Friedman and Freedom Friedman and Freedom

WSJ article today: Friedman and Freedom: The man who made free markets popular again is another nice obituary to Milton Friedman. They are even more effusive that I was, calling him the greatest economist of the 20th Century, not of just the second half of it, putting him above Keynes in importance. They have a point: Friedman changed economics in numerous ways over the year. Arguably, one Nobel Prize is not enough. Concluding, the article said:

In “Two Lucky People,” written with his wife, Rose Friedman, who survives him as a distinguished economist in her own right, Mr. Friedman well described the role of a public intellectual: “We do not influence the course of events by persuading people that we are right when we make what they regard as radical proposals. Rather, we exert influence by keeping options available when something has to be done at a time of crisis.”

On the death of Ronald Reagan, whom he advised, Mr. Friedman wrote on these pages that “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” The same can and long will be said of Milton Friedman.