Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman has been credited with many different achievements, including being one of the most effective advocates of economic freedoms and free enterprise, being the greatest economist to ever walk the face of the earth, and proving every single word that Lord Maynard Keynes ever said to be wrong. Why these may or may not all be true, it is obvious that Friedman was a brilliant man of many accomplishments.

Milton Friedman was born on July 15th, 1912 in New York City. His parents were poor immigrants and his father died when he was a senior in high school. Despite all of these obstacles he had to overcome, Friedman received a scholarship to Rutgers University and got his B.A., an M.A. in 1933 from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in 1946 from Columbia University. He worked as a research assistant to Henry Schultz at University of Chicago until 1937 when he started working with the National Bureau of Economics. There he jointly published the book Incomes from Independent Professional Practice with Simon Kuznets, which also served as his doctoral dissertation at Columbia. This book introduced the concepts of permanent and transitory income. In 1933 Milton Friedman met Rose Director, a fellow Economics student, and six years later they were married. Rose and Milton have collaborated on quite a few books and essays, and have established the Milton & Rose D. Friedman foundation, which promotes School Choice, which will be explained in more detail later.

In 1976 Milton Friedman won the 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." Milton Friedman coined the terms "only money matters" as his emphasis on the role of monetary policy in the United States economy. Friedman is perhaps the most effective advocate for free enterprise and monetarist policies from 1945-1985. His only rival among economists of the 20th century would have to be Keynes.

As well as being a Nobel Prize winner and just an overall brilliant man, Friedman served as Senator Barry Goldwater's informal economic advisor in 1964 and for Richard Nixon in 1968, then as President Nixon's advisor. He served as President Reagan's Economic Advisor on his Advisory Board in 1981. Friedman was awarded the Presidentia...

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Another one of Friedman's strongest and most well known opinions was on the Federal Reserve and how it is practically useless. Friedman being the big free-market capitalist that he is, thinks that the Federal Reserve acts stupidly, rashly and doesn't take the time-lag into respect when making their dramatic decisions. Friedman also blames most of the economic instabilities on the federal reserve's action.

Milton Friedman has definitely been one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. His discoveries and theories in monetary policy, school choice liberalism and inflation relations impact economic history in a way only a few people can do. He and his wife Rose are now running the Foundation for school-choice and have just published Two Lucky People: Memoirs.

Bibliography:

Friedman, Milton. Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist's Protest. New York: HBJ, 1983.

Friedman, Milton and Rose. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement. New York: HBJ, 1980.

Hodges, Michael. Milton Friedman- A Tribute by MWHodges. May 2001. September 2001.

Walters, Alan. A Dictionary of Economics, The New Palgrave. Vol.2, 1987. Pp.422-427.