Milton Friedman Vs. The Tech Oligarchs: Reclaiming the System
When I was in university studying finance and economics, I became enthralled with the ideas of the great economist Milton Friedman. Professor Friedman had made quite a stir among the established elite and gave downtrodden lovers of liberty much needed hope during and after the bleak 1970’s. We were in the process of beginning our fourth recession in twelve years soon after the election of Ronald Reagan. Even the periods between recessions were characterized by close to double digit unemployment and inflation. Even those that had work, felt little job security and were exhausted by the treadmill of inflation causing their income to buy less and less every few months. Friedman was promoting his book: Free to Choose at that time.
The book was based on his PBS special and was a simplification of Friedman’s thoughts on economics and on liberty written in a manner anyone could understand. Friedman inspired both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who eventually, with Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, broke the back of the inflation/unemployment/recession cycle. This brought forward a golden period from 1982 to 2008 which saw a steady decline in inflation, low unemployment and only a couple of relatively minor recessions. We largely owe this period to the inspirational and courageous ideas of Milton Friedman and other Chicago and Austrian school economists.
I attended the University of Toronto’s MBA program. Most professors were influenced by, and some actually were trained at the University of Chicago and had a strong libertarian bent. More importantly, they were ruthless rationalists who required proof for almost any assertion. They introduced me to what I call the Friedman Doctrine of Corporate Activism. That doctrine was simply that the sole and only objective of a corporation was to maximize long-term shareholder wealth. The means of achieving this was to create desired products and service at a price that would be appealing to customers at an optimal profit. It was also important to behave ethically because unethical behavior eventually leads to collapse.
In fact, the proponents of the Friedman Doctrine who taught me even felt that a corporation had no business giving money to even the most non-controversial but deserving charities. The reasoning was surprisingly rational even though I initially pushed back against it. They felt, correctly in my current opinion, that corporate managers had no moral or property oriented right to distribute shareholders money to anyone. If CEO’s, directors or senior management wanted to support charities or political organizations, they were more than welcome to with their own money. Furthermore, shareholders could and even should spend their wealth, some of which came in the form of dividends and capital gains of the company out of their own pocket. Simply put, management has no right giving away money that is not theirs. The corporation belongs to the shareholders; not managers and certainly not the governments. I learned this later in my career as I went up the corporate ladder as I saw senior managers use millions of their shareholder’s cash to narcissistically self-aggrandize themselves by contributing to charities, who in term would lavish decadent parties and dinners where speakers would go on about how wonderful their corporate benefactors were.
In the cases where individuals own a majority of a company’s shares that are publicly traded, one might argue that if they have control, then they have that right. However, the Friedman Doctrine still holds because people like Jack Dorsey, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg have no ethical right to give away the money of minority shareholders. Minority Shareholders, one can argue, could complain and bring this up at shareholders meetings but that does not make it right. Furthermore, many shareholder meetings are highly scripted and controlled. I worked for a company that at an annual meeting, had an employee pretending to be a disinterested shareholder ask the CEO to explain how he did such an incredibly good job. The CEO proceeded to answer the question by reading aa seemingly predetermined answer.
Sure, shareholders can sell the shares if they want, and on some level should, but why should they? Zuckerberg and crew made billions by going public and being injected with cash by outside investors. They have a fiduciary responsibility which bluntly these plutocratic elitists ignore because they consider most of us worthless peasants. The tech lords are really overstepping by financing politically controversial entities like Black Lives Matter, Antifa supporters and others.
They are not acting in the best interests of their shareholders as these actions alienate many customers and hurt shareholders long term wealth. Only by engaging in immoral monopoly practices aided by corrupt government officials that they bought off did they enjoy these monopolies in the first place. One might argue that under the Friedman Doctrine, buying government officials is good business since it might make shareholders richer over the short and even medium term. However corrupt governments are eventually put out of power and revenge against those who aided the previous corrupt despots might be swift and vicious. Furthermore, it is immoral and economically harmful for companies to buy oligarchs to shield them from competition. Capitalism is most effective when its practitioners are virtuous. They are helping put Machiavellian sociopaths in power with their billions who in turn, preside over the economic, cultural, and economic decline of the majority of citizens while they live lifestyles that make the French nobility in the eighteenth century looks like underprivileged paupers.
We have seen from this GameStop fiasco (I will probably write a piece on this soon) that the little guy united with other little guys have more power than most believe. People who believe in liberty and true tolerance can hit back and hit back hard. Remember that for many media and tech firms WE are the product. These entities can only be successful if they have many millions join their platform. One doesn’t only join Facebook or Twitter; they induce your network to join and use the platform. If you want to see your college roommates’ children photos who lives in Norway, you can join platforms. The more of your friends join, the more guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey can charge for advertisers. Therefore, the opposite is also true. Individuals leaving Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. have a multiplier effect. If you want to strike back at your tech lords, simply leave the platform and encourage your friends to do the same. Join platforms that support free speech and do not game elections.
Franky, if you cannot forgo social media to protect your freedom and prosperity then you deserve neither. Freedom fighters have died in the millions so we can live free. The least you could do is stop retweeting the idiotic comments of celebrities. This is already happening. The recent purge by Twitter of conservatives, libertarians and Republicans will backfire. Less people on the platform means a drop in advertising revenues. The multiplier is being demonstrated here. I have noticed that Twitter is getting far less interesting now that the purge has eliminated most of the interesting politic discussion. There is little reason for half the population to be on Twitter. So now even people who were not purged are leaving.
This is a war. Hopefully, violence will be avoided because this is an economic struggle and it can be won ethically using capitalist principles. Publicly traded companies now that millions of small investors owning stock. They have every right to show up to annual shareholders meeting, quarterly conference calls and write emails demanding that corporations adhere to the Freidman Doctrine and stop acting as the agent of an authoritarian government. Yes, they will be outvoted by the controlling oligarchs but it will send a message. I have been to enough shareholder meetings to know that these guys hate when people push back and call them on their bullshit. It was actually fun to see these pseudo-masculine cucks squirm. Like most bullies, they exhibit cowardice when people stand up to them. An example of this cowardice is the fact that hedge funds are crying and moaning that they got killed on their shorts.
People also need to understand that every time they buy an Apple laptop or sign up for their streaming service, they are putting money in the pocket of a company that seeks to silence our voices. Do not empower narcissistic megalomaniacs like Tim Cook. You are also aiding the Communist Party of China, an organization of pure malevolence that is currently responsible for the destruction of the global economy and the death of over two million people. Tim Cook lectures us the doing the “right” thing while his partners in the CCP persecute religious minorities. Michael Bloomberg admits he is a supporter of China. Almost every fund manager has a Bloomberg terminal. Stop watching Bloomberg TV and if you are an ethical fund manager, get rid of your Bloomberg terminals. Also, call out managements of corporations you buy from when they use shareholder money to virtue signal, especially when they give millions to Marxist scammers like BLM.
Lobby your elected representatives to break up the tech monopolies using existing and new anti-trust laws. Force these feckless and cowardly politicians to advocate for free speech. Elect candidates who support liberty. Taxes can also be used. Push for new taxes that will choke these companies to the point of eliminating their political power. If socialists can use taxes and regulation to destroy companies and have been for over a century, so can Patriots. Stop using any Amazon products, especially after Jeff Bezos decided to destroy your free speech by stabbing Parler in the back.
The war for liberty won’t be won at the ballot box, in the legacy media, in the courtroom or on a battlefield. It will be won or lost in the real economy and it will take many of us becoming soldiers in this fight. If our ancestors could lay down their lives for freedom and prosperity, we can certainly cancel our streaming TV subscriptions. Frankly, if we are not willing to make these meager sacrifices, we deserve to be a society of poor serfs. If our ancestors could stand up to the likes of the violent tyrants of the past, we can certainly defeat the oleaginous plutocrats and their prostitute politicians.