Talk:Milton Friedman

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Milton Friedman is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Milton Friedman has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 8, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed
February 27, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
February 29, 2008	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
September 12, 2008	Good article reassessment	Kept
May 23, 2021	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
Current status: Former featured article candidate, current good article

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Conflicting, or at a minimum, disjointed statements to resolve

The end of Friedman's experience teaching at UW-Madison is cast in two different lights, in two sections. In Public Service, the article asserts that he left Madison due to antisemitism. In Academic Career: Early Years, Friedman left as a result of differing opinions on US involvement in World War II. These are incongruent, as far as I can tell. Ndemarco (talk) 12:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

both influences were at work and two sides of same coin. , antisemitism was silent and pro/anti-war was noisy. they are locked together (antisemites in those days were anti-war, Jews like Friedman were accused of being unamerican warmongers) Rjensen (talk) 13:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How is this a "good article"?

I really wonder how this article received the "good article" mark. Granted, this article has a good amount of references and citations, but it is completely one-sided in its presentation of Friedman's ideas. There is hardly any criticism - of which there is plenty - of his economical thought and theories. How is this possible? It seems this article has been made primarily by Friedman's supporters and admirers. GoneWithThePuffery (talk) 21:26, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a section devoted to criticism of his published works. There is also noted criticism of him elsewhere in the article. Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:16, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do have to admit though, one thing I've always thought was missing here is a mention of Naomi Klein's book, 'Shock Doctrine'. It was in the Further Reading section at one point. (See the talk archives for that discussion.) That's been one of the more notable criticisms of Friedman I can think of over the last 20 years. (Although she is not an economist.) Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:48, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rja13ww33, that's true, however, even the criticism in the article is sometimes completely weird, in the sense that it is brought more like a compliment than as a fundamental point of critique. For example: "Although the book was described by the Cato Institute as among the greatest economics books in the 20th century, and A Monetary History of the United States is widely considered to be among the most influential economics books ever made, it has endured criticisms for its conclusion that the Federal Reserve was to blame for the Great Depression." Compare: Although dictator X has been described as a phenomenal guy who is widely considered to be completely awesome, he has endured some criticism here and there....

My point is: for such a controversial figure, the article is in my opinion completely out of balance. Although his economical ideas are highly controversial and contested from the 1970s up until now, this is hardly reflected in the article, and even completely absent in the lede (which is far too big, but that's another matter...). GoneWithThePuffery (talk) 02:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did Milton Friedman oppose the Iraq war?

@Rja13ww33 Did you read the reason that I provided for my "citation needed" tag? The quotations from Milton Friedman that are provided on the page do not support the claim that he actually opposed the Iraq war. They only indicate that he thought it damaged US reputation.

Here is my full citation needed tag which you removed and it lists the reason that I provided for why I want a citation.

You must not remove a valid citation needed tag (nor make spurious claims about whether or not he supported the war on the basis of quotations that don't support your claim).

---

citation needed | Naomi Klein apparently says otherwise and refers to an interview he gave to the German magazine Focus but unfortunately that article can no longer be found and the link is broken

That's not a proper citation. If you have a RS, you need to give it....but that doesn't mean you get to ignore existing RS sources. Where RS sources differ, we include them all (with proper WEIGHT). As far as the statement the source doesn't support the claim....that is wrong. Source #143 (on p.232) says: "He opposed the Gulf war in 1991. He thought that, although the United States should not have militarily intervened in Iraq in 2003, having done so it should see this involvement through to a satisfactory completion."Rja13ww33 (talk) 21:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]