Free to Choose
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (1980) is a book by economists Milton and Rose D. Friedman, accompanied by a ten-part series broadcast on public television, that advocates free market principles. It was primarily a response to an earlier landmark book and television series The Age of Uncertainty, by the noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1976.
Overview
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement maintains that the free market works best for all members of a society, provides examples of how the free market engenders prosperity, and maintains that it can solve problems where other approaches have failed. Published in January 1980, the 297 page book contains 10 chapters. The book was on the United States best sellers list for 5 weeks.
PBS broadcast the programs, beginning in January 1980. It was filmed at the invitation of Robert Chitester, the owner of WQLN-TV. It was based on a 15-part series of taped public lectures and question-and-answer sessions. The general format was that of Milton Friedman visiting and narrating a number of success and failure stories in history, which he attributes to free-market capitalism or the lack thereof (e.g., Hong Kong is commended for its free markets, while India is excoriated for relying on centralized planning especially for its protection of its traditional textile industry). Following the primary show, Friedman would engage in discussion moderated by Robert McKenzie with a number of selected debaters drawn from trade unions, academy and the business community, such as Donald Rumsfeld (then of G.D. Searle & Company) and Frances Fox Piven of City University of New York. The interlocutors would offer objections to or support for the proposals put forward by Friedman, who would in turn respond. After the final episode, Friedman sat down for an interview with Lawrence Spivak.
The series was rebroadcast in 1990 with Linda Chavez moderating the episodes. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, Steve Allen and George Shultz give personal introductions for each episode. This time, after the documentary part, Friedman sits down with a single opponent to debate the issues raised in the episode.
Guest debaters
Guest debaters included: Template:Div col
- Gregory Anrig (Commissioner of Massachusetts Department of Education) – Episode 6
- Jagdish Bhagwati (economist) – Episode 2
- Samuel Bowles (economist) – Vol. 3 Episode 5
- William H. Brady (Founder and President of W.H. Brady Co.) – Episode 8
- Clarence J. Brown (politician) – Episode 9
- Joan Claybrook (Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) – Episode 7
- Barber Conable (politician, President of the World Bank) – Episode 1
- John Coons (law professor, school choice activist) – Episode 6
- Robert Crandall (Brookings Institution economist) – Episode 7
- Richard Deason (IBEW union leader) – Episode 2
- James R. Dumpson (bureaucrat, social worker, academic) – Episode 4
- Otmar Emminger (President of Deutsche Bundesbank) – Episode 9
- Bob Galvin (CEO of Motorola, Inc.) – Episode 1
- Ernest Green (U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor) – Episode 8
- Michael Harrington (author, academic, activist) – Episode 1
- Nicholas von Hoffman (journalist, political commentator/columnist) – Episode 3
- Helen Hughes (economist) – Episode 2
- Peter Jay (economist, journalist, diplomat) – Episodes 3, 5
- Robert Lampman (economist) – Episode 4
- Richard Landau (medical professor) – Episode 7
- Robert Lekachman (economist) – Episode 3
- William McChesney Martin (former Chairman of the Federal Reserve) – Episode 9
- Helen Bohen O'Bannon (economist, bureaucrat, social worker) – Episode 4
- Kathleen O'Reilly (Consumer Federation of America consumer advocate) – Episode 7
- Russell W. Peterson (chemist, politician) – Episode 1
- Frances Fox Piven (academic) – Episode 5
- Donald Rumsfeld (politician, President of G. D. Searle & Company) – Episode 2
- Albert Shanker (President of United Federation of Teachers and American Federation of Teachers teachers' unions) – Episode 6
- Thomas Shannon (Executive Director of the National School Boards Association) – Episode 6
- Thomas Sowell (economist, author, columnist) – Episodes 4, 5
- Beryl Wayne Sprinkel (Executive Vice President of Harris Bank) – Episode 9
- Peter Temin (economist) – Episode 3
- Lynn R. Williams (International Secretary of United Steelworkers) – Episode 8
- Walter E. Williams (economist, political commentator) – Episode 8
