Milton Friedman was a controversial but influential American economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2010 and served as an adviser to US President Reagan. He believed in a free market economy and fought for personal freedom. His theory of monetarism influenced economic policy in the US and beyond. He was also an advocate for ending the US military draft and opposed government monopolies on public services.
Milton Friedman was a controversial but extraordinarily influential 20th-century American economist. Among his notable achievements, Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2010 and served as an adviser to US President Reagan. A political libertarian unashamed of his controversial views, Friedman believed in a broad free market economy and fought to end the project and increase personal freedom through measures such as the legalization of marijuana and prostitution.
Born to Jewish immigrants in 1916, Milton Friedman studied mathematics at several leading schools, including Rutgers University, the University of Chicago and Columbia University. A young adult during the Great Depression, Friedman found work as an economist through President Roosevelt’s New Deal, but even as he praised job creation programs he felt Roosevelt made the wrong economic choice in setting wages and prices to combat the economic crisis . In addition to teaching at universities, Milton Friedman helped create tax programs during World War II and also worked on weapons development as a statistician. After the war, he became a professor at the University of Chicago and remained there for the next 30 years.
The theory of reference most often associated with Milton Friedman is called quantity theory or monetarism. This theory suggests that a region’s economy is directly related to and influenced by fluctuations in the money supply. Unlike the popular theories of famed 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes, Friedman’s theory rejected the idea that value, or supply and demand, should control the market. Instead, Friedman advocated a central bank that would have control over the money supply; inflation, Friedman believed, was a direct result of too much money in the market.
Milton Friedman’s concept of monetarism influenced economic policy in the United States and beyond for the rest of the 20th century. While his theories have remained highly controversial, they were quickly adopted into the mainstream. Because the American economy has experienced frequent booms and busts regardless of the theory employed, it is difficult to determine in practice whether Friedman’s theories are credible or whether they represent an improvement on Keynesian economic theory. However, they remain a major influence on economic theory.
In addition to his work with economic theory, Milton Friedman became an outspoken champion of personal freedom causes. He was a strong advocate of ending the US military draft, working on a team appointed by Nixon to determine the effects of transitioning to a volunteer army. Interestingly, he was a striking opponent of US Postal Service laws, insisting that a free society should not allow government monopolies on a public service. He has also hosted a public television show on economics and social philosophy.
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