Milton Friedman’s Laissez-Libre Spaghetti Frittata
”do corporate executives have responsibilities other than to make as much money for their shareholders as possible? And my answer to that is no they do not.” Responding in an interview in Chemtech, Feb. 1974
Ingredients:
Money
Immovable assumptions about human behavior directly derived from concepts written centuries ago by rich guys who wore wigs
Free markets*
800 tons of spaghetti, the cheapest you can find
300 tons of tomatoes, the cheapest you can find
300 bushels of onions, the cheapest you can find
900 basil plants, the cheapest you can find
200 tons of buffalo mozzarella. Cow milk, buffalo, camel, horse, whatever. Milk is milk.
Kraft Parmesan cheese
100 barrels of vegetable oil
100 tons of salt
*As defined by, well, basically me
Serves a free society. Fair and square.
Buy an Italian restaurant. Step over the homeless person sitting outside its front door and call social services to have him removed once you’re inside. Hire a Peruvian cook to heat up Chinese made noodles. Like we’ve always said, pasta is pasta, it doesn’t matter who prepares it, basically. Tell him to make some spaghetti. If he asks for a raise, fire him and hire a Pakistani, or better outsource to China. But wish good’ol Juan all the success he desires. We’re sure if he works hard, stays clean and such he’ll have a bright future. But not with us. Anyway. Eat your fill and more. Take home all you can. Sell any leftovers to a catering service or throw them away in the dumpster out back if that’s more cost effective, like Amazon does.
Remember to put up a notice on the entrance: Keynesians accepted, but with reticence. (Nah. They can come in, but only as waiters working for tips…)
The real recipe: see the disasters of private health care. Or:
Ingredients:
Yesterday’s spaghetti
Eggs
Whatever works that’s in the fridge or pantry: cheese, ham, breadcrumbs, etc.
Since no lunch is free, well, unless you’re senior management, where breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, coffee, drinks, brunches, Christmas gifts, transportation, art collections, housing, computers, cell-phones, subscription services, healthcare and pretty much everything else IS free – try a simple dish great for the 99 percent of us on a trickle-down budget. The day after you’ve made a spaghetti and made too much to finish, don’t just take it out of the fridge and plop in the microwave. Instead, place the cold spaghetti on a big enough cutting board and chop into three or four to shorten the noodles. Then measure an equal amount of egg and maybe a little milk in a mixing bowl and whip it up to mix, adding a bit of salt and anything else that comes to mind that makes sense, cheese often, an herb, lunchmeat – it depends on the pasta dish you’ll be converting into a frittata. Now take out a big enough pan, non-stick, and warm up the chopped spaghetti, then in goes the whipped eggs – enough to cover the spaghetti. On medium-low heat, let it go until you start to smell the toasting going on below or until the whole has firmed up into one solid dish, then flip using a plate or another pan and cook it on the other side a few minutes only on higher heat. That’s it. It’s a delicious dish and even if not exactly a free lunch, it’s pretty close.
Why and how wrong were Friedman’s theories, a simplified summary by Chomsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ntkmdF9Yk