NCPA Economic Policy Forum & Author Series withDr. Eamonn ButlerMilton Friedman, A Concise Guide to the Ideas and Influence of the Free-Market Economist WHEN: Thursday, March 29, 2012 WHERE: Belo Hall at Belo Mansion Click here to register. |
Called ‘One of the most important economic thinkers of all time’ – Milton Friedman changed the world. From free markets in China to the flat taxes of Eastern Europe, from the debate on drugs to interest rate policy, Friedman’s skill for vivid argument and ideas led to robust and often successful challenges to the economic and political orthodoxies of his day. Relying on big-picture economic analysis and an insistent faith in human freedom, he never failed to change the terms of the debate.
In his book Milton Friedman: A concise guide to the ideas and influence of the free-market economist Dr. Eamonn Butler sets out to explain Friedman’s economic and public policy thinking in a straightforward and accessible way for the general reader and student.
Dr. Butler explains:
- How Friedman undermined Keynesianism and the prevailing wisdom of large-scale economic intervention
- How he demonstrated the true cause of the Great Depression and identified its real culprits
- What Friedman believed really destroys the value of the money in your pocket and how it can be stopped
- Friedman’s arguments for why regulations and minimum- wage laws actually achieve lower standards and greater poverty
- Friedman’s reasons for why big corporations prefer markets that aren’t free, and how high taxation harms the wealthy less than anyone else.
With more, too, on democracy, equality, global trade, education, public services and financial crises, this is a concise but comprehensive guide to the influence of a key 20th century thinker. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about the economist whose work changed everything.
Dr. Eamonn Butler is Director and co-founder of Britain’s leading free-market policy think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, and a leading author and broadcaster on economics and social issues. Westminster insiders look forward each week to his wry online commentary on politics and politicians.
Eamonn is the winner, with his colleague Dr. Madsen Pirie, of the 2010 National Free Enterprise Award, for the greatest contribution to furthering the market economy. He is Vice-President of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international association of distinguished economists and entrepreneurs, founded in 1947 by the Nobel Prize winner F. A. Hayek.
Eamonn is author of books on a wide range of subjects, from economics through psychology to politics. These include easy-read introductions to the economists Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek and Adam Smith, and a short explanation of how markets work, called (modestly) The Best Book on the Market, which he wrote to be “so simple that even politicians can understand it.”