Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 12, 2026
Milton Friedman: The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness
"The great innovation of Hayek and Mises was to create a defense of the free market using the language of freedom and revolutionary change. … Even as the welfare state and the mixed economy were coming into existence, Hayek and Mises set as their political imperative tearing them down."— Kim Phillips-Fein.
The American among the Three Musketeers of neoliberalism was Milton Friedman, who taught for years at the Chicago School of Economics and has become a figure of cult worship on the economic and political right in America.
He was a speechwriter for Barry Goldwater’s 1960 campaign for president, and a formal advisor to, among others, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Donald Rumsfeld (who he pushed Reagan to take on as his VP instead of GHW Bush in 1980).[xli]
Friedman was the functional theologian among the three; he absolutely believed that there was a near-mystical power to unregulated markets and that virtually any sort of governmental intervention in or regulation of the marketplace produced economic distortions that prevented capitalism from working its magic.
