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There is no Milton Friedman today. There is unlikely to be another Milton Friedman tomorrow. And that is OK. Indeed, it is a product of the progress Friedman and others have made to advance the cause of limited government and free exchange.
JEL Codes: A20, B20, B31, P16
Keywords: Milton Friedman, history of economic thought, free market economics, economic education
A little over a decade ago, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University organized a symposium centered on the following question: why is there no Milton Friedman today? The symposium featured contributions from a range of scholars, including John Blundell (2013), David Colander (2013), Tyler Cowen (2013), Richard Epstein (2013), James K. Galbraith (2013), J. Daniel Hammond (2013), David R. Henderson (2013), Daniel Houser (2013), Steven Medema (2013), Sam Peltzman (2013), Richard Posner (2013), and Robert Solow (2013). The question resurfaced in December 2023, following the death of Robert Solow.1 But I suspect it seemed worth asking again for other reasons, as well.
The past six years have been marked by poor policies in the United States-policies Friedman almost certainly would have opposed. We have witnessed the return of protectionism. Tariffs, first imposed by President Trump in 2018, have continued under President Biden. Then there was the pandemic response. State and local governments imposed significant restrictions on economic activity while the federal government cut checks to nearly every American with a pulse. And, as if all of that were not enough, the Federal Reserve fell asleep on the job. It failed to offset a surge in nominal spending in 2021 and 2022, which pushed prices permanently higher.
Globally, the situation is even worse, of course. Authoritarianism is on the rebound. China has established a digital panopticon, monitoring and censoring its citizens to an extent that was not possible under the Stasi or the KGB. And its efforts are no longer confined to the mainland: it has significantly eroded civil and economic liberties in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Russia wages war in Ukraine and silences dissidents at home. And Afghanistan is once again controlled by the Taliban, which has significantly curtailed the ability of women to work and girls to go to school.
In this context, the question-why is there no Milton Friedman today?-appears to...