In other words, even a high rate of inflation would not reduce unemployment if inflationary policies became so common as to be expected.

Friedman dealt that analysis a body blow when he argued that it was not the rate of inflation which reduced unemployment but the fact that inflation exceeded expectations. The Keynesians’ belief that government policy could wisely make trade-offs between rates of inflation and rates of unemployment was epitomized in the Phillips Curve, which seemed to lend empirical support to that belief. It is doubtful whether Ronald Reagan could have been elected president in 1980 without the changes in public opinion produced by Friedman’s work in the previous decades. Yet, in the end, no one did more to dethrone both.

Ironically, Friedman began his career as a believer in both Keynesian economics and in the liberals’ vision of the world with which it was so compatible. No small part of Friedman’s achievement was rescuing economics from the pervasive and virtually unquestioned Keynesian orthodoxy that reigned in many places. Milton Friedman may well have been the most important economist of the 20th century, even if John Maynard Keynes was the most famous. Indeed, his television series, 'Free to Choose,' was readily understandable even by people who don’t read books. He could express himself at the highest analytical levels to his fellow economists in academic publications and still write popular books such as 'Capitalism and Freedom' and 'Free to Choose' that could be understood by people who knew nothing about economics. Milton Friedman was one of the very few intellectuals with both genius and common sense.

Thomas sowell free to choose