Departments

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Milton Friedman

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    2/27/2023

    Review: The Right-Wing Abuse of Adam Smith

    by Kim Phillips-Fein

    Glory M. Liu's account of Adam Smith's reception in America explains how American politicians read selectively in Smith's capacious writings on political economy and public morality to construct a self-interested view of the market as a natural phenomenon, writes historian Kim Phillips-Fein. 

  • SOURCE: Institute for New Economic Thinking
    11/15/2021

    Why Mislead Readers about Milton Friedman and Segregation?

    by Nancy MacLean

    "One would think that today the facts about the long struggle of southern white leaders to preserve segregation are so well known that simple fact-checking would suffice to rule out attempts to whitewash their efforts."

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    9/21/2020

    The Libertarian Ideas That Wrecked the Fed

    by Bruce Bartlett

    Friedman’s ardent libertarian faith was central to his monetarist thinking; like all libertarians, he was always extremely wary of anything that would cause the size of government to grow.

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    9/9/2020

    Neoliberal Hong Kong Is Our Future, Too

    by Macabe Keliher

    While orthodox economists like to point to Hong Kong as an ideal free market, the social consequences have been disastrous. Inequality is rising, wages are declining and working hours increasing, overall economic opportunity is dwindling, and housing is so unaffordable that office workers sleep in McDonalds. Is it any wonder that the streets are now burning?

  • SOURCE: Bloomberg News
    3-20-13

    Angus Burgin: As Republicans Hail Hayek, Their Plans Advance Friedman

    Angus Burgin is an assistant professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and the author of “The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression.” The opinions expressed are his own.Friedrich Hayek’s book “The Road to Serfdom” has served as a beacon for American conservatives since its publication in 1944. Today’s Republicans often cite the book in their fight to limit federal power and regulation. Hayek’s views, however, were more complicated than they often assume.As a shy and scholarly scion of an aristocratic Austrian family, Hayek hadn’t expected to find much of an audience for his wartime tract on political economy. He was shocked when opponents of the New Deal propelled it up the U.S. best-seller lists shortly after its release, and would have been equally astonished at its rise up the Amazon.com sales rankings following an endorsement from the former Fox News host Glenn Beck in 2010.

  • The American Roots of Neoliberalism

    by Daniel Stedman Jones

    Portrait of Milton Friedman. Credit: The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.The word “neoliberalism” -- the ideology of free markets, deregulation and limited government -- is easily lost in translation from the European to the American context. In part this is a reflection of the different meanings of liberalism in Europe and the United States. But it also highlights a gap in historical understanding, which is only just beginning to be filled.

  • Where Have All the Real Conservatives Gone?

    by Scot Faulkner and Jonathan Riehl

    Brent Bozell and William F. Buckley in 1954. Credit: Wiki Commons/UCLA Library/LA Daily News.Recent Republican and conservative convocations have displayed one common thing. Those who pass for thinkers and leaders of these intertwined movements think they can keep doing the same things but achieve better results. With the notable except of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, most Republicans, after sifting through the debris of November 6, think they need new spokespeople and better packaging.The only thing standing between Republicans and the great Reagan landslides of 1980 and 1984 is them. This is a sad commentary on once noble movements. Republican and conservative “leaders” think twenty-first-century Americans are waiting to embrace tenth-century stands on social issues and science, and blustery vague pronouncements on government spending. Does any rational person think today’s Republicans and conservatives bear the slightest resemblance to those who rallied around Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan? Those two icons would not have finished in the top ten in the 2012 Iowa caucus or South Carolina primary.

  • SOURCE: Guardian (UK)
    1-14-13

    George Monbiot: If You Think We're Done with Neoliberalism, Think Again

    George Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land. His latests books are Heat: how to stop the planet burning and Bring on the Apocalypse?How they must bleed for us. In 2012, the world's 100 richest people became $241 billion richer. They are now worth $1.9 trillion: just a little less than the entire output of the United Kingdom.This is not the result of chance. The rise in the fortunes of the super-rich is the direct result of policies. Here are a few: the reduction of tax rates and tax enforcement; governments' refusal to recoup a decent share of revenues from minerals and land; the privatisation of public assets and the creation of a toll-booth economy; wage liberalisation and the destruction of collective bargaining.