The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
David Director Friedman Quotes
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| Birth: | 12th February, 1945 |
| Nationality: | American |
| Profession: | Author, Economist, Physicist, Scholar, Theorist |
About
David Friedman is the son of economists Rose and Milton Friedman. His son, Patri Friedman, has also written about anarcho-capitalism, particularly seasteading. David Friedman holds an A.B. in chemistry and physics from Harvard University (1965) and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago (1971), although he is most known for work in other fields. He is currently a professor of law at Santa Clara University, and a contributing editor for Liberty magazine. He is an atheist.
In his book The Machinery of Freedom (1973), Friedman sketched a form of anarcho-capitalism where all goods and services including law itself can be produced by the free market. This differs from the version proposed by Murray Rothbard, where a legal code would first be consented to by the parties involved in setting up the anarcho-capitalist society. Friedman advocates an incrementalist approach to achieve anarcho-capitalism by gradual privatization of areas that government is involved in, ultimately privatizing law and order itself. In the book, he states his opposition to violent anarcho-capitalist revolution.
He uses a consequentialist version of anarcho-capitalism. Friedman's version of individualist anarchism is not based on the assumption of inviolable natural rights but rather rests on a cost-benefit analysis of state versus no state. It is contrasted with the natural-rights approach as propounded most notably by Austrian School economist, libertarian theorist and anarcho-capitalist founder Murray Rothbard.
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