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I have to admit that when I got home yesterday and when hearing on the radio, first thing, that Milton Friedman was dead, I broke into a spontaneous (no, really) chorus of "Ding, dong the witch is dead."
For all the notes, postings, etc. that have been posted that spout about his love of personal freedom, there is a question that is buried in your essay. The first government to adopt Neo-Liberal economic policies, and the government he continued to advise, was Chile. That is, Pinochet's Chile. For all his arguing that true freedom is found in economic freedom (and he did write a large popular book that made just this argument), then how can he ever justify his direct involvement in one of the most oppressive governments in the western hemisphere.
This is not the place to argue with the many problems with his economic theories, though our current economic situation (with stagnant to falling real wages, disappearing manufacturing base, disappearing middle class) should at least be cause for pause. For further (and better than I can provide) economic arguments, I will point to the Post-Autistic economics movement (it's google-able, as it were). But this history of Chile should cause all of us to pause when reading yet another glowing tribute.
