Milton Friedman

Hoy ha muerto Milton Friedman, el ultimo de los grandes maestros de la politica economica. Permitidme que copie aqui un breve obituario que mi estimado profesor Raymond Horton nos ha enviado tras conocerse la noticia.

De todos los grandes maestros, Friedman fue el mayor defensor de la libertad individual que se traduce en un nivel de intervencion politico reducido al minimo posible. Si bien no tan radical como el en sus planteamientos no puedo dejar de admirar su creencia firme en el mercado como solucion a cualquier problema.

Descanse en paz.
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Dear MPE Students,

Some of you may already have heard, but if not you may be interested to know that Milton Friedman died today at the age of 94. Just two days ago in class I'd commented on the longevity of the great political economists, including the recently deceased Galbraith and the still-going-strong Chandler. Now Friedman is gone, the last of the Grandmasters in MPE.

It took me awhile to recognize Friedman as a grandmaster because I was so put off by his anti-Americanism. How could this man actually think that John Fitzgerald Kennedy's politics were putting us on the road to serfdom? Was the American system so fragile that it would transform from the gentle liberalism of the 1960s to the kind of authoritarian government that Friedman, drawing on Hayek, prophesied? Not a chance. The man didn't understand the United States of America.

But after awhile I think I grew to understand that the book in which he expressed those fears most eloquently, Capitalism and Freedom, was a polemic in the tradition of the Manifesto except that the people of America rather than the workers of the world were being called to action. So he shouldn't be written off as someone who was out of touch with reality; instead he was simply using a dramatic technique to get his readers to consider his recommendations for a better world.

And his point of view, or his theories, make him an easy choice as a grandmaster, because he did what is required of a grandmaster. First, his scholarship exerted a significant impact on the theory of capitalism. And second, his recommendations to policymakers in the business sector (Maximize profits!) and in the government sector (Hands off!) gained a substantial following beginning in the 1970s. In these sense, he is in the tradition of the other grandmasters of MPE--Smith, Marx and Keynes. (Schumpeter remains as a grandmaster, but I'm still thinking of dumping him because he left no policy footprint.)

So, Milton Friedman, rest in peace, and thanks much for your contributions to the theory and practice of modern political economy.

Ray Horton