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Consumer theory and firm theory and other agent theory all have optimizing behavior as the benchmark. This was well before Friedman, see Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) for an example.
I threads of all his work today, even if some are not longer worth mining.
S.
Friedman, later in his life became an staunch libertarian and was one of the founders of CATO. While his early work on monetary theory has stood up quite well, the tenets of the libertarian Friedman seem more based upon a religion than economics. To the extent that they are based upon economics, it's very simplistic.
In his interview he ascribes human motivation to be one of greed, or, as he stated, self interest. While some might believe in economic theory as a guide to the complex navigations of human interaction, it would seem obvious that, cooperation, as a collective of self interest, served mankind for a long time.
It has been the belief that our individual desires, trumping that of the collective need, is a valid construct for the betterment of society. Friedman saw the government as the antithesis of that individualism, for what it's worth, I don't think he understood the concept of capitalism as the juggernaut of state/corporate power that serves itself, with little care for the totality of any nations citizen's.
The fact of the uneveness of the distribution of wealth never got in Milton's way when he was defending the status quo of our corporate/state alliance that he viewed as two separate entities. On another note, economics is one area of expertise wherein the individual economist can propose a solution pulled from the thin air of theoretical speculation, trying hard to fit the human side of things into neat packages of abstract certainty, all the while knowing the odds of such an exercise, to possibly be, nothing more than an educated guess...
It is worth repeating again the definition of Greed:
greed
n. An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth:
The first thing Friedman is doing here is pushing the boundaries of Greed to where they no longer constitute reprehensible behavior----it is perfedtly meritorious to wish to have more than you deserve.
Then, he says, everyone else is running on Greed, so America must set aside its moral virtue and do so, as well. Not just in global economics, but every American is justified in using greed in his commerce with other Americans.
It is the classic defense of cheaters and drug dealers. Everyone else is doing it.
Whether or not Friedman expresses sound economics, it is immoral economics, and any such gains are ill-gotten.
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Greed is Good - Newsweek
