But as to the assertion, completely unsupported, of course, that Friedman has done nothing but re-distribute wealth from the poor to the rich, I offer the economic 'miracles' of China and India, both of whom adopted Friedman's Chicago Scool economic theories, at least in the economic sphere - i.e. the re-introduction of individual freedom and property. That this, over the past 20 to 30 years, has delivered hundreds of millions of people from utter poverty was probably a selfish act on Freidman's part. I'm sure that he perceived it to be in his 'self-interest' to see freedom spread around the world. Of course, it would hardly bring him a requisite financial gain. When he was invited to visit the leader of the re-formed China to receive their thanks, he told them him that the economic miracle would be unsustainable without an accompanying social freedom. That too, I suppose, was an act of greed - to believe that social freedom is just as desirable a value as economic freedom.

Back to greed.

People often use the term 'greed' to refer to any activity where a person pursues his/her self-interest. That is not the meaning of the term. The term really is used to refer to the desire to acquire wealth or possessions beyond the needs of the individual. Of course, this meaning was given to the term prior to our modern understanding of economics. It arose at a time in our history when societies were mostly run from the top down, and where the politically powerful drew as much wealth and power to themselves as a governing class as possible. It dismissed, as of no consequence, the concept of created wealth. It assumed that all wealth just fell from the trees like mana, and some monkey who collected all of the fruit would earn the approbrium of all the other monkies for hoarding that which was, in effect, found wealth. In modern societies wealth has to be created, not found. For instance, you don't 'find' oil, you discover it and develop it at enormous cost. And, of course, you do it as an act of self-interest. To use the term 'greed' to cover such an instance is to abandon the original meaning of the term - or at least severely bend it. The original meaning did not extend to the rewards of a man's labor - the term for that was wages, and when the business got bigger - profit. Profit, of course, is a much more neutral term. Profit is the increase in wealth that an investor has from making an investment. Of course, not all investments are profitable, in fact, most aren't. Fortunately there is not as much approbrium for hoarding losses.

However, I find it interesting that when we use the term greed to refer to non-material values, that the moral meaning of the term reverses and it becomes a virtue, for example in a person who has a 'greed for knowledge', or a 'greed for justice', it then comes to mean that they really want it passionately. I believe that the reason for that is that everyone sees that the knowledge wasn't taken from someone else, nor was the justice, but because they see transactions occur with material goods, they seem to think that someone loses the excahge and that person had advantage taken of him. That is not the case. He exchanged his goods because he perceived what he was getting had a higher value than that which he gave up. Both parties act selfishly in every economic exchange. Often, part of the value received is not material, as in the pleasure we receive from being able to listen to a piece of music we admire at our leisure - which we can accomplish simply by buying a cd. But we wouldn't buy the cd if we didn't value the music, or the pleasure, more. I'm sure the artist doesn't mind parting with the cd for the pleasure of your money.

That in economics the selfish pursuit of values is the fountainhead of all human progress is not at all surprising. Should we pursue that which we do not value, or that is not of value? Should we pursue values half-heartedly? Should we go into business, but only if we agree to do it badly? Should we act to trade higher values for lower ones? Should we take whatever wealth we have and squander it in the pursuit of the trivial? That would truly be selfless.

So, if Freidman recommended that people not pursue their self-interest - their greed, if you will, that this would be a boon to the world? Of course, if people exchanged things of value for things of lesser value, and that we all did it this in every transaction what do you imagine the result would be? That we would all eventually have nothing? That would be the triumph of selflessness. And that is precisely what countries achieve that try to practice that moral code. And oddly enough, that is also what we achieve as individuals, if we practice it.

Marc, I appreciate your book recommendation, but your comment doesn't directly address the contents of any of the three videos you posted it in response to. Furthermore, the fact that you posted the same comment to three different videos leads me to believe that you didn't watch any of them. In my eyes this has a very negative affect on your credibility, and going on this alone I probably won't read the book that you mentioned. However, if you were to summarize the arguments in the book and show how they relate to the video(s) at hand, I would probably be more receptive to your recommendation.

As for people who want to know what Friedman is really about, I would argue that a very convenient option would be to watch the videos that BTM has posted here. Also, there is the option of reading one of his books, such as "Capitalism and Freedom" or "Freedom to Choose." In my opinion both of these options are much more effective than reading someone else's interpretations of Friedman's ideas and motivations.