In his recent Econlib article, “The Role of the Economist in a Free Society: The Art of Political Economy,” George Mason University economics professor Peter Boettke writes:
After [James] Buchanan left the University of Virginia, he wrote in a letter to [Rutledge] Vining: “My own worry, which you do not express so directly as I do, stems from the step taken by such an idealized professional assistant when he takes it on himself to propose changes in structure, as if he has a direct line to God. This is the arrogance I talk about, and about which I think Frank Knight was also worried.” But Buchanan, in what might surprise the modern day reader of this letter, singles out as a prime example of an economist violating this Knightian stricture none other than Milton Friedman. Friedman, Buchanan writes, “thinks and talks as if he is telling people what they should want, in terms of basic values, which is not at all his role, or so it seems to me. This is arrogant behavior, which Knight would never have engaged in.” Buchanan admits that it is extremely difficult to avoid falling into this trap, but concludes that nevertheless “we should avoid this where possible.”
The tone of the rest of his article suggests that Boettke agrees with this critique of Milton Friedman.
I don’t get it. I knew Friedman pretty well and I knew his work even better. I guess it’s true that Friedman told people that they should want freedom and a lot of his policy positions were based on the idea that freedom was good. The issue on which he arguably had his biggest impact was in making the case, on a commission appointed by President Nixon, for abolishing the military draft. [I write about that at some length here.] So you could say that Friedman told people that they should have the basic value of not wanting to enslave people.
I’m not sure if this is the kind of thing Buchanan had in mind in criticizing Friedman. I rather doubt it, but I don’t know because neither Boettke’s article nor the Buchanan letter specifies what he had in mind.
Boettke also buttresses his case by quoting from David Colander’s and Craig Freedman’s recent book, Where Economics Went Wrong: Chicago’s Abandonment of Classical Liberalism. I acquired that book some months ago and put it down at the end of Chapter 5 because it was too squishy. There was a criticism in there about Friedman but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the criticism was. At one point the authors quote Friedman defending laissez-faire in prostitution and apparently the reader is supposed to conclude something from that. But I can’t figure out what. And I started out with a slight bias in favor of the book because I’ve been a fan of much of Colander’s earlier work.
In short, I had the same reaction to Colander and Freedman’s book that I had to the Buchanan letter that Pete Boettke quoted.
Postscript:
Maybe Buchanan’s objection is to Friedman’s telling people they should want a monetary rule specifying the growth rate of the money supply that the Federal Reserve should adhere to. I gave up my belief in that rule in the early 1980s, but it would be strange for Buchanan, who, to his credit, was an ardent fan of constitutional rules that rein in government behavior, to be a critic of a constraining money supply rule.
READER COMMENTS
Daniel Kuehn
Oct 7 2019 at 3:29pm
Nice post. I don’t know why Buchanan makes these types of accusations with such frequency. It weakens his otherwise good points.
A good comparison with the k% rule (which, of course, Friedman wanted to achieve democratically and not by independent central bankers) is Buchanan’s balanced budget amendment which yes constrains government but is a very strictly defined rule that counts on Buchanan being right on the macroeconomics of the question. I don’t see how k% or BBA are all that different in terms of democratic principles.
I think you’ll like a paper on Friedman that I’m working on, David.
Mark Z
Oct 7 2019 at 4:13pm
Austrians’ main dispute with Friedman seems to be over monetary policy, so that’s a good bet. I think many Austrians mistakenly view having a fixed money supply as the most ‘neutral’ or least interventionist policy, and thus view other monetary policy rules as distortionary, but once the state has a monopoly on currency, there is no neutral, non-interventionist monetary policy, only policies that are better or worse at recapitulating the outcome of a competitive currency market. Maybe Friedman’s rule is wrong, but that’s something to be demonstrated, not assumed, and I don’t see how it’s any less arrogant to favor any other rule a priori (and we have to pick one in the end anyway, so monetary policy agnosticism isn’t a practical option).
Thaomas
Oct 7 2019 at 4:20pm
I certainly do not know either, but I have head a criticism — more of George Stigler than Milton Friedman — but I think it would apply to both. The criticism is that both use welfare economics, ultimately based on utilitarianism to criticize specific policies such as the welfare losses of unequal sales taxation across items, tariffs, minimum wages, rent controls, the whole deadweight loss, little triangles apparatus, etc. The same kind of logic could be used (I do not remember if Friedman used it) to argue that a paid military was more “efficient,” that the people who served would be those for whom military service had the highest utility. Although it is not inconsistent with, it is not the same thing as the utilitarian non coercion principle.
AJ
Oct 9 2019 at 10:46am
Where’s your defense of Friedman in this post? All I see is that you had a strange reaction to Boettke’s article, “I guess it’s true”, and that you weren’t sure what Boettke’s article or Buchanan’s letter had in mind.
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