Keynes, Chicago, and Friedman: an early Harvard memorandum

John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman were the most influential economists of the twentieth century, if not of all time. Their influence expanded far beyond the economics profession into the domain of public opinion and the policy process. When Friedman launched his monetarist counter-revolution in 1956 he downplayed his own originality and claimed that he was doing little more than formalising an existing Chicago 'oral tradition'. Thirteen years later, as monetarism was acquiring an almost irresistible momentum, one of Friedman's friends and ex-Chicago colleague, Don Patinkin, launched a blistering attack on Friedman's account of the Chicago origins of his counter-revolution. This in turn launched the new subdiscipline of Chicago Monetarism.