Milton Friedman, RIP.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman died on November 16. A giant in his field who wielded enormous influence, his name will likely be mentioned alongside Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and F.A. Hayek. Like them, Friedman has been viewed as a free-market economist, but his policy recommendations were sometimes a mixed bag.

In the popular press, Friedman was best known for his advocacy of limited government. In an interview in 1995 with Reason magazine, Friedman admitted: "I would like to be a zero-government libertarian." In reality, he argued, such a scheme is largely unworkable, and so the best that can be hoped for is limited government. For Friedman, the best example of limited government was that created by the vision of the Founding Fathers. "The United States from 1780 to 1929 is not a bad example of a limited-government libertarianism that lasted for a long time," he said.

Friedman's most important work, arguably, is his analysis of monetary policy as utilized by the Federal Reserve. Despite the fact that his own work detailed the pernicious influence a government can wield through the manipulation of fiat money (money not backed by precious metals), he often discussed the ways in which the Federal Reserve should handle monetary policy. He defended this by saying he was only being pragmatic. Instead of calling for complete abolition of the Federal Reserve, he said, "I think I also have to be willing to discuss changes that are less than ideal so long as they point me in that direction. So while I'd like to abolish the Fed, I've written many pages on how the Fed, if it does exist, should be run."