the free market is efficient and moral, why the fuck don't you spend more time in the free market?
One of the things that's been quite beneficial to me is, with the exception of one summer as a temp when I worked for the Department of Education, I have not worked for the government.
Whole career's been in the free market.
I've actually co-founded and grown businesses.
I've sold businesses.
I've been an entrepreneur.
For over 30 years now, in the free market, and the real free market, right?
The free market like in software, which is very unregulated relative to other professions, and the free market, the absolute Wild West of alternative media.
Close to 20 years ago, I put out a call to free market academics, and I said, look, guys, you can leave the giant status titty junction called academia, Sucking off the effluvian blood-soaked titty milk of the taxpayers and you can join me in the free market.
And I said, listen, I will give you free consultation.
I will give you my business experience.
I built a fairly successful podcast 15 years ago and I was doing all right.
I built a pretty successful podcast.
I know how to run these things.
I know what you can do.
Call me.
You can leave government employee and you can join the free market that you spent your entire fucking life praising.
Shouldn't you do that?
Now, finally.
There is a venue by which you can get your ideas out to a lot of people.
I mean, in my height, man, I was doing 10 to 15 million views and downloads a month.
I've had a million books downloaded a year.
That's a little bit better than teaching 20 people at a graduate level.
You can spread the free market while being in the free market.
You can join me in the free market that you love so much, and you can just leave the government behind.
Now, the reason why this is important is basic fucking integrity, number one, and number two, you won't be a rank stinking hypocrite, which I find the most repulsive thing of all, personally.
It makes my skin crawl, and I'll tell you why.
So, if you're a free market economist, you're going out into the world and you're saying, you know, we should take away all of these unjust benefits.
All of this rent-seeking, all of this monopoly privilege, all of this government-protected stuff, we're going to take that away from people.
And we're going to educate people to the point where they'll accept it being taken away from.
So we are going to take away all of these unjust privileges that people get from being yoked up to this sword-wielding Vishnu god of blue rinsed death known as the state.
Because, you know, it's really bad.
It's really wrong.
Bad, bad, bad, and wrong.
That people take unjust benefits from the state.
Are we going to educate people so that they'll understand the rightness and the justice of giving up or taking away unjust benefits from the state?
You see where I'm going here, right?
you.
Now, If you think that it's wrong to have rent-seeking, monopoly privilege, and get unjust benefits from the state, how about you give up your state-protected academic positions, your $150,000 plus a year for three days' work,
two days' work, months and months off over the course of the summer.
Every couple of years, you get a sabbatical where you get to go to cool places, all paid for, get you your little fucking office hours.
You barely work.
You get paid massive amounts of money.
Oh, and you can't be fired because of tenure.
All of these are government monopoly privileges.
So the free market academics are saying, hey, man, you got to give up your unjust academic privileges.
And then I say, hey, guys, you won't even have to give up your income because you can come and make money as a podcaster, but here's your opportunity to join the free market you've praised.
Lo, these many fucking years.
Now, and I said, listen, I will give you free Consultation.
Teaching you how to do it, what to do, so you don't have to make all the mistakes that I made.
You don't have to be the first kicking through the door.
You can just walk through the door second and brush off some of the splinters.
Now, of all of the academics, and Lord knows there were at least 100 or 200 that I knew of who listened to me, of all of the academics who spent their entire fucking careers praising and lauding not just the efficiency but the virtue and morality of the free market,
Deigned to step off their blood-soaked academic titty motes.
State his power and join me in the virtue and value of the free market.
They pray so much.
Even when I offered them free transitional consultation on how to do it.
So you see, free market academics say, all these other people, they have to give up all of these unjust privileges.
You know, that's so wrong!
Okay, well, you guys, give up your own.
Lead the way!
Stop telling other people they have to give up unjust academic privileges, and you give up your unjust statist privileges.
Sorry, not that all people have to give up their academic privileges, but all people should give up their rent-seeking monopoly privileges and tariffs.
So it's pretty fucking funny to me that free market economists talk about how bad tariffs are.
Okay, so you see the government preventing people from competing you by raising the barrier to entry is really bad.
So can I come and just take your job then?
Oh, no, you can't, because you have to jump through all of these government hoops and get all of these credentials, and then you have to join this union.
So you understand, tariffs are just a barrier to entry to compete, right?
So free market academics have massive barriers to entry to compete, caused by the government, protected by the government, sustained by the government, in fucking forced.
you Thank you.
It's repulsive.
Honestly, it's repulsive.
It's stomach-turning.
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