Who Was Milton Friedman?
“One of the reasons why I’m in favor of less government, is because when you have more government, industrialists take it over.” — Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was an American Nobel Laureate economist and public intellectual who did much of his work at the University of Chicago. He is best known as a scholar and advocate of the idea of the free market.
Friedman was instrumental in the elimination of the military draft in the United States, and formed a foundation with his wife to make high-quality education available to all children.
Vital stats:
- Born in 1912 in Brooklyn to recent Jewish Hungarian immigrants & merchants
- Earned BA from Rutgers, MA from University of Chicago, PhD from Columbia University
- Won the Nobel Prize “for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.”
- John Bates Clark Medal winner
Friedman’s work influenced policies of many countries, including:
Estonia
Estonian prime minister Mart Laar derived most of his economic reform plans from Friedman’s book Free to Choose. Laar’s reforms transformed Estonia from an impoverished Soviet Republic with 1000% inflation to a “Baltic Tiger”. Unemployment shifted from an astounding 35% to well below the European average. It is now termed a “high-income economy.” It is called one of the most competitive new EU countries.
Chile
During Chile’s economic crisis the mid-1970s, Friedman accepted an invitation to speak at a private foundation in Chile on open enterprise. When told Pinochet would not like that, he stated, “well, that’s too bad.” During a subsequent 45-minute meeting with Pinochet, he suggested economic liberalization, eliminating protectionist trade policies, and stabilization of inflation. Prior to these reforms, inflation was running at 150% and consumer goods, even food, were in short supply. Reforms, after fully in place, raised GDP by 7% annually and created a thriving middle class. Friedman believed that reforms helped soften Pinochet’s rule, leading to the transition to a democratic government in 1990.
Iceland
Friedman’s ideas lead to monetary and fiscal stabilization, privatization, tax rate reduction, among other things. This lead to Iceland’s move from 53rd to 9th on Economic Freedom of the World rankings.
China
In the late 1980s, Friedman met with communist party leaders on reforming their economic policies to more free market, free trade policies. Many cite these policies in China’s emergence as a strong economic power, and have lifted countless numbers out of dire poverty.
Other facts:
- Headed the committee that lead to the elimination of the draft.
- Ardently against monopolies, in particular government-subsidized or run monopolies.
- Advocated a negative income tax to replace the broken welfare system.
- Called for public discussion on the benefits of legalizing marijuana.
- Argued that economic freedoms and rights lead to greater general and political freedom in a society.
- Key to developing technology for anti-aircraft projectiles that prevented bombs from going off inadvertently.
- Two of his most famous contributions to statistics are sequential sampling and the Friedman Test.
.
Friedman, in his own words:
Source for facts: Wikipedia
Some facts on Estonia, Chile & China come from a the 2007 PBS documentary, The Power of Choice
