Product Description

Argues that free-market forces work better than government controls for achieving real equality and security, protecting consumers and workers, providing education, and avoiding inflation and unemployment.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #167655 in Books
• Published on: 1990-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

Customer Reviews

promoting the free market
This book makes great reading for the non-economist who simply finds the subject of economics interesting. Milton Friedman speaks from the heart without going into too much jargon that only economists understand.

Since the book is a 'personal statement' he often expresses himself philosophically, as opposed to writing with sound facts to back up his arguments. Whether facts are used or not in the text, he tends to promote his deep capitalist persuasion, whilst making little reference to the often justified, opposing arguments.

Having read the socialist-economist: Noreena Hertz's 'Silent Takover', which is written with a bias to the oposite end of the spectrum, reading 'Free to Choose' gave a very different & thought provoking perspective of economic & polical idealogy.

Recommended!

Andrew, Doncaster UK

A powerful book,but skips some interesting questions.
Much of what is said in Free to Choose is essentially unassailable. Free markets work wonderfully well for many things, and governments are blunt instruments that often give the wrong incentives. One cannot argue.

However, there are a couple of areas where he pushes too far, into regions where it is not at all clear if free market capitalism will work as well as the book promises. Education doesn't simply fit into the free market mold because it's not clear who is buying the education. Is it the parent or the student? Is it the student before education or the student after education? It's also very different from buying shoes, because most people only buy one education; one doesn't get a chance to learn from failed purchases. So, it doesn't quite fit Adam Smith's model of two people, each rationally deciding if the transaction will be beneficial to him/her self.

Thus the book is missing something important: a discussion of how far one can apply the free market model. Friedman assumes it applies to everything, and maybe it does, but there are a lot of important cases where it's not at all clear.

But, really, I shouldn't complain too much. Every book has to stop somewhere, and there is much sense and very little confusion here. It's a readable book, and still relevant, even though history has moved on a bit.

Still excellent, after all these years
Despite its age, this is still essential reading for anyone interested in economics; indeed, I recommend it to my students who seek wider understanding. I emphasise I recommend it as thought-provoking material rather than attempting to convert them to any particular philosophy!

This was written at a time when Friedman was at his peak; after he had been accepted by mainstream economists and before his views became too extreme with advancing years. It is typical of other works I have read by Friedman; brilliantly constructed arguments with detailed supporting evidence on the one hand, unproven assertions simply taken as self-evident on the other. Some sections just do not hang together; I have never quite followed the treatise on education, for instance, and `who protects the consumer' will fail to convince all but the most hardened free market economists (does one detect Rose Friedman's hand at times?) Against these, one simply cannot mistake the passion with which he writes about the dangers of central control, subsequently acknowledged by Western governments.

Even with the benefit of hindsight, there is much to commend this book, both from the point of view of validity of arguments and as a means of stimulating thought. Highly recommended.

The outstanding question, perhaps, is what would Prof Friedman have made of the current (2008/9) events!