How mainstream econ promotes socialism

Milton Friedman is a good example of a great champion of free markets whose economics betrayed his philosophy. Few economists enjoyed the ear of the common man in the way Friedman held it. He wrote regularly for popular magazines, appeared on TV talk shows and produced a wonderful documentary series for PBS on the miracles produced by free markets. Yet the mainstream economic theories he championed undermined his speech. Here is how.

The first clue comes from the fact that economists trained in the German historical school , known as socialists of the chair, created the American Economic Association to promote German style socialism in the US. Bismarck, the prime minister in Germany in the late 1800s, had implemented almost all of the socialist agenda by the 1890s in what became known as the “welfare state.” Convinced that Germany was inventing the cutting edge of history, the American economists determined to bring such “progress” home.