Free to Choose (1980) is a book and a ten-part television series broadcast on public television by economists Milton and Rose D. Friedman that advocates free market principles.
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement maintains that the free market works best for all members of a society, provides examples of how the free market engenders prosperity, and maintains that it can solve problems where other approaches have failed. Published in January 1980, the 297 page book contains 10 chapters.
Milton Friedman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1976. Contrary to normal practice the book was written after the TV series was produced, although the line "Basis for the acclaimed public television triumph" is written on the front cover, using the program transcripts as reference. The book was on the United States best sellers list for 5 weeks.
PBS telecast the series, beginning in January 1980; the general format was that of Dr. Friedman visiting and narrating a number of success and failure stories in history, which Dr. Friedman attributes to capitalism or the lack thereof (e.g. Hong Kong is commended for its free markets, while India is excoriated for relying on centralized planning especially for its protection of its traditional textile industry). Following the primary show, Dr. Friedman would engage in discussion with a number of selected persons, such as Donald Rumsfeld (then of G.D. Searle & Company).
The series was rebroadcast in 1990 with Linda Chavez moderating the episodes. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, Steve Allen and others give personal introductions for each episode in the series. This time, after the documentary part, Friedman sits down with a single opponent to debate the issues raised in the episode.

"I cannot pretend that the present version is the finished treatise that I had in mind (or in youthful dreams) in the earlier years of teaching the course. But it is a much expanded and, I hope, improved version. I have filled in four of the six gaps that I enumerated in the preface to the initial version. The two I have not filled in are industrial organization for reasons given at the end of chapter 6 and the theory of general equilibrium, because there are such good extant expositions of the classical Walrasian general equilibrium approach and I am not competent to present a succinct yet faithful exposition of the more recent general equilibrium developments, particularly in the field of growth models. In addition, I rather suspect that these developments are as yet in a preliminary and unsatisfactory state." – Milton Friedman, from the preface to the revised edition

This work provides a systematic statement of the theoretical position of the Chicago school on monetary economics. Milton Friedman restates the quantity theory of money and discusses the significance of its revival after a period of eclipse by the Keynesian view. Four empirical studies by Phillip Cogan, John J. Klein, Eugene M. Lerner, and Richard T. Selden are provided in support of the theory.
The four studies...of inflation during and after the world wars and in the U.S. over the past century...show a striking regularity in economic response to monetary change. They will be of particular interest to monetary theorists, to empirical investigators in this area, and to economic historians and theorists generally.
CONTENTS: The Quantity Theory of Money...A Restatement (Friedman) * The Monetary Dynamics of Hyperinflation (Cagan) * German Money and Prices, 1932-44 (Klein) * Inflation in the Confederacy, 1861-65 (Lerner) * Monetary Velocity in the United States (Selden)

Writing in the June 1965 issue of the "Economic Journal", Harry G. Johnson begins with a sentence seemingly calibrated to the scale of the book he set himself to review: 'The long-awaited "Monetary History of the United States" by Friedman and Schwartz is in every sense of the term a monumental scholarly achievement - monumental in its sheer bulk, monumental in the definitiveness of its treatment of innumerable issues, large and small ...monumental, above all, in the theoretical and statistical effort and ingenuity that have been brought to bear on the solution of complex and subtle economic issues'.Friedman and Schwartz marshaled massive historical data and sharp analytics to support the claim that monetary policy - steady control of the money supply - matters profoundly in the management of the nation's economy, especially in navigating serious economic fluctuations. In their influential chapter 7, "The Great Contraction" - which Princeton published in 1965 as a separate paperback - they address the central economic event of the century, the Depression. According to Hugh Rockoff, writing in January 1965: 'If Great Depressions could be prevented through timely actions by the monetary authority (or by a monetary rule), as Friedman and Schwartz had contended, then the case for market economies was measurably stronger.' Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2000 for work related to "A Monetary History " as well as to his other Princeton University Press book, "A Theory of the Consumption Function" (1957).

Friedman makes clear once and for all that no one is immune from monetary economics-that is, from the effects of its theory and its practices. He demonstrates through historical events the mischief that can result from misunderstanding the monetary system. Index.

Economics is sometimes divided into two parts: positive economics and normative economics. The former deals with how the economic problem is solved, while the latter deals with how the economic problem should be solved. The effects of price or rent control on the distribution of income are problems of positive economics. The desirability of these effects on income distribution is a problem of normative economics. Within economics, the major division is between monetary theory and price theory. Monetary theory deals with the level of prices in general, with cyclical and other fluctuations in total output, total employment, and the like. Price theory deals with the allocation of resources among different uses, the price of one item relative to another. Prices do three kinds of things. They transmit information, they provide an incentive to users of resources to be guided by this information, and they provide an incentive to owners of resources to follow this information. Milton Friedman's classic book provides the theoretical underpinning for and understanding of prices. Economics is not concerned solely with economic problems. It is a social science, and is therefore concerned primarily with those economic problems whose solutions involve the cooperation and interaction of different individuals. It is concerned with problems involving a single individual only insofar as the individual's behavior has implications for or effects upon other individuals. "Price Theory" is concerned not with economic problems in the abstract, but with how a particular society solves its economic problems.

How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat it poses to individual freedom? In this classic book, Milton Friedman provides the definitive statement of his immensely influential economic philosophy—one in which competitive capitalism serves as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. The result is an accessible text that has sold well over half a million copies in English, has been translated into eighteen languages, and shows every sign of becoming more and more influential as time goes on.

It is a rare professor who greatly alters the thinking of his professional colleagues. It's an even rarer one who helps transform the world. Friedman has done both." - Stephen Chapman, Chicago Tribune How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat it poses to individual freedom? In his classic book, Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman presents his view of the proper role of competitive capitalism - the organization of the bulk of economic activity through private enterprise operating in a free market - as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. He also outlines the role that government should play in a society dedicated to freedom and relying primarily on the market to organize economic activity. Friedman begins with a discussion of the principles of a truly liberal society. He then applies those principles to a range of pressing problems, including monetary policy, discrimination, education, income distribution, welfare, and poverty. The result is a book that has sold well over half a million copies in English, has been translated into eighteen languages, and has become increasingly influential in recent years as more and more governments have moved from highly planned economies to embrace free market economics.

Basis for the Acclaimed Public Television Triumph

"Stimulating, provocative, often infuriating, but well worth reading."--Peter Newman, "Economica"
"His critical blast blows like a north wind against the more pretentious erections of modern economics. It is however a healthy and invigorating blast, without malice and with a sincere regard for scientific objectivity."--K.E. Boulding, "Political Science Quarterly"
"Certainly one of the most engrossing volumes that has appeared recently in economic theory."--William J. Baumol, "Review of Economics and Statistics"

米爾頓‧佛利民(Milton Friedman)以主張自由巿場經濟而知名，曾獲一九七六年諾貝爾經濟學獎。他於一九八零及一九八八年兩度偕同妻子訪問中國，實地考察了當時正在推行的經濟改革的成效，並且與中國人民分享他們的經濟知識和卓見。本書記錄了他兩次中國之行及對中國問題的看法。

Friedman argued that the best way to make sense of saving and spending was not, as Keynes had done, to resort to loose psychological theorizing, but rather to think of individuals as making rational plans about how to spend their wealth over their lifetimes. This wasn't necessarily an anti-Keynesian idea--in fact, the great Keynesian economist Franco Modi-gliani simultaneously and independently made a similar case, with even more care in thinking about rational behavior, in work with Albert Ando. But it did mark a return to classical ways of thinking--and it worked. The details are a bit technical, but Friedman's 'permanent income hypothesis' and the Ando-Modigliani 'life cycle model' resolved several apparent paradoxes about the relationship between income and spending, and remain the foundations of how economists think about spending and saving to this day. -- Paul Krugman New York Times Friedman described Keynes's theory of a declining propensity to consume as 'very imaginative and thoughtful.' But in A Theory of the Consumption Function (1957), he demonstrated that while the hypothesis seemed to make psychological sense, it was empirically false. In relating income to propensity to consume, Keynes had erred in not distinguishing between 'transitory' and 'permanent' income. In fact, consumption does not decline as incomes generally rise. Economists across the political spectrum agreed with Friedman's refutation of Keynes... -- James A. Nuechterlein Commentary

《美国货币史(1867-1960)》以货币存量为主线，研究了美国1867—1960年近一个世纪的货币发展历程，及其对美国一系列重大历史事件的影响。作者通过对货币供应变化和通胀水平的因果关系的细致描绘，证明了货币政策对于一国经济运行的深远影响，尤其是货币在稳定经济周期中的重要地位。全书将繁杂详尽的历史统计材料与具有敏锐洞察力的经济分析完美地融于一体。书中许多视角独特的分析以及具有开创性的研究结论，例如作者关于1929—1933年大萧条的分析和解释，转变了人们的观念，深化了全球金融界对金融市场的理解。
《美国货币史(1867-1960)》被公认为是弗里德曼的影响最为深远和最突出的成就之一，是20世纪具有里程碑意义的经典著作。不仅是经济学者不可或缺的研究参考文献，而且对于各国宏观经济政策的制定，特别是理解全球金融动荡及其政策走向也具有重要借鉴意义。

Friedman and Schwartz's "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960", published in 1963, stands as one of the most influential economics books of the twentieth century. A landmark achievement, the book marshalled massive historical data and sharp analytics to support the claim that monetary policy - steady control of the money supply - matters profoundly in the management of the nation's economy, especially in navigating serious economic fluctuations. The chapter, entitled "The Great Contraction, 1929-33," addressed the central economic event of the century, the Great Depression. Published as a stand-alone paperback in 1965, "The Great Contraction, 1929-1933" argued that the Federal Reserve could have stemmed the severity of the Depression, but failed to exercise its role of managing the monetary system and ameliorating banking panics.The book served as a clarion call to the monetarist school of thought by emphasizing the importance of the money supply in the functioning of the economy - a concept that has come to inform the actions of central banks worldwide. This edition of the original text includes a new preface by Anna Jacobson Schwartz, as well as a new introduction by the economist Peter Bernstein. It also reprints comments from the current Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, originally made on the occasion of Milton Friedman's 90th birthday, on the enduring influence of Friedman and Schwartz's work and vision.

"The major social problems of the United States—deteriorating education, lawlessness and crime, homelessness, the collapse of family values, the crisis in medical care—have been produced by well-intended actions of government. That is easy to document. The difficult task is understanding why government is the problem. The power of special interests arising from the concentrated benefits of most government actions and their dispersed costs is only part of the answer. A more fundamental part is the difference between the self-interest of individuals when they are engaged in the private sector and the self-interest of the same individuals when they are engaged in the government sector. The result is a government system that is no longer controlled by "we, the people." Instead of Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," we now have a government "of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats," including the elected representatives who have become bureaucrats. At the moment, term limits appear to be the reform that promises to be most effective in curbing Leviathan."