Katie’s Beer

At least once a week, I read a completely fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal and say to myself, “I really should read this paper everyday!”. I subscribe to James Taranto’s daily (and free) email version of the Opinion Journal, but rarely take a moment to read it. Today I did and read about peopleI didn’t know - Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose Friedman.
Taranto writes:

Word reached us this morning that Milton Friedman has died. Friedman, who won the Nobel Prize in Ecnomics in 1976, was a giant in free-market economics–and freedom more generally–and a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal. Just last month he penned an op-ed lamenting Hong Kong’s departure from laissez-faire economics. Back in July Tunku Varadarajan published a charming interview, The Romance of Economics, with Friedman and his wife, Rose. Milton Friedman was 94.

Mr. Varadarajan writes:

One doesn’t interview a man like Milton Friedman–the Nobel laureate in economics in 1976 and among the five or six most consequential thinkers of the 20th century–without doing some assiduous homework. So I gathered his books–reading some, re-reading others–and made pages and pages of notes. I also emailed several intellectual heavyweights, asking them what they might enquire of Mr. Friedman–now 94 years of age–if they had him cornered at a cocktail party. Replies flooded back… Read the rest…

My favorite excerpts:

On romance and economics…
The spark between the Friedmans is clear, and rather touching. So I’m tempted to ask whether there is a romantic side to economics, in the way there is to history, or to philosophy. “Is there a romantic side to economics?” Mr. Friedman repeats after me, sounding incredulous, and then chuckling. “No, I don’t think so. There’s a romantic side to economics in the same way there’s a romantic side to physics. Fundamentally, economics is a science, like physics, like chemistry. . . . It’s a science about how human beings organize their cooperative activities.” Was that his preferred definition of economics? “Well, the standard definition is the study of how a society organizes its resources. In that sense, it’s not particularly romantic.”

On the Iraq War…
Mr. Friedman here shifted focus. “What’s really killed the Republican Party isn’t spending, it’s Iraq. As it happens, I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression.” Mrs. Friedman–listening to her husband with an ear cocked– now muttering darkly.Milton: “Huh? What?”

Rose:”This was not aggression!”

Milton (exasperatedly):”It was aggression. Of course it was!”

Rose: “You count it as aggression if it’s against the people, not against the monster who’s ruling them. We don’t agree. This is the first thing to come along in our lives, of the deep things, that we don’t agree on. We have disagreed on little things, obviously–such as, I don’t want to go out to dinner, he wants to go out–but big issues, this is the first one!”

Milton: “But, having said that, once we went in to Iraq, it seems to me very important that we make a success of it.”

Rose: “And we will!”

Tags: politics //