Remembering Rose Friedman- Chicago Boyz

Chicago Boyz remembers a Chicago girl, via Ukraine.

One reason these times are as bad as they are is that even good people are terribly ignorant about freedom, including economic freedom, and what it means, and how it works, and what it means to lose it. Revisiting the popular work of Milton and Rose Friedman, and introducing other people to it who were not even born when Free to Choose was on television, could do a lot of good.

Eric Holder wants the American people, a nation of cowards, as he calls us, to have a national conversation about race.

I propose instead that the American people have a national conversation about freedom.

TGIFriedman- Farewell to Rose Friedman

Rose Friedman was an outstanding economist in her own right, and happened to be married to Milton Friedman, who could communicate free market principles better through television than anyone in history. Given that, Milton tended to dominate the video appearances, though they were true partners in their work as well as life, and Rose Friedman was a true co-author of the landmark "Free to Choose".

I contacted the Friedman Foundation this week asking if they had video of Rose that we could use in our TGIFriedman segment. YouTube is filled with clips from the telegenic Milton, but not of the shy Rose. They agreed, and are starting to upload their archival footage.

First up is a discussion they had with Milton and Rose Friedman in 2004 on a subject close to our hearts at the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, the importance of state-based think tanks.

Rose Friedman, Economist and Collaborator, Dies at 98

The New York Times eulogizes Rose Friedman.

They wrote other books together, including “Free to Choose” (1980), an explication of free-market theory for a general audience, which was published in conjunction with a 10-part series on the Public Broadcasting Service; “The Tyranny of the Status Quo,” an argument for amending the Constitution to constrain the scope of government (1982); and “Two Lucky People” (1998), a dual memoir, which discusses their remarkable partnership.

“Econ-nerds through and through,” David Brooks called the couple, reviewing the book in The New York Times Book Review and citing Mr. Friedman’s wistful remark, “I can recall many a pleasant summer evening discussing consumption data and theory in front of a blazing fire.”

They were known for being both romantically and intellectually suited to each other, often appearing in public holding hands, and though often debating — Ms. Friedman was known as the less compromising of the two — rarely, if ever bickering. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in 2006, only a few months before her husband died, Ms. Friedman said the 2003 invasion of Iraq created the first major argument of their life together. She was in favor; he was not.

Remembering Rose Friedman

The Friedman Foundation has sad news. Rose Friedman has died.

She will be remembered both as a talented economist and an influential advocate of freedom. Her economic work helped to discredit the idea of government management of the economy, rolling back policies that were hindering wealth creation and thus helping extend the blessings of prosperity to millions around the world. And as a standard-bearer for human liberty, she contributed to the galvanizing of public opinion – especially in the 1980s – against the growing encroachments of intrusive government.

She will also be remembered as both the professional partner and beloved wife and friend of her late husband of 68 years, Milton Friedman.

Brian Doherty writes about Rose Friedman's legacy at Reason.

Because she was collaborator on his major works of popular political and economic philosophy and advocacy, most importantly Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose, she deserves her fair share of the glory and regard her husband Milton got. Consult my March 2007 article in Reason magazine for the ideas and accomplishments of the Friedmans in helping make America a place that is in some respects actually freer, and in most respects an intellectual environment where the idea of human liberty has wider play than it did before they did their long, arduous work of explaining the benefits of liberty, often against great opposition.

Because she was the less celebrated and less public partner of one of the giants of economics, and of 20th Century thinking as a whole, Rose Friedman may be overshadowed in history. She should not be overshadowed today. Rest in Peace.