Hailed as the godfather of conservative libertarianism, Milton Friedman quotes openly attacked Keynesianism in an era when most economists widely accepted its fundamental premises.
Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences “for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.” As a leader of the Chicago school of economics he taught several of the country’s future preeminent economists including Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, and Thomas Sowell.
Although Friedman approved of some aspects of the New Deal which he deemed suitable responses to the Great Depression, he opposed its regulation of both prices and wages. This opposition would color much of Friedman’s later stance on government intervention.
Friedman continued working for the government as a mathematical weapons statistician throughout the Second World War. When peace resumed he earned his doctorate from Columbia University and accepted a position at the University of Chicago where he would remain for 30 years. During his tenure Friedman wrote several influential books including A Theory of the Consumption Function and Capitalism and Freedom in which he laid out his groundbreaking theories.
Continue reading “Wisdom Meets Design: Inspiring Quotes From Milton Friedman”
