Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate in economics and champion of the "free market" died on Nov 16, 2006 in San Francisco at the age of 94. (He inspired the original "Friedmania" – long before Thomas Friedman, the cheerleader for globalization came along.) I have little knowledge or understanding of Friedman’s scholarly works but I have seen their effects on the world, especially the US, since Reaganomics hypnotized much of America and became the engine driving our domestic and foreign policies. It is needless to point out to the readers of this blog that I am not among those in breathless awe of the Chicago School of Free Market. It hasn’t escaped my notice that worshippers at the altar of unfettered free market and laissez-faire absolutists are not above tweaking the system, sometimes with military might, just so the market can operate unmolested, mostly for the benefit of global corporations. The Iraq war in my opinion was fueled much more by the enthusiasm to free up the Iraqi market than due to any desire to free the Iraqi people. Here are two articles on Milton Friedman’s life and philosophy, a mostly laudatory one in the New York Times and a somewhat different view in the Counter Punch. (the latter link comes via Leiter Reports).
Milton Friedman is said to have been the inspiration for the following joke:
Q: How many economists from the Chicago School of free-market economics does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. If the lightbulb needed changing, the free market would have changed it already.
Skeptics like me would grumble that sometimes the period between changing the bulbs can be a long, dark one if left solely to the photo-sensor of the market.
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