Milton Friedman
I have a fairly quick question, Milton Friedman, as a great of an intellectual as he was, did he belong to the Chicago school of economics or the Austrian school of economics? If he is an Austrian, why are none of his books available for sale at the Mises institute? I appreciate your answers ahead of time.
Chicago ,ofcourse -and he was a bad libertarian in my opinion -especially monetary policy wiseOriginally Posted by InPaulWeTrust
He was Chicago. I used to watch his sho when it would come weekly on public TV. He was who it was named after , he taught at the University of Chicago.
What was that show called again?
Free to Choose was the program...
I actually watched a few youtube videos on him and rather appreciated some of the things he said regarding a limited role played by government on society.
Here are the links:
Part1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PaN9...eature=related
Part2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDV0...eature=related
Part3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhgy0...eature=related
Part4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64mr-...eature=related
He was a Chicago-school economist.
He has some great Libertarian philosophies on the Free Market, lack of regulation, and civil liberties, but his monetary policies (IMHO) sucked really badly.
You see, Friedman thought that we should mandate a set amount of inflation each year, either based on population growth, or the money supply would be increased/decreased by a computer based on the growth of the economy. Therefore, under a Friedmanite system, you would have inflation no matter what....and, essentially, you would have to invest in something, somewhere to avoid getting your savings wiped out (this would not occur under a gold-based monetary system).
His videos are great, IMHO, but if you have people watch them, be sure to point out the follies of his monetary theory.
He wasn't a bad libertarian. He advocated individual liberty, small government, and a whole host of other libertarian views. The only thing I think he was wrong on was monetary policy, and even there he was better than most.
But to answer your question--he was from the Chicago school. At this years FFF conference Lew Rockwell took a question about Milton. Listen to it at about 4 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEPjX3ETwyg
Last edited by Unspun; 09-27-2008 at 12:25 PM.
I think he did a bit of harm praising the central banks for doing a good job merely because they starting using more monetarist principles. People think that Alan Greenspan was great minus the 21st century where he lowered rates to 1 percent because we had disinflationary forces during when he was chairman--I don't know if they fail to realize the reason we didn't have high prices for goods is because we're importing a lot on the cheap; it had little to do Greenspan's performance which was inflationary as hell. Then they say we didn't have any major recession under him. So what? Fact is, central banks fail, they will always fail, they suck. I can't believe so many "libertarians" defend and support it.
I have not fully heard his views on monetary policy as of yet, but his videos are fairly informative and he seems to be a great advocate of limited government. His video on education is extremely good. I agree with his views on this, specifically with the abolition of the department of education.
Chicago school. Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" is what formally introduced me to libertarian thought, so I have a soft spot for him. His monetary theory is more than a little shaky though.
Please don't bash Friedman, he was a brilliant economist and a great libertarian. (Not referring to you specifically, Fox, just everyone in general)
However, when you look at the "expanding the money supply to a rate equal to inflation" theory, it would be significantly less inflation than we have now. So I wouldn't be so hasty to dismiss it just because Austrians disagree. (I am an Austrian believer but I still think we should at least be open to Friedman's teachings as well.)
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