Keep Friedman Spirit Alive

Stephen Moore relates a recent lunch with the late, great, economist Milton Friedman in today’s WSJ Political Diary.

I had lunch not long ago with Milton Friedman, the most influential economist of the past half-century or more, who died yesterday at 94. I asked him the three economic policy changes he would recommend to President Bush to achieve a high rate of economic growth. His first prescription was free trade: "I think that free trade is the most important single way to promote growth. The Bush administration has protected three industries: steel, timber, and agriculture. Those should all be repealed," he advised.

No. 2 was cutting government spending "as much as you possibly can." Friedman long maintained that resources contribute more to human betterment and happiness in private hands than government hands.

But it was on school vouchers, a cause he had championed for 50 years, that his passion for improving the lot of humanity through sound economics shined most brightly. "The third policy, which really should be the first, is to move however quickly you can to get to a competitive educational system. One of the most negative features in our society is the national educational system. There is no other branch of government, no other branch of the economy, let alone the government, which is so technologically backward. We teach kids the way we did two centuries ago. That's because 90% of our kids go to government schools. And most of the other 10% go to privately subsidized non-profit, mostly religious, schools. All should go to a form of free market school. There would be a revolution in schooling if you could get a competitive educational system with parents deciding where their children should go, with parents paying for them either from their own pocket or through a government subsidy which they right now get but cannot control."

The civil rights issue of our time: rescue poor, inner-city kids from union-ruined public education. Continuing to fight will keep Milton & Rose's dream alive.

Education Posted by jk at November 17, 2006 12:59 PM