RIP Milton Friedman
- Friday, November 17 2006 @ 10:23 AM CST
- Contributed by: filbert
- Views: 2,057
One of history's great voices for individual freedom and liberty is silenced. Economist Milton Friedman just passed away.
OpinionJournal remembers:
OpinionJournal remembers:
For all of his academic accomplishments, Professor Friedman’s role as a popularizer of free-market principles was arguably more important. He wrote a column in Newsweek for 18 years starting in 1966, preaching the importance of economic freedom to a generation that had never heard such things in school. His 1980 book, "Free to Choose," was a best seller, and the videos that accompanied it were smuggled behind the Iron Curtain like seeds of revolution.
He was among the first to point to Hong Kong as a model of free-market success, a lesson that even today is remaking Communist China. And he first suggested educational vouchers to rescue failing public schools as long ago as 1955; in recent years, he established a foundation to support this idea that continues to advance despite ferocious opposition from unions and other entrenched interests.