Political freedoms may not flow naturally from economic freedoms
The lives of two recently deceased nonagenarians, one a brutal military dictator, Augusto Pinochet, and the other a brilliant and influential economist, Milton Friedman, came into brief contact three decades back – and it landed the economist in political controversy.
Friedman met Pinochet in 1975 during a lecture tour to Chile, and critics of Friedman, unfairly charged him, a champion of freedom, with endorsing the military regime. What did soften him somewhat toward that regime was its eagerness to listen to the economic advice of the “Chicago boys” on the value of free markets. Beyond the ephemeral oddities of personal behavior, there is a substantive issue worth pondering, particularly on the occasion of “Milton Friedman Day,” celebrated on January 29, 2007.
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