Like many young people who read and loved Ayn Rand’s works, I adopted not just her ideas, but also some of her baggage. The problem was that it was hard for me, at 17, to decide what was baggage and what wasn’t. Rand sometimes went overboard but not always. Her denunciations as “evil” of certain people and ideas were justified: Hitler and Nazism and Stalin and communism come to mind. But what about my great Aunt Ruby, one of the neatest old people I knew? Was she evil for voting for the New Democratic Party, Canada’s socialist party? For a while I thought so. I don’t think that distorted thinking would have lasted long had I never heard of Milton Friedman. But Friedman hastened my transition.
This one of the paragraphs in my article “Milton Friedman: A Personal Tribute,” The Freeman, May 2007. I came across a hard copy while trying to organize the chaos that is my office.
Rereading the article made me realize how much I miss him. We corresponded from 1973 to the early 2000s. In much of the correspondence he would give firm but benevolent advice. He once referred to his role as that of a “Dutch Uncle.” I don’t like unsolicited advice, as my friends know, and I rarely asked Milton for advice. But he was the exception. I welcomed it because he cared enough to take time from his busy day to give it.
Another passage:
He was nice; and he didn’t isolate himself among those who agreed with him but, instead, stepped out in the bigger world. I know that niceness doesn’t mean much to many people who spend their lives steeped in ideas, but it meant a lot to me. I had already sensed, from reading and reading about Rand and Rothbard, that there seemed to be a package deal in libertarianism: to hold the idea of freedom in the world, one needed to attack those who disagreed and surround oneself with those who agreed. I didn’t want to be that way. I had always wanted to be nice and, except for the few months after I read The Fountainhead, when I announced to my mother that I would no longer go to the supermarket for her because that would be self-sacrifice, I was nice.
I also wanted to avoid the kind of isolation from intellectual and generational equals that Rand and Rothbard had chosen, and to be in the bigger world. I later saw, when watching Friedman’s TV series Free to Choose in 1980, just how well Friedman did at disagreeing without being disagreeable. He welcomed all comers, no matter how they disagreed, and he never hit below the belt. I was becoming this way too, but he helped me get there faster.
Read the whole thing, which isn’t long.
P.S. Here’s my bio of Milton in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
READER COMMENTS
Thomas L Hutcheson
Aug 2 2023 at 10:55am
I just wish we paid more attention to his monetary policy ideas outside of the very specific idea of targeting M1. I think he saw clearly even if he did not articulate it that there are real income costs to too much as well as to too little inflation and that that it is the Fed’s job and no one else’s to fid the sweet spot..
David Seltzer
Aug 2 2023 at 4:23pm
David, as you miss Friedman, you honor his memory with the what you’ve learned from him. I’ve found you to be fair and civil when disagreeing with a comment. That’s not always the case for those who teach.
David Henderson
Aug 2 2023 at 5:07pm
Thanks, David.
Monte
Aug 2 2023 at 6:20pm
Bless his memory. Although Friedman could win a debate with his Duchenne smile and disarming personality alone, he more frequently won because he simply understood his opponents arguments better than they did. One notable exception, of course, being James Tobin, who – in terms of a basketball game – controlled the boards, while Friedman controlled the ball.
David Henderson
Aug 2 2023 at 11:43pm
Duchenne smile. I learned a new term. Thanks, Monte.
Jim Glass
Aug 2 2023 at 6:25pm
I know that niceness doesn’t mean much to many people who spend their lives steeped in ideas, but it meant a lot to me. I had already sensed, from reading and reading about Rand and Rothbard, that there seemed to be a package deal in libertarianism: to hold the idea of freedom in the world, one needed to attack those who disagreed
Libertarianism and every other -ism. In the big scheme of things it is much more important to be nice, and fundamentally kind to other people, if perhaps a little intellectually soft, than to be dedicated to big “true ideas.” The founders and dedicated believers of big true ideas have driven dictatorships, wars, cults, purges, cancellations, burnings-at-the-stake, and huge family fights over the holidays, since the beginning of humanity.
People who are fundamentally nice, and kind to others, are incapable of those things.
how well Friedman did at disagreeing without being disagreeable
Today’s world really, really needs remedial lessons on this.
Jim Glass
Aug 2 2023 at 7:09pm
how well Friedman did at disagreeing without being disagreeable
To be clear, I completely agree with you about Friedman. He took a lot of abuse…
Milton Friedman interrupted by left-wing activist at the Nobel prize ceremony
… and was always a completely composed class act about it.
I’m sure part of his great influence came from this composure and the good will he expressed to others, even when could have been justifiably provoked.
Being smart and snarky about about it, trying to dominate, may feel good in the moment but cost a lot in the long run. I remember back in the 2000s, Krugman being openly aggrieved about how he didn’t get an influential position in the Clinton administration like Summers and so many of his peers did, and even his buddy DeLong observing ‘maybe he shouldn’t have been so nasty to even his friends and allies.’ On the other side of the aisle I had a similar impression of Thomas Sowell, first-class substance often delivered with more snarkiness than helped him.
Many people think nice and kind equals weak, and they don’t want to look weak. But nice & kind plus strong & controlled is the way to maximize the influence of whatever level intellect one has. Friedman is a great example.
David Henderson
Aug 2 2023 at 11:46pm
I particularly like your second comment.
David Henderson
Aug 2 2023 at 11:45pm
Thanks, Jim. I agree except on the point about being intellectually soft being better than being dedicated to big ideas. Friedman managed to be intellectually hard and yet nice.
steve
Aug 2 2023 at 7:11pm
If he were alive I am sure he would be glad to read what you have written. I appreciate your willingness to engage and the way you do it and I am glad to hear he paid a part in encouraging that, though I thought it was in the Canadian constitution that everyone has to be nice? (I was forced to read Rand when young but if my takeaway had been refusing to go to the store my parents would have beat me.)
Steve
David Henderson
Aug 2 2023 at 11:49pm
Thanks, steve. I appreciate it.
By the way, when I returned from my vacation on WestJet last week and we landed at SFO, we had to search for where to pick up our bags. The door was closed and locked and we were told they wouldn’t let us in until the bags were all there. This young Canadian whose wife and him I had talked to before and on the flight said that when the doors were opened, we would all swarm in and push each other aside to get our bags. His wife had told me that he grew up in a small town in Alberta. So I said to him, “Not if over the half the people here are Canadian.” He got the joke. Sure enough, we were all pretty polite.
Daniel Merilatt
Aug 3 2023 at 10:15am
I was sitting in class with him along with probably 60 others shortly after his Nobel had been announced. He was talking about his permanent income hypothesis. I, being one of the most intimidated of the intimidated students majority, rarely said anything in class. That day I did. I said something to the effect that I understood what he was saying for small changes in income but what about large one time increases in income, like $160,000 tax free. The class laughed an Mr. Friedman let them. Once they settled, he looked at me and said: “You have obviously have not studied this hypothesis well enough, if you had you would know that to the extent that $160,000 was expected, it would already have been spent.” The class laughed once more.
I miss him too.
David Henderson
Aug 3 2023 at 11:34am
Great story.
Steve Hardy
Aug 3 2023 at 10:23am
It was a great honor and a rare privilege for my wife and me to share an evening with Milton and Rose Friedman after he turned 90. We got this opportunity because of our donation to the Friedman Foundation, so I felt a bit awkward for taking up his time. He surely had enough friends already at his age. Yet he welcomed us warmly and made us feel like we were his closest companions. I will never forget his graciousness.
David Henderson
Aug 3 2023 at 11:35am
That was Milton.
Ray G
Aug 3 2023 at 5:26pm
This discussion reminded me immediately of Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Dowd in the 1950 movie “Harvey”.
Dowd explains to the Doctor, how his mother always told him in this life you can be smart or pleasant. “Well, for years I was smart, I recommend pleasant”
Though I never had the honor to meet him, I followed his writings and interviews with great appreciation. Milton appeared to have mastered both smart and pleasant.
Barry Weiss
Aug 4 2023 at 5:29pm
Listen to him daily. And always learn a little tidbit each time. A hero to millions.
Pierre Lemieux
Aug 7 2023 at 12:44pm
That’s delicious and typical of teenage years and often young adulthood:
Comments are closed.