"One thing that's missing but that will soon be developed is a reliable ecash," Milton Friedman 1999

at the close of the 20th century there

are many critical battles faced in

America entrepreneurs vs. courts

children vs. bureaucracies and teacher

unions taxpayers facing 40% plus tax

burdens given that all these vital and

quite difficult battles revolve around

freedom we asked dr. Friedman whether he

was optimistic or pessimistic as we

enter a new millennium you're asking a

very complicated question I think there

are two two reasons to be optimistic one

is that ideas have changed the rhetoric

50 years ago was very different from the

rhetoric now 50 years ago the rhetoric

was that everybody was a socialist all

intellectuals were socialist they all

believed that government was the answer

to every problem today nobody believes

in socialism if you listen to him

that's the rhetoric the reality is then

we are much less free now than we were

50 years ago government is bigger takes

a larger fraction of our income it

imposes more controls on us we are freer

in some dimensions there's been great

social progress in tolerance of

minorities our racial problem has been

much improved not not through government

but but through private activity

nonetheless that rhetoric will has is

having its effect there has been a

reduction in government price and wage

regulation the kind of thing the

deregulation of Airlines the

deregulation of communication but what

we have tended to do is to replace that

by social regulation aid to disability

the OSHA oh we see that kind of

environmental thing that kind of thing

so the question is will the rhetoric

will the change in intellectual ideas

carry through and produce a change in

actual policy I think there is a

tendency for that that's one source of

optimism but I think I'm much more

reliable source of optimism is the

growth of the internet in your area the

major factor the major effect of the

internet will be to make it harder for

government to collect taxes governments

can collect taxes best on things that

don't move land is an ideal basis of

Taxation because you can't take it away

individual states cannot go as far in

taxing into personal income as the

federal government can because people

can move from one state to the other

more real more easily than they move

across countries the internet is going

to make it very difficult to collect

taxes on services of all kinds after all

you can complete these transactions in

cyberspace not on the ground you can you

can computer companies now are getting

their programming done in India I doubt

that anybody's paying any taxes on any

of that so that I think that the

internet is going to be one of the major

forces for reducing the role of

government the one thing that's missing

but that will soon be developed is a

reliable ecash the method we're buying

on the Internet you can transfer funds

from A to B without a knowing B or B

knowing a the way in which I can take a

$20 bill and hand it over to you then

there's no record of where it came from

and you you may get that without knowing

who I am and that kind of thing will

develop on the internet and that will

make it even easier for people to use

the Internet of course it has its

negative side it means that the

gangsters the people who are engaged in

illegal transactions will also have a

easier way to carry on their business

but I think that the tendency to make it

harder to collect taxes will be a very

important positive effect of the

Internet