Je ne résiste pas au plaisir de vous signaler cette remarquable interview de Milton Friedman, Prix Nobel d'économie 1976, sur le site de l'institut Hayek. Le talent de ce grand esprit est de savoir vulgariser en termes simples des notions plutôt complexes. Un cours "d'économie de haut vol pour les nuls" (anglophones, tout de même), en quelque sorte. Quelques extraits:
The important issue is not how much inequality there is but how much opportunity there is for individuals to get out of the bottom classes and into the top. If there is enough movement upward, people will accept the efficiency of the markets. If you have opportunity, there is a great tolerance for inequality.
A propos du modèle suédois (forte redistribution fiscale dans une économie très ouverte, libéralisée et compétitive) :
What works for Sweden wouldn't work for France or Germany or Italy. In a small state, you can reach outside for many of your activities. In a homogeneous culture, they are willing to pay higher taxes in order to achieve commonly held goals. But "common goals" are much harder to come by in larger, more heterogeneous populations.
The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can't do that. Politics exacerbates and magnifies differences.
Et à la question:"Avec l'acceptation croissante de l'économie de marché au niveau mondial, y a t il encore de la place pour de nouvelles théories économiques ? ", Friedman répond:
"Free markets" is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. But that isn't the fact. The fact is that, most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. (...) This reality ensures that the end of history will never come.
Lu-mi-neux.
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