100) Milton Friedman, uma biografia
BOOKS
Milton Friedman
Too faithful a portrait
The Economist, Feb 22nd 2007
THE best word to describe Lanny Ebenstein's life of Milton Friedman, finished just days before he died in November, is economical. Its subject would no doubt count this a virtue. He was a man who stopped grading student exam papers after the first 1,000 words; who lived tidily within his means even during the Great Depression; and who once boiled down his capitalist vision to just three words: free private property.
Readers might have hoped for a bit more fat with their lean. John Kenneth Galbraith's biographer, Richard Parker, served up 800 pages, full of spit and crackle; Robert Skidelsky needed three volumes to take the measure of John Maynard Keynes. By those standards, Mr Ebenstein's biography lacks ambition and heft. But it is quite handy. It marshals lots of material, and to devotees the bibliographical essay at the end may be worth the cover price in itself.
Mr Ebenstein is not wholly to blame for this book's modesty. Unlike Galbraith, who reserved a good part of his genius for his life, Friedman's personal transactions add little dash or drama to his story. He liked woodwork. He met his wife, Rose, in an economics class. The book's only moment of romantic tension arrives when she refuses his kiss at the end of their first date. If Galbraith enters his biography like a character in a Graham Greene novel, Friedman is introduced in the language of a school report: “In addition to his intellect, he has a strong work ethic, an engaging personality, and an excellent sense of humour.” Mr Ebenstein too, it seems, likes working with wood.
The first third of the book gives an absorbing account of the making of an economist. Friedman's scholarship adhered to the carpenters' maxim: “measure twice, cut once”. Blessed with a quick mind, capable of the deepest of incisions, Friedman also had the patience for meticulous statistical labour. During the war he crunched numbers for his country, calculating the optimum number of pellets in anti-aircraft shells.
These twin virtues are apparent in the middle third of this life, which lightly glosses over Friedman's most celebrated insights, such as his refutation of the bleak notion that capitalism is doomed to underconsumption, and his reassessment of the Great Depression. Here too Mr Ebenstein's quandary becomes clear: Friedman was an open book, a fine expositor of his ideas and his life. This makes his biographer's job easier, but also less necessary.
Mr Ebenstein's footnotes contain almost 100 references to the memoir, “Two Lucky People”, that Friedman and his wife published in 1998. “What I say to one person, I say to everyone,” he told Mr Ebenstein in their first interview. The last third of this book, which should have been a fascinating account of his role as a public intellectual, instead recounts Friedman saying much the same thing to everyone, from American presidents to Chinese communists.
Given that Friedman has left his admirers nothing to expose, and little need to expound, what is there left for a biographer to do? Argue with him. This book tells of exhilarating debates, stretching late into the night, but it does not take part in one. The biographer does not share his subject's taste for playing devil's advocate.
This is a pity. Friedman has now been laid to rest, but his ideas have not. Should Catholic adoption agencies be allowed to turn away gay couples—a debate now raging in Britain? Friedman would have had a view. Many people now back his proposal for school vouchers, as a way to get the most out of state schools. But Friedman was keen to get the state out of schooling altogether. No one seems to like big government any more, but Friedman wanted a state so small it would cost less than 15% of national income. Even in his 80s, this book reports, he would occasionally hop onto his grandson's skateboard. It is easy to think that he never learned how to stop.
Of one of his early Chicago mentors, the great economist once wrote: “He taught us that an objective, critical examination of a man's ideas is a truer tribute than slavish repetition of his formulas.” This biography will do for now. But Friedman still awaits a truer tribute.
Milton Friedman: A Biography.
By Lanny Ebenstein.
Palgrave Macmillan; 272 pages; $27.95 and £16.99
Milton Friedman
Too faithful a portrait
The Economist, Feb 22nd 2007
THE best word to describe Lanny Ebenstein's life of Milton Friedman, finished just days before he died in November, is economical. Its subject would no doubt count this a virtue. He was a man who stopped grading student exam papers after the first 1,000 words; who lived tidily within his means even during the Great Depression; and who once boiled down his capitalist vision to just three words: free private property.
Readers might have hoped for a bit more fat with their lean. John Kenneth Galbraith's biographer, Richard Parker, served up 800 pages, full of spit and crackle; Robert Skidelsky needed three volumes to take the measure of John Maynard Keynes. By those standards, Mr Ebenstein's biography lacks ambition and heft. But it is quite handy. It marshals lots of material, and to devotees the bibliographical essay at the end may be worth the cover price in itself.
Mr Ebenstein is not wholly to blame for this book's modesty. Unlike Galbraith, who reserved a good part of his genius for his life, Friedman's personal transactions add little dash or drama to his story. He liked woodwork. He met his wife, Rose, in an economics class. The book's only moment of romantic tension arrives when she refuses his kiss at the end of their first date. If Galbraith enters his biography like a character in a Graham Greene novel, Friedman is introduced in the language of a school report: “In addition to his intellect, he has a strong work ethic, an engaging personality, and an excellent sense of humour.” Mr Ebenstein too, it seems, likes working with wood.
The first third of the book gives an absorbing account of the making of an economist. Friedman's scholarship adhered to the carpenters' maxim: “measure twice, cut once”. Blessed with a quick mind, capable of the deepest of incisions, Friedman also had the patience for meticulous statistical labour. During the war he crunched numbers for his country, calculating the optimum number of pellets in anti-aircraft shells.
These twin virtues are apparent in the middle third of this life, which lightly glosses over Friedman's most celebrated insights, such as his refutation of the bleak notion that capitalism is doomed to underconsumption, and his reassessment of the Great Depression. Here too Mr Ebenstein's quandary becomes clear: Friedman was an open book, a fine expositor of his ideas and his life. This makes his biographer's job easier, but also less necessary.
Mr Ebenstein's footnotes contain almost 100 references to the memoir, “Two Lucky People”, that Friedman and his wife published in 1998. “What I say to one person, I say to everyone,” he told Mr Ebenstein in their first interview. The last third of this book, which should have been a fascinating account of his role as a public intellectual, instead recounts Friedman saying much the same thing to everyone, from American presidents to Chinese communists.
Given that Friedman has left his admirers nothing to expose, and little need to expound, what is there left for a biographer to do? Argue with him. This book tells of exhilarating debates, stretching late into the night, but it does not take part in one. The biographer does not share his subject's taste for playing devil's advocate.
This is a pity. Friedman has now been laid to rest, but his ideas have not. Should Catholic adoption agencies be allowed to turn away gay couples—a debate now raging in Britain? Friedman would have had a view. Many people now back his proposal for school vouchers, as a way to get the most out of state schools. But Friedman was keen to get the state out of schooling altogether. No one seems to like big government any more, but Friedman wanted a state so small it would cost less than 15% of national income. Even in his 80s, this book reports, he would occasionally hop onto his grandson's skateboard. It is easy to think that he never learned how to stop.
Of one of his early Chicago mentors, the great economist once wrote: “He taught us that an objective, critical examination of a man's ideas is a truer tribute than slavish repetition of his formulas.” This biography will do for now. But Friedman still awaits a truer tribute.
Milton Friedman: A Biography.
By Lanny Ebenstein.
Palgrave Macmillan; 272 pages; $27.95 and £16.99
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