Contrary to popular opinion, economics is not the study of money; it’s the study of human behavior. The best economists strive to answer philosophical questions, solve human quandaries. It is a philosophical science. The best economists know how to impact markets as well as the hearts and minds of people. To this end, we lost the most influential economist of the 20th century: Milton Friedman.
On Nov. 16, Friedman died. He was 94 years old.
Friedman was born in 1912 in New York City. He attended Rutgers University and then the University of Chicago, where he received his Masters degree. Early in his career, Friedman worked for the federal government. This was during the Great Depression and he oversaw many “New Deal” policies, in keeping with the Keynesian economic model of the Roosevelt era. He would later expose Keynesian interventionist economic policies as counterproductive, apologizing for his role in instituting them. Eventually, he became a columnist, author, TV personality, and lecturer.
Ultimately, people will remember Friedman as a champion of liberty. That sounds trite, I’m sure, like saying people will remember someone as a champion of puppies, or rainbows, or ice cream. But it’s impossible to properly discuss Friedman without expressing his tireless advocacy of libertarian causes. With the exception of Friedrich Hayek, Friedman did more to advance libertarian philosophy than anyone else in the 20th century – more than novelist Ayn Rand and her inner circle, or fellow economist Murray Rothbard, or the libertarian Party as a whole.
And this is all for good reason.
The prevailing opinion is that Ayn Rand was an abominable writer. To this I can attest. Her symbolic touches were muddled, her characterizations flat. Her descriptive passages bring to mind a teenager with a propensity for quasi poetic, yet ultimately lackluster rhetorical flourishes: Murray Rothbard, a proponent of the more radical Austrian school of economics, perpetuated a petty, one-sided rivalry with Friedman.
Critics such as Rothbard could never get over the fact that as a struggling economist Friedman helped enumerate many policies diametrical to free market libertarianism. During the 1940s, for example, Friedman hoisted upon the American public the withholding tax, which is about as counter-libertarian as you can get. But libertarians, and I count myself as one, too often engage in pointless pissing contests. Like hipsters trying to out outdo each other with knowledge of some long-forgotten band, libertarians try to out outdo each other with idealistic-yet-contrarian viewpoints, resulting in fringe libertarian offshoots like anarcho-capitalism. Rothbard deserves his share of accolades (he was an anti-Rand libertarian far before that was cool), but he’ll never reach Friedman’s level of reverence. The reason is quite simple: Friedman made economics accessible. His scope of knowledge, coupled with his down-to-earth portrayal of this knowledge, made him America’s most articulate and respected economist. He was also one hell of a polemicist.
His early dalliances with Keynesian economics aside, Friedman was a staunch opponent of government intervention. His views solidified over time, coalescing into one unmovable tenet: choice. In the 1970s, as an adviser to President Nixon, he argued against forced conscription, helping to abolish the military draft. Later, he positioned himself against most vice laws, including those against prostitution. He supported school vouchers and rationally argued against the power of the National Education Association: “In education, we subsidize the producer – the school. If you subsidize the student instead – the consumer – you will have competition. The student could choose the school he attends and that would force schools to improve and to meet the demands of their students.” In 2005, he called for a discussion on the economic benefits of marijuana decriminalization, legislation for which he had long advocated. His multipart 1980 PBS documentary (and later a best selling book) “Free to Choose,” on which he worked with his most beloved colleague and life long partner, his wife Rose Friedman, has influenced multitudes, ranging from political humorist P.J. O’Rourke to California’s Teutonic governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the documentary and book, Friedman expresses his distaste for excessive taxation and regulation, arguing that no one can spend other people’s money as efficiently, as productively as they spend their own.
Friedman belonged to the Republican Party, but he considered himself a libertarian. The party affiliation was, in his words, a form of expediency. I wonder whether we saw the passing of the last great, influential libertarian Republican. To quote Friedman once again, “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” Amen.
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