Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990 - Business & Economics - 338 pages

Nobel laureate and economist Milton Friedman was a significant influence on the monetarist and free-market move to the right that began in the 1980s. Friedman was a great communicator - able to convince economists, politicians and general readers of the sense of his theories. Decades after its publication and republication, this treatise - written with his wife, economist Rose Friedman - still serves as an accessible handbook for those on the political right. It is ardent, but never heartless; radical, but never blindly ideological. The Friedmans' monetarist interpretation of the Great Depression proves especially interesting in light of recent history. Would Friedman have approved of quantitative easing? His criticism of the Fed in the 1980s indicates that he would have favored easing in principle, but the question of degree remains: Yes, in favor of easing, but how much? Some of his issues, like inflation, may not apply at the moment, but many of Friedman's arguments still smolder. While always politically neutral, getAbstract recommends this foundational read - the seminal text of subsequent right-leaning thinkers and their books.

About the author

An influential leader in the field of economics, Milton Friedman had his humble beginnings in New York City, where he was born in 1912 to poor immigrants. Friedman was educated at Rutgers University. He went on to the University of Chicago to earn his A.M., and to Columbia University, where in 1946 he received his Ph.D. That same year he became professor of economics at the University of Chicago and remained there for 30 years. He was also on the research staff at the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937-1981. Friedman's greatest work is considered to be A Theory of the Consumption Function, published in 1957. Other books include A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, and The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays. Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement; A Harvest Book; Business book summary
• Authors: Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman
• Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990
• ISBN: 0156334607, 9780156334600
• Length: 338 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economics / Theory; Business & Economics / Free Enterprise & Capitalism