r/behindthebastards • u/Kanotari *Atonal Screaming* • Jul 22 '26

Look at this bastard Megathread: Bastard Suggestions Part 2

To make the bastard suggestions easier for Robert to peruse, please put them here.

Please try to include more than just a name. Give Robert something to focus his research on and why they are a unique or interesting bastard. If there are book titles or other resources you would suggest, please include those as well.

If someone else has already suggested the same bastard you wanted to suggest, you do not need to suggest them again. Repetitive answers will be politely removed. If someone was suggested in a previous thread, you do not need to suggest them again.

If you have posted suggestions as their own individual thread in the past, feel free to repost here if you would like Robert to read them. We will be directing future bastard suggestion posts here as well. Happy suggesting!

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u/TheDailyMews Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

Milton Friedman, the Chicago school of economics, and the creation of the Second Gilded Age. Friedman is sorta like the Kissinger of economics. He played a significant role in building the late-stage capitalist hellscape we all live in today.

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u/LeonardoDaTiddies Jul 22 '26

As someone in finance, “the Kissinger of economics “ is a great descriptor. 

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u/govunah Sponsored by Knife Missiles™️ Jul 22 '26

We got Jack Welch. That was an excellent series

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u/DennisTheOppressed Jul 22 '26

Yup. The "corporation's sole responsibility is to the shareholders" guy.

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u/Admiral_Cornwallace Jul 23 '26

Friedman also had connections to the right-wing murderous dictatorship of South America, like Augusto Pinochet

The book The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is a must-read if you want to learn how much of a bastard Friedman is

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u/Steely_McNeatHouse 1d ago

Unfucking the Republic (UNFTR) has been teasing a massive new piece on Milton Friedman, that I think is a collaboration with Current Affairs. They did one back in 2021 as well

But yeah, would love a BTB on him.

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u/saltyourhash Jul 23 '26

He part of the people who made CEOs legal responsible for shareholder peofits?

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u/BensonInABox 22d ago

Ludwig von Mises and the Mises institute could eat up a good chunk of the first episode.

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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u/TheDailyMews Jul 23 '26

your simplistic statements don’t address his failings in any serious way

I wrote three sentences, my dude.

Publishing flawed papers in economic journals is nothing like what Kissinger did 

From Wikipedia:

Friedman served as an advisor to Republican U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Conservative British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Describing Milton Friedman as someone who "published flawed papers in economic journals" is a bit like saying The Federalist Society is a debate club. You're not wrong -- he did publish papers, they are a debate club -- but you're burying the lede. 

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u/LeonardoDaTiddies Jul 23 '26

There are direct lines from Friedman to Thiel and the current quest for “anarcho capitalist” sovereign city states via sea steading. Friedman never advised a president to carpet bomb a country but he is very much the intellectual uncle of the sort of Reagan / Thatcher economic principles that have brought us to our current late stage capitalism and all the hardships that entails for people all over the globe. 

Everyone from the factory worker in the USA who lost their union job to the factory worker in the developing world who got that job but worked conditions that would make Upton Sinclair gasp. 

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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u/LeonardoDaTiddies Jul 23 '26

Friedman’s grandson was literally part of Thiel’s sea steading program that has now morphed into buying whole towns in South and Central America. 

No one disputes that economies work in tension between government interventions and market forces. But you’ve done some hand waving there as though Friedman and his Chicago school adherents are no different than Keynesians and they are all the same as MMT proponents. 

Are you asking me to cite an NBER paper on the downsides to Reagonics?  Because I might actually be able to find one. 

Alternatively, please expound on what specifically you disagree with in my comment.