Milton Friedman and the Iraq War

I question many of the statements that Naomi Klein made in her book Shock Doctrine.  In particular many of the statements that she made regarding Milton Friedman seemed inaccurate.  I pointed out that Johan Norberg wrote a paper on the subject.  Naomi Klein responds here.  Johan Norberg responds to that response here.

To me it seemed that Naomi Klein's statements regarding Milton Friedman seemed implausible.  For instance she claims that he supported the war in Iraq.  Many other libertarians opposed the war from its inception so I figured that Milton Friedman did as well.  Notably, the Cato Institute has opposed the war from before its inception and gives annual awards to people for supporting liberty in his honor.

However, just as we cannot assign guilt by association, we cannot assign innocence either.  I could be mistaken in my beliefs about Milton Friedman regarding the war.  For this reason I started searching for things Milton Friedman is supposed to have said prior to the invasion of Iraq regarding the war.

In 2002 Milton made two public appearances that are recorded by C-SPAN, a tribute to him by then President George W. Bush and the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Cato Institute.  He didn't mention war in Iraq on either occasion.  My internet search for statements that he made between 9/11/2001 and the invasion on 3/20/2003 was unsuccessful.  It brought up only statements made by people who wished to discuss both Milton Friedman and the then impending war.

Certain opponents of the war in Iraq have quoted Milton Friedman as being ambivalent about the first war in Iraq as of 1995 and pointed out that he was instrumental in ending the draft.  They also note that he stated in 2006 that he was opposed to the second war since its inception and even went as far as getting into an argument with his wife over the subject.

However earlier interviews lend themselves easily to the interpretation that he supported the war as of April 7, 2003 and was ambivalent on May 15, 2004.  Could it be that he simply intentionally or unintentionally misrepresented his earlier view as it became clear that the war was not such a bright idea after all?

To be sure he was answering questions about whether the war was likely to lead to the collapse of the U.S. economy or a dangerous concentration of power.  It is possible to answer these in the negative and still oppose the war.  However, Milton Friedman does not take the occasion to do so.  Granted he may have been reluctant to do so for a foreign audience.  The interview was conducted for a German publication.  His response could be interpreted as a resentment of foreign intrusion into U.S. politics.  His prediction that the war is unlikely to cause a trade war between Europe and the U.S. seems to be accurate.

I would say that the worst that the earlier interview contains is the statement that George Bush "only wanted war because anything else would have threatened the freedom and the prosperity of the USA."  This can be interpreted either as Friedman's opinion or more charitably as his opinion regarding Bush's opinion.  What he said lends itself to the less charitable interpretation.


As for the interview in 2004 he says that "you can argue either side" of the question as to whether George W. Bush was correct in his assessment that the war in Iraq was a necessary part of the war on terror.  He goes on to say "Where I do feel strongly, is that having gone into it, whether we should have or not, we must see it through."


I suspect that prior to the invasion of Iraq Milton Friedman didn't consider the impending invasion of Iraq to be his greatest concern.  He viewed big government as a big problem, but saw that war, however bad, was a temporary increase in the size of government, whereas the social welfare state was a permanent one.  After the war in Iraq his support seems to have declined as the war progressed, as it did for many Americans.  His later reflections about how he had opposed the war from the beginning should be interpreted as hindsight bias.


However, we cannot be certain that his recollections about his initial opposition to the war are inaccurate.  It might have been persuaded to express a viewpoints that either seemed supportive or ambivalent for reasons that had nothing to do with the time at which these statements were uttered.  Any arrangement of three statements on three separate occasions will have a probability of one in six due to chance alone.


I suspect there are other factors at work in the evolution of Milton Friedman's ideas about the war over time than just the opinion of most Americans.  Given his noted opposition to the growth of the social welfare state he might have become more distant from the Republican party, which supported the war, and closer to organizations like the Cato institute, which opposed it.  This distance was caused in part by the expansion of the social welfare state that the Republicans brought about.


In any case the whole argument is ad homonym.  Regardless of how decent or indecent Milton Friedman was, capitalism must stand or fall on its own merits.