The trick with Milton Friedman is to find the one ludicrous assumption his whole analysis hangs on.
EDIT: multi-century. Yes, governments sometimes do stupid things (on shorter timescales), but it’s also a great opportunity for each new government/generation to pin the folly on the old, and do better.
If you're at disbelief at that, wait until you take a look as the US national debt
It is often argued that the gulag in the USSR was never a net gain economically. You could conclude one of two things from that:
1. The Soviets were dumb or
2. The Soviets had other reasons for maintaining an expansive network of prisons
I would go with 2 and I'd also argue that the colonial powers had other reasons for maintaining colonies.
How is that remotely comparable? The main purpose of the gulag system is plain enough: punishment, control, and only secondarily, slave/forced labour for economic gain.
The colonial system is precisely the opposite: the main purpose is to extract value, through extraction, trade, industry, etc, from the colonies to the mainland.
> The colonial system is precisely the opposite: the main purpose is to extract value, through extraction, trade, industry, etc, from the colonies to the mainland.
That's your opinion; I don't think it's true. I think the point of colonialism is an attempt to guarantee the nation state's survival. Churchill:
> We shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
I don't pretend to know whether or not colonies were a net-benefit economically. But, either way, I don't think economic arguments provided the fundamental justification for colonialism. I think the colony exists for the same reason the family, the polis, the nation state, and the empire exist, which is a desire for immortality or, if you prefer, an attempt to prevent the achievements of men from being obliterated by time.
From a perspective shaped by a strong commitment to an ideology and also by the Soviet Union being, in 1977, still a going concern, I can see how someone could err in this way. But that's no reason why we still need to take it seriously, four decades on.