Milton Friedman Passes At 94

The Nobel Prize winner's energy and ideas on free-market economic thinking and individual freedom and responsibility were inspiring..

SAN FRANCISCO - Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three U.S. presidents, died Thursday at age 94.

Friedman died in San Francisco, said Robert Fanger, a spokesman for the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in Indianapolis. He did not know the cause of death.

"Milton's passion for freedom and liberty has influenced more lives than he ever could possibly know," said Gordon St. Angelo, the foundation's president and CEO, in a statement. "His writings and ideas have transformed the minds of U.S. presidents, world leaders, entrepreneurs and freshmen economic majors alike."

In more than a dozen books, a column in Newsweek magazine and a TV show on PBS, Friedman championed individual freedom in economics and politics. The longtime University of Chicago professor pioneered a school of thought that became known as the Chicago school of economics.

I found this Tunku Varadarajan interview with Milton and Rose Friedman, from only about 4 months ago, quite interesting.  The two agreed on a lot; they disagreed on the Iraq war, despite the stated goal of increasing freedom.

Mr. Friedman here shifted focus. "What's really killed the Republican Party isn't spending, it's Iraq. As it happens, I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression." Mrs. Friedman--listening to her husband with an ear cocked--was now muttering darkly.

Milton: "Huh? What?" Rose: "This was not aggression!" Milton (exasperatedly): "It was aggression. Of course it was!" Rose: "You count it as aggression if it's against the people, not against the monster who's ruling them. We don't agree. This is the first thing to come along in our lives, of the deep things, that we don't agree on. We have disagreed on little things, obviously--such as, I don't want to go out to dinner, he wants to go out--but big issues, this is the first one!" Milton: "But, having said that, once we went in to Iraq, it seems to me very important that we make a success of it." Rose: "And we will!"

Mrs. Friedman, you will note, had the last word.

11/16/06 1715: Here's another interview, by John Hawkins of Right Wing News. (ht: Wizbang).

11/17/06 0930: More Milton Friedman links.

The Wall Street Journal: First, he had shown that men are no fools. People spend money in accordance with their income expectations over the long-term, not in response to one-time “stimuli” from the government. This is known as the “permanent income” hypothesis, and it called into question Keynesian notions of how short-term stimulus affects the economy. In addition to his monetary insights, Mr. Friedman questioned the degree to which fiscal policy could be used to “fine-tune” the economy by adjusting spending, tax or monetary policy. Today we take for granted that all of these operate with a lag, but it was Milton Friedman who first highlighted the problem.

Via Marginal Revolution, the quote that opens Mr. Friedman's book Capitalism and Freedom: "President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."... Neither half of that statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society."