Friedman was one of freedom’s greatest and pithiest champions.
If 2023 is a good year for Friedman and his ideas, let’s have more of the same, please.
G overnment overspending and absurd regulatory initiatives abound, but not all is lost for proponents of the free market. Now, just as in the past, many of the wins for those advocating a freer society can be attributed at least in part to the influence of one great economist: Milton Friedman, who would be celebrating his 111th birthday on July 31.
Along with his economist wife, Rose, Milton Friedman was a pioneer of the school-choice movement. In a 1955 essay, he made the case for school vouchers. While there is legitimate justification for government funding of schools, he wrote, that doesn’t mean government should run the schools. Government administration of schools centers on the institution instead of the person; Friedman’s proposal of issuing vouchers, which give families the freedom to choose the school for their children, would give the power to the person instead of the institution.
The Friedmans advocated school choice for decades, and in 1996 they established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, now known as EdChoice. Last month, EdChoice released its 2023 edition of The 123s of School Choice. Reviewing 187 studies done on school choice in the United States since 1998, it found studies overwhelmingly conclude that school-choice programs have a positive effect on student test scores and educational attainment, parent satisfaction, school safety, fiscal outcomes, and racial integration and diversity.
And these benefits are become increasingly widespread. In the past few years, numerous states have adopted or expanded school-choice programs, and others have school-choice policies in the works. The recent school-choice momentum began during the Covid-19 pandemic, was strengthened by government mismanagement of education and rapacious teachers’ unions, and shows little sign of letting up in 2023. As the Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn declared in April, “It’s been a good year for Milton Friedman. The Nobel Prize-winning economist has been dead for nearly two decades. But the moment has come for the idea that may prove his greatest legacy: Parents should decide where the public funds for educating their children go.”
Another idea with which Friedman is strongly associated — that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits — is also making a comeback. In the past year, economic uncertainty and pushback from investors have contributed to companies being increasingly reluctant to wade into social and political issues. In fact, a Wall Street Journal story last month found that the number of earnings calls by U.S.-listed companies in which executives mentioned environmental or social initiatives has been declining since the first quarter of 2022. At least compared with two years ago, corporate executives are “preaching pure and unadulterated socialism” (to use Friedman’s phrase) far less frequently by suggesting that private business assets be used to serve the interests of the general public instead of those who actually own the assets.
Wins and losses in public policy are rarely permanent. Under Biden, the Securities and Exchange Commission is waging an ongoing crusade to impose climate-change disclosure rules on companies. Corporate social responsibility has always been a top-down initiative, and even in the face of growing opposition from investors, it may well still be advanced by political leaders and through public pension plans.
However, one of Friedman’s greatest policy victories is as close to permanent as can be: the end of military conscription in the United States. Shortly after President Nixon was inaugurated in 1969, he appointed a 15-person commission to explore ending conscription. Initially, five were in favor of conscription, five were neutral, and five, including Friedman, were against conscription. Friedman’s economic analysis and sharp repartee helped turn the public opinion. The commission’s final 211-page report unanimously recommended an end to conscription, and by 1973 it was gone. Friedman showed, contrary to what many conservatives believed, that conscription was more costly than building the military from those who chose to serve.
When General William Westmoreland, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, argued in front of the commission in favor of maintaining conscription because he did not want to command an army of “mercenaries,” Friedman responded, “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?” If those who voluntarily enlisted were “mercenaries,” Friedman said, “then, I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general. We are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.” Friedman was one of freedom’s greatest and pithiest champions.
If 2023 is a good year for Friedman and his ideas, let’s have more of the same, please. More Friedman means more freedom.