Claim profile

Milton Friedman

American economist and statistician (1912–2006)

  • Fame73.8
  • Momentum0.0
  • Academics rank#94
Source-basedFalling
  • Fame73.8
  • Momentum0.0
  • Academics rank#94
  • Wikipedia66.8K
Lived 1912–2006, aged 94United States
United States flagUnited StatesAcademicsAcademic
  • Wikipedia
    101 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1912–2006
    Aged 94
  • Known for
    The Shock Doctrine
    2009
Summary
Updated 2026-06-21

He spent half a century dismantling the economic consensus of his time — first challenging how governments manage unemployment and inflation, then rewriting monetary policy itself. His 1976 Nobel Prize confirmed what markets already knew: the Chicago economist had moved the needle on everything from central banking to drug laws.

Biography

About

Born July 31, 1912, Friedman led the Chicago school's intellectual charge against Keynesian orthodoxy, introducing the permanent income hypothesis to explain consumer behavior and among the first to model consumption smoothing. Through the 1960s he theorized a natural rate of unemployment and predicted stagflation by arguing the Phillips curve was vertical in the long run — a forecast that arrived on schedule. He championed monetarism: steady, small growth in money supply over volatile intervention. After retiring from Chicago in 1977, he advised Reagan and Thatcher while his 1962 Capitalism a…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman
said
Make politics an avocation, not a vocation.
— As quoted in “Milton Friedman: A Tribute”, David R. Henderson, antiwar.com, (Nov. 20, 2006), told to Henderson (May, 1970)
Milton Friedman
said
I have no right to coerce someone else, because I cannot be sure that I'm right and he is wrong.
— "Say 'No' to Intolerance", Liberty magazine, vol. 4, no. 6, (July 1991) pp. 17-20.
Milton Friedman
said
Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
— Adapted from "Monetary Correction: A Proposal for Escalator Clauses to Reduce the Costs of Ending Inflation" (July 1974), see also AEI
Milton Friedman
said
They had cliche answers but only to their self-created straw-men.
— “Schools at Chicago3.” University of Chicago Record, 1974
Milton Friedman
said
There was nothing in these views to repel a student; or to make Keynes attractive.
— Milton Friedman, "Comments on the Critics", Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 80, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1972)
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Where to find them

Platforms

By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Falling
73.8
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Historical26.4
Now attention13.6
Source confidence65.0
Completeness75.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
—
Category rank
#94
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence