Mart Laar blog

MILTON FRIEDMAN’S LEGACY: WHAT IS IT AND WHERE DOES IT STAND TODAY?

Milton Friedman’s legacy in the modern World is best proof, that ideas really do matter. It is hard to imagine today’s World without ideas of Friedman. I have actually seen such kind of World, I lived in it nearly half of the life. This was Soviet Union, build on the ideas of Karl Marx, Lenin and Stalin. There was no place for concepts of freedom, free choice, citizens initiative and human dignity. This was a World of state control, orders and violence. Human beings did not have any value there.

In this World I heard first time the name of Milton Friedman. There was no possiblity to read his works, but noticing how much communist rulers hated this man, it became clear to me, that he must be a remarkable man. When I got access to books of Milton Friedman for the first time, I understood, that communists were actually right – Milton Friedman was a really dangerous man for them. Ideas of liberty and free market are the most powerful weapons in the fight against different kind of dictatorships and their legacy. It is important not only to win political fight against dictatorships. Even bigger challenge is to brake free and to move away from state control, support free initiative and free choice of people. This is the only way that countries can build up prosperous societies and develop human happiness. I have used the Friedmans ideas of free trade and flat rate tax in my home-country, Estonia. These have allowed us to become the most successful transition country in post-communist World. Estonia is a living proof that the ideas of Friedman really work. Less then fifty years ago there were not many people in the World who talked about free markets, competition and sound monetary policy. Milton Friedman was a man who was nearly alone keeping the idea of free markets alive. Now, when his ideas had been tested and proved that they really work and bring success it is easy to say that Friedman was right and Marx was wrong. Fifty years ago it was not so evident.

To represent the idea of freedom was for Friedman often thankless case. Unfortunately it still is. Too many countries in the World are trying to ignore the ideas of liberty. They know that the lessons of Marx allow them more easily to control and rule their people. Ideas of Friedman make people free – that is the reason why they are not liked among countries with big government or even worse, authoritarian regimes. According to them it might endanger both well-being and human happiness of people in such countries. The best what we can do in modern World is to keep the heritage of Milton Friedman alive and not to stop, develop the cause of freedom everywhere, in the West and in the East. Because all people deserve to be free.

WHO IS AFRAID OF FLAT TAX?

I have never understood why the free World is still so much following the ideas of Karl Marx, which means that there are surprisingly lot of remnants of Marxism in the Western realities. One of them is progressive taxation. In their “Communist Manifesto”, first published in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels demanded “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax”. For the founders of Marxism progressive taxation was so important that in their demands it was listed as second in importance only after the “abolition of property in land”. When the destructive nature of the first demands is largely recognized, then the nest main pillar of Marxist thinking is used in most Western countries. In long run the results of this can be very destructive too. Taking from human being one of the most valuable abilities: to make its own decisions, use its talents, to be creative and innovative, their human dignity is strongly endangered.  

In 1994 I introduced flat rate tax in Estonia, finishing so at least in this area with communist thinking. The flat tax became a huge success and is followed by many other countries. There is a active discussion going on in United States, Great Britain, Danmark, Finland to do the same thing. Unfortunately too many politicians are afraid of such radical step. They say, that – yes, it works well in these countries, but not in mine. This is not so. Freedom works everywhere, we just must let it in.

Georgia is a country in Caucasus which is bravely trying to build democracy and market economy in the neighbourhood of big Russia.

I am now in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. I just finished the premier of Georgian-Russian movie, which probably will never be launched in Russia. This is a very touching movie about war and terror in Tchetshenia – about how the state terror can turn people become terrorist. The name of the movie is “Russian triangle” and I predict to this movie big success in international arena – unfortunately not in Russia.

Lot of friends have asked me to launch my blog, which can be used as forum for discussions on flat tax, economic reforms and liberty. I have been to laizy for this. But now the time has arrived. I open my blog and hope that it will be actively used.