Milton Friedman on Blogging

I’m reading Milton Friedman’s 1962 classic Capitalism and Freedom, which I find simultaneously timeless in its argument and incredibly dated in its specifics (in many cases because of policy changes owing at least partly to his influence), and came across this caveat to a discussion of the monopolistic nature of intellectual property protection:

But this is a casual judgment on a subject on which there has been much detailed study and on which much more is needed. Hence, it is deserving of little confidence.

This perfectly describes most blog posts.

UPDATE: A few chapters later:

The judgment that follows is a personal, though I hope not utterly uninformed, opinion, stated, for sake of brevity, more dogmatically than the nature of the evidence justifies.

That, along with the previous quotation, could implied appendages to any blog post, or, indeed, virtually any analysis anywhere.

FILED UNDER: Blogosphere, Economics and Business,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Interesting analysis 🙂

  2. RJN says:

    If anyone needed to put the “Friedman appendage” on every post or comment it is me.