S6:E24 Milton Friedman and School Choice

S6:E24 Milton Friedman and School Choice

by | Apr 8, 2025 | Episodes

Milton Friedman advocated for school vouchers

Milton Friedman is one of the most important economists of the last hundred years. His ideas were quoted by many evangelical writers in the 1970s and 80s, despite his not being a Christian and few of his ideas being in the Bible. Figures like Jerry Falwell loved the guy. Ronald Reagan adopted many of his ideas, though they disagreed on things like the increasing national debt. Friedman played a major role in the popularization of the school voucher concept. Essentially, some people want to allow parents to have a say in which school their children attend. If they want to take the children to a private school, they believe that the government should give them a certain amount of money that would have gone to the public school and give it to the private one. Those who disagree say that this would defund already underfunded schools. Friedman also believed that teachers should not necessarily be certified and that the free market would weed out the bad ones.

Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative

Stanford professor Jennifer Burns (author of Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative) returns to help Chris explore this complicated subject.

Sources:

  • Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns
  • Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
  • Free to Choose
  • A helpful Britannica article on Friedman
  • Listen, America! by Jerry Falwell. Paperback, August 1980 reprint version Bantam edition
  • Divided We Stand by Marjorie Spruill
  • Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman

Discussion Questions:

  • Had you heard of Friedman before this episode?
  • What are school vouchers?
  • How could school vouchers be seen by some as a tool of segregation?
  • What would it mean if parents had to keep track of every teacher their children learned under?
  • How are schools currently funded in the US? Why does that matter? How are some schools wealthy while others are poor?
  • What should be the role of wealthy people when it comes to education?
S6:E23 Milton Friedman vs. John Maynard Keynes

S6:E23 Milton Friedman vs. John Maynard Keynes

by | Mar 25, 2025 | Episodes

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Is Laissez-faire really fair?

Milton Friedman may be the most famous American economist. His research and theories have profoundly shaped the modern American economy. But few of us can clearly articulate what he taught and what it means for our times. Friedman’s career was defined by the aftermath of the Great Depression. He worked in the government administering the New Deal, but never really agreed with it. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago and built a department around him that taught a version of free-market economics known as monetarism. Essentially, monetarism is the idea that inflation is a product of how much money is in circulation. Friedman did not like the Federal Reserve or the gold standard, instead, advocating for a standard 4% increase in the money supply every year that would not be shifted. By setting a rule, he hoped to do away with an entire governmental department.

Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative

Friedman and his co-authors ventured into areas that other economists thought, perhaps, unwise. They used economics to explain things like marriage and school choice. He was also a proponent of school vouchers.

Stanford professor Jennifer Burns joins Chris today to explore the many facets of Milton Friedman. This is the first of two parts.

Sources:

Discussion Questions:

  • Had you heard of Friedman before this episode?
  • If so, what did you know about him?
  • What does “laissez-faire” mean in economic terms?
  • Does it line up with the Bible in any direct way?
  • Why do you think so many conservative Christians lean toward laissez-faire?
  • How bad was the Great Depression?
  • If you had worked for the government during the Depression, what would you have advocated?
  • Why are some people against the New Deal?
  • What did the New Deal mean to starving people during the Depression?
  • How does a fear of communism play into anti-New Deal sentiment?