Blackwell Reference Online

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Leading monetarist, exponent of positive economics of the Chicago school, Nobel Prize winner, and doyen of the liberal N ew right . He challenged the postwar Keynesian orthodoxy by (i) explaining the 1930s depression in the United States in terms of government failure – an inappropriate reduction in the quantity of money in circulation between 1919 and 1933; and (ii) denying the supposed trade-off between inflation and unemployment. Inflation was explained in terms of the quantity of money in circulation; unemployment in terms of impediments to the market. He was an advocate of the retrenchment of government activity and the dispersal of its power, who believed that “competitive capitalism” is “a necessary condition for political freedom.” 1956 : Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money . , 1962 : Capitalism and Freedom . 1980 : Free to Choose . ... log in or subscribe to read full text