Is Milton Friedman an artist or a scientist?

David Colander

Journal of Economic Methodology, 1995, vol. 2, issue 1, 105-122

Abstract: Most economists will agree that Milton Friedman is a brilliant economist. Yet, the majority assessment is that his work is ideologically flawed, and that the Marshallian economics he advocates has been superseded by Walrasian economics. In this paper I argue that the reason for this negative assessment is that Friedman, like Alfred Marshall before him, tried to straddle a fence between policy and logical-deductive theory, combining the artistic science of the historical and institutional school with the logical-deductive science of economics under a single category which Friedman called positive economics. This combination worked for Marshall, but did not work for Friedman, I argue that the profession's criticisms of Friedman stand, if he is viewed as a positive scientist as the profession currently defines positive economics - as logical deductive exercises. But that, I argue, is not how Friedman should be viewed; he should, instead, be viewed as an economic artist - as an applied policy economist extraordinaire - whose primary flaw has been his failure to make clear the importance of the artistic component of his economic science.

Keywords: applied policy; Friedman; Marshall; methodology; normative; positive (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1995
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DOI: 10.1080/13501789500000005

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