The basic error, which was widespread long before Friedman and the new — Milton Friedman

"Although Humans are not irrational, they often need help to make more accurate judgments and better decisions, and in some cases policies and institutions can provide that help. These claims may seem innocuous, but they are in fact quite controversial. As interpreted by the important Chicago school of economics, faith in human rationality is closely linked to an ideology in which it is unnecessary and even immoral to protect people against their choices. Rational people should be free, and they should be responsible for taking care of themselves. Milton Friedman, the leading figure in that school, expressed this view in the title of one of his popular books: Free to Choose."

"Friedman is the rights Chomsky. Non-experts (can) rarely appreciate the depth of their academic contributions."

"Milton Friedman may well be the worlds best-known economist. He has turned his unprepossessing stature and manner into a trademark persona; a feisty conservative David battling the Goliath of Big Government. But his influence is not merely a matter of skill at propaganda. It rests on the long campaign that he waged against the ideas of Keynesian economics, a campaign that eventually bore fruit in radical changes in both economic ideology and real-world economic policy."

"On the whole, the monetarism for which Friedman first became famous seems clever, brilliantly argued, but shallow—and perhaps even a bit disingenuous. Friedmans writings from that period have the feel of a smart man who knows what he wants to believe looking hard for supporting arguments."

"Everything reminds Milton of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper."

"Now, I don’t want to put Friedman on a pedestal. In fact, I’d argue that the experience of the past 15 years, first in Japan and now across the Western world, shows that Keynes was right and Friedman was wrong about the ability of unaided monetary policy to fight depressions. The truth is that we need a more activist government than Friedman was willing to countenance. The point, however, is that modern conservatism has moved so far to the right that it no longer has room for even small concessions to reality. Friedman tried to save free-market conservatism from itself — but the ideologues who now dominate the G.O.P. are beyond saving."