RIP, Milton Friedman

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman has died at the age of 94. Friedman was the best advocate of free-market economies of the latter half of the 20th century, a true intellectual giant. Reading Capitalism and Freedom was instrumental in convincing me that given a choice between leaving an economic issue to the market to sort itself out vs. having the government control the outcome, the burden of proof should lie with the side advocating government intervention. A top-down command economy simply can't see the differences between individual needs, respond as efficiently to change, or inspire innovation the way a free economy can.

That's speaking generally. Getting specific, I disagree with a lot of Friedman's conclusions, such as his dislike of anti-discrimination laws, or his being against occupational licensure. I think that he has a bit too much confidence in the efficiency of the market and isn't willing to recognize, for example, that it may not always be so easy to simply patronize a competitor to a discriminating institution, nor the precarious position that unlicensed incompetent, untrained, or unscrupulous professionals put their clients in. In other words, I think that in many cases he sets the bar too high when determining where the government should impose regulations on the market. But I accept his premises and feel that he lays out the case against socialism very well.