Free to Choose

Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman, 1979

Milton and Rose Friedman show how free markets coordinate millions without coercion, and how controls, the Federal Reserve, welfare, schools, regulation and inflation eroded freedom and prosperity.

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11 parts, about 30 minutes to read.

Why read it

Argues that voluntary exchange lets millions cooperate and that limited government has paired prosperity with freedom, as in Hong Kong
Blames the Great Depression on a failure of government in money rather than of private enterprise, and ties inflation to the printing press
Applies the case to schools, welfare, consumer protection and unions, proposing school vouchers, a negative income tax and an economic bill of rights

Who it is for

Readers who want the free market case argued with examples
Parents and taxpayers weighing school vouchers
Readers who doubt that regulation protects consumers and workers

What the summary covers

Introduction3 min
The Power of the Market3 min
The Tyranny of Controls3 min
The Anatomy of Crisis2 min
Cradle to Grave3 min
Created Equal3 min
What's Wrong with Our Schools?3 min
Who Protects the Consumer?3 min
Who Protects the Worker?2 min
The Cure for Inflation3 min
The Tide Is Turning2 min

Recommended by

Václav KlausCzech economist and politician, president of the Czech Republic 2003 to 2013
I believe that his books Capitalism and Freedom, together with a more recent Free to Choose, opened the eyes of whole generations of not scholars but of ordinary citizens on all continents of this planet.

About the authors

Milton FriedmanAmerican economist and statistician, Nobel laureate in economics, died in 2006
- Born in 1912 in Brooklyn, New York, the fourth and last child of his family
- Graduated from Rutgers University in 1932, financing much of his own college expenses
- Met his future wife Rose Director, a fellow economics student, in his first year at the University of Chicago
- Accepted an offer to teach economic theory at the University of Chicago, which he called his intellectual home
- Worked with Anna J. Schwartz at the National Bureau of Economic Research for more than three decades on monetary history
- Served as an economic adviser to Barry Goldwater in 1964 and to Richard Nixon in 1968
- Retired from teaching at Chicago in 1977 and moved his scholarly work to the Hoover Institution at Stanford as a Senior Research Fellow
- Presented his economic and social philosophy in the ten part PBS series Free to Choose, which first aired in January 1980
Rose FriedmanFree market economist and cofounder of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, died in 2009
- Moved with her mother and siblings from Ukraine to Portland, Oregon at the age of two
- Graduated from the University of Chicago in 1932 with a Bachelor of Philosophy
- Completed all the work for a doctorate in economics at Chicago except the dissertation
- Worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation until she married Milton Friedman in 1938
- Her brother Aaron Director was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a founder of the economic analysis of law
- With Milton she founded the foundation now called EdChoice to promote school vouchers and freedom of choice in education
- Wrote Free to Choose, Tyranny of the Status Quo and the memoir Two Lucky People (1998) with Milton

Read it alongside

Pushes backOn Freedom
Milton and Rose Friedman argue the welfare state rests on force and breeds dependence, and that ever bigger government would destroy freedom; Timothy Snyder argues welfare institutions and public infrastructure can reduce fear and dependence and widen what people are able to do.
Pushes backThe Narrow Corridor
Milton and Rose Friedman argue that freedom needs tighter limits on government and a halt to its growth; Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue a state can expand its safety net and regulation and stay free, provided a mobilized society keeps it in check.