To offer a contrast to Chris' expansive post, I will once again attempt magic by tying way too many topics together in one cohesive tract. . . Ready. . . Set. . . GO!

This past week I had to read two extremely different yet influential books stemming from Chicago authors. The Jungle, the socialist mantra of Upton Sinclair, paints a bleak image of near slavery at the hands of capitalism. Milton Friedman, however, declares that capitalism and democratic freedom are necessary complements. The question that I was constantly troubled with while reading Friedman is whether one can truly be considered free if struggling merely to survive in the presence of pure capitalism. The Jungle highlights situations in which individuals are faced with a dearth of choices due to their financial dependence on a single job, in a single location and to a single system. Dissent, morality and illness all lead to the suffering of families. Although many may claim that current conditions are nowhere near as bad, there are still those individuals tied to their jobs, hometown etc, in order to merely survive. If there are many individuals struggling to survive, as seen in the Jungle, one would wonder whether a social welfare system's constraints on economic freedom might be offset by the freedom gained through the freedom to focus on issues beyond mere subsistance. Although Friedman's dependance on equality of opportunity could theoretically offer the potential for freedom, many individuals seem to be left so far behind that almost all free options are revoked.

Friedman's defense of inheritance in particular seems to create hypocrisy with his liberal dependence on equality of opportunity. In our current system, the ability to pass on inheritance directly limits the equality of opportunity. Few individuals attending CMC would contest that they had equal opportunities to the children of migrant farm workers. As wealth aggregates from generation to generation (wealth breeds wealth/access to capital; lower reproduction levels among the wealthy) opportunity diverges as well. The problem with Friedman's argument is that freedom of opportunity and freedom of rights are not synonymous. (195) Currently, capital holdings of one's parents play a great role in opportunity. Friedman, however, argues that the government should merely guarantee the same rights among individuals. Such a system promotes the wage dependence which limits freedom within capitalism, which Friedman seems to ignore.

In his second to last chapter, Friedman does recognize that poverty is something which should be alleviated by the society as a whole. However, two omissions are of particular note in this chapter. First, Friedman fails to note that freedom of the impoverished is actually hampered due to their state of poverty, as discussed above. Instead, poverty alleviation is desired because "I (Friedman) am distressed by the sight of poverty." The second omission is related; Friedman argues that he will not attempt to set a level for the required support. The level of such support would differ greatly if one were to follow Friedman's reasons than if one were to attempt to ensure freedom by the impoverished. If one is merely trying to reduce visible poverty, poverty alleviation programs would be set at a much lower level than if one attempted to provide true freedom of information, mobility and self-determination required for proper participation in capitalism and democracy.