Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his economic policies have been tried.

What’s odd about Friedman’s absolutism on the virtues of markets and the vices of government is that in his work as an economist’s economist he was actually a model of restraint. As I pointed out earlier, he made great contributions to economic theory by emphasizing the role of individual rationality—but unlike some of his colleagues, he knew where to stop. Why didn’t he exhibit the same restraint in his role as a public intellectual?
The answer, I suspect, is that he got caught up in an essentially political role. Milton Friedman the great economist could and did acknowledge ambiguity. But Milton Friedman the great champion of free markets was expected to preach the true faith, not give voice to doubts. And he ended up playing the role his followers expected. As a result, over time the refreshing iconoclasm of his early career hardened into a rigid defense of what had become the new orthodoxy.
In the long run, great men are remembered for their strengths, not their weaknesses, and Milton Friedman was a very great man indeed—a man of intellectual courage who was one of the most important economic thinkers of all time, and possibly the most brilliant communicator of economic ideas to the general public that ever lived. But there’s a good case for arguing that Friedmanism, in the end, went too far, both as a doctrine and in its practical applications. When Friedman was beginning his career as a public intellectual, the times were ripe for a counterreformation against Keynesianism and all that went with it. But what the world needs now, I’d argue, is a counter-counterreformation.

Milton Friedman and I had our differences about foreign policy. I tried, in vain, to persuade him to be against the first Gulf war. Even there, though, he publicly supported, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, my economic argument against the war. He stated, ‘Henderson’s analysis is correct. There is no justification for intervention on grounds of oil.’

I don't know what monetarism is. If monetarism just means a good old-fashioned quantity theory, of course it has not failed. If it means the particular version of Milton Friedman, I think it has because he imagines that he can achieve — ascertain — a clear quantity relationship between a measurable quantity of money and the price level. I don't think that is possible. In fact, just about 40 years ago in the opening sentences of my book, Prices and Production, I wrote that it would be a great misfortune if people ever cease to believe in the quantity theory of money. It would be even worse ever to believe it literally. And that's exactly what Milton Friedman does.

Milton Friedman, a great defender of liberty in my view.

I bet you anything I could destroy Milton Friedman in a debate about economics — so long as the audience was comprised of five year olds. He may have a Nobel Prize, but I can make offensive sounds with my armpit. Advantage: Goldberg!

The first stage of Friedman's attack on Keynes was his effective though somewhat slippery critique of the idea that monetary and fiscal policy can be actively used to smooth out the business cycle. Friedman argued that such active policy is not only unnecessary but actually harmful, worsening the very economic instability that it is supposed to correct, and should be replaced by simple, mechanical monetary rules. This is the doctrine that came to be known as "monetarism."

[Milton Friedman] believes in an oversimplified quantitative relationship between a measurable quantity of money and the price level. You must leave it to the discretion of the central bank to so adjust the supply of ultimate cash reserves as to keep the price level stable.

On the whole, the monetarism for which Friedman first became famous seems clever, brilliantly argued, but shallow ― and perhaps even a bit disingenuous. Friedman's writings from that period have the feel of a smart man who knows what he wants to believe looking hard for supporting arguments. And I think it is fair to say that up until the late 1960s Friedman and his followers, while influential, were regarded by many of their colleagues as faintly disreputable.

[ Milton Friedman was] the dominant member of the so-called Chicago school of economics [during his tenure at Chicago]... The economics department increasingly reflected his approach and interests. These included deep commitment to the truth, appreciation of markets and free enterprise, frank and blunt discussion, and enormous zeal to convince the heathen. But most important was the commitment to economic analysis as a powerful instrument for interpreting economic and social life.

It’s a tribute to the importance of Friedman’s work that questions about his legacy bear so directly on contemporary policy issues. But for that reason it’s also important not to engage in . Friedman was a great economist, but like every other great economist in history, he was also wrong about some important things.

No monetarist, certainly not Friedman, welcomed this side-effect of monetary restraint. But then again, had Friedman been listened to earlier (and had the likes of Paul Samuelson been ignored), things would never have come to this tragic stage. By way of analogy, should we blame those who would end the war in Iraq, and who opposed it all along, for the tragic consequences that are likely to follow any rapid U.S withdrawal?

In the last decade or two there has grown up in this country, principally under the leadership of Professor Milton Friedman, a school calling itself the Monetarists. The leaders sometimes sum up their doctrine in the phrase: "Money matters," and even sometimes in the phrase: "Money matters most."

My views are more akin to the nineteenth-century liberal philosophy espoused by Milton Friedman, especially in his Capitalism and Freedom. In that work, he proposed many policies that are harmonious with free markets and are receiving serious attention in the United States and other countries. This list includes school choice, the flat-rate income tax, rules for monetary stability, privatized social security, and the elimination of affirmative-action programs.