I've been wondering what Brad DeLong would have to say about Friedman.
As far as I can tell, the man's policy ideas may have been straightforward in his own mind, but often contradictory to the non-economist. Here was a man who believed that the market could eventually solve most problems and that government interference with it was anathema, yet he had a major role in the now solidly-in-place institution of withholding tax. He proposed privatizing Social Security as early as 1962, yet he also suggested a "negative income tax" for low-income people which has now been institutionalized as the Earned Income Tax Credit.
I dunno. I'm more of a believer in the Keynesian view that government has a role in society than I am in Friedman's view that it ought to butt out, but I can't deny that he was one of the two or three giants of 20th-century economic thought.
More on Friedman at Wikipedia.
Posted by Linkmeister at November 17, 2006 09:45 AM | TrackBackI once attended a lecture given by Friedman, where here contrasted the performance of the Hong Kong and Israeli economies.
With similar populations, cultures of entreprenurism, etc., the one that had the fewest obstacles to maket forces outperformed the other by orders of magnitude.
He was a tiny figure with a giant mind.
Posted by: pixelshim at November 18, 2006 03:45 AM