Best of Both Worlds

Milton Friedman reminisces about his career as an economist and his lifetime "avocation" as a spokesman for freedom.

Brian Doherty from the June 1995 issue

(Page 7 of 8)

But look at the situation today. You have REASON magazine, you have Liberty magazine. You've got all of this stuff that spouts out from the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a half dozen other think tanks. In fact, I think there are too damn many think tanks now.

Reason: Why do you say there are too many?

Friedman: You don't have the talent for it.

Reason: Do you consider yourself in the libertarian mainstream on foreign policy issues?

Friedman: I don't believe that the libertarian philosophy dictates a foreign policy. In particular I don't think you can derive isolationism from libertarianism. I'm anti-interventionist, but I'm not an isolationist. I don't believe we ought to go without armaments. I'm sure we spend more money on armaments than we need to; that's a different question.

I don't believe that you can derive from libertarian views the notion that a nation has to bare itself to the outside without defense, or that a strong volunteer force would arise and defend the nation.

Reason: What did you think about the Gulf War?

Friedman: I always had misgivings about the Gulf War, but I never came to a firm decision. It was more nearly justified than other recent foreign interventions, and yet I was persuaded that the major argument used to support it was fallacious.

After all, if Iraq took over the oil, it would have to do something with it. If they don't want to eat it, they'd have to sell it. I don't think the price of oil would have been much affected. The more important consideration was the balance of power with Iran and Iraq. I have mixed feelings about that war; I wouldn't be willing to write a brief on either side.

Reason: What would you regard as your most important accomplishment?

Friedman: It depends on what you mean. I wrote an essay on methodology in 1953. It was published in my book Essays on Positive Economics. I had been working on it for years before that, so it goes way back to the middle '40s. It started to generate a lot of comments, but I decided I would rather do economics than talk about how economics are done. So I made a distinct point of not replying to any criticism of that essay. And I think that's why it's so commented on.

That methodology article has probably been reprinted more often and referred to more often than anything else I've written, though I would by no means regard it as the most important thing I've ever done.

In terms of sheer technical quality there's no doubt in my mind that the best thing I ever did was The Theory of the Consumption Function which, from a scientific point of view, is a carry on from the methodology article. I regard the theory of the consumption function as a demonstration of applying the methodology I explained there. But also it has a neatness about it and a specific theorem which has generated an enormous amount of work since then. When things like that originally come out, the status quo says, "Oh, that's a bunch of nonsense, we can't possibly work with that," but give it time. And by now it's part of conventional economics.

In the realm of policy, I regard eliminating the draft as my most important accomplishment.

Reason: Have you retired from economics?

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It’s Not Really Your Money Anymore « noot's observatory links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Keep in mind: that was your money to begin with.  If you think that’s kind of messed up, then you’ll be even more surprised by this fact: the whole thing was Milton Friedman’s idea, of all people.  Why?  He explained a few years ago: I was an employee at the Treasury Department. We were in a wartime situation. How do you raise the enormous amount of taxes you need for wartime? We were all in favor of cutting inflation. I…

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