The Great Economists

Chapter 7

Milton Friedman – father of monetarism

‘There is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.’

Milton Friedman, TV interview with Phil Donahue, 1979

If Keynes wins the award for the finest economist of the first half of the 20th century, then Milton Friedman must surely be in the running for the title for the second half. Like Hayek he made some of his most significant contributions to the wider political debate as well as to the development of modern macroeconomics by arguing that Keynes was wrong. Out of this critique emerged an alternative economic theory that became known in the public arena ...