David D. Friedman

David D. Friedman
David D. Friedman
	Friedman in 2016
Born	David Director Friedman; February 12, 1945 (age 79)
Nationality	American
Education	Harvard University (BA) ; University of Chicago (MA, PhD)
Spouse	Elizabeth Cook
Children	Patri Friedman
Academic career
Institution	Santa Clara University
Field	Economics, law
School or; tradition	Chicago school of economics
Influences	Ronald Coase, Friedrich Hayek, Robert A. Heinlein, Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman, Adam Smith, Richard Timberlake, Alfred Marshall, Murray Rothbard
Contributions	The Machinery of Freedom; Consequentialist libertarianism
	Information at IDEAS / RePEc
Website	Official website

David Director Friedman (born February 12, 1945) is an American economist, physicist, legal scholar, and anarcho-capitalist theorist.^{[third-party source needed]} Although his academic training was in chemistry and physics and not law or economics, he is known for his textbook writings on microeconomics and the libertarian theory of anarcho-capitalism, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom.^[2] Described by Walter Block as a "free-market anarchist" theorist,^[3] Friedman has also authored several other books and articles, including Price Theory: An Intermediate Text (1986), Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (2000), Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life (1996), and Future Imperfect (2008).^[4]

Life and work

David Friedman is the son of economists Rose and Milton Friedman. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1965, with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and physics.^[5] He later earned a master's (1967) and a PhD (1971) in theoretical physics from the University of Chicago.^[6] Despite his later career, he never took a class for credit in either economics or law.^[7] He was a professor of law at Santa Clara University from 2005 to 2017,^[8] and a contributing editor for Liberty magazine. He is currently a Professor Emeritus. He is an atheist.^[9] His son, Patri Friedman, has also written about libertarian theory and market anarchism, particularly seasteading.^{[citation needed]}

The Machinery of Freedom

In his book The Machinery of Freedom (1973), Friedman sketched a form of anarcho-capitalism where all goods and services including law itself can be produced by the free market. Friedman advocates an incrementalist approach to achieve anarcho-capitalism by gradual privatization of areas that government is involved in, ultimately privatizing the law itself. In the book, he states his opposition to violent anarcho-capitalist revolution.^[10]

He advocates a consequentialist version of anarcho-capitalism, arguing for it on a cost–benefit analysis of state versus no state.^[11]^[12] It is contrasted with the natural-rights approach as propounded most notably by economist and libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard.^{[citation needed]}

Non-academic interests

Friedman is a longtime member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he is known as Duke Cariadoc of the Bow. He is known throughout the worldwide society for his articles on the philosophy of recreationism and practical historical recreations, especially those relating to the medieval Middle East.^[13] His work is compiled in the popular Cariadoc's Miscellany.^[14] He is sometimes credited with founding the largest and longest-running SCA event, the Pennsic War; as king of the Middle Kingdom he challenged the East Kingdom, and later as king of the East accepted the challenge and lost (to himself).^[15]

He was a teenage wargamer who taught his school friend, Jack Radey, founder of People's War Games, how to play such wargames as Tactics II.^[16] Radey relates how Friedman and himself wrote to Charles S. Roberts claiming that they had found a first turn winning strategy for each of the two sides. Roberts replied that their interpretation of the rules was valid.^[16]^{[better source needed]}

He is a long-time science fiction fan, and has written three novels. Harald (Baen Books, 2006) is set in an invented world drawn from European history.^[17] Salamander (2011) and its sequel Brothers (2020) are fantasy.

He has spoken in favor of a non-interventionist foreign policy.^[18]^{[third-party source needed]}

Bibliography

Nonfiction

1988. Cariadoc's Miscellany.
1990 (2nd ed.; 1st ed.: 1986). Price Theory: An Intermediate Text. Southwestern Publishing.
1996. Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life. ISBN 0887308856.
2000. Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters. Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 0691090092
2005. "The Case for Privacy" in Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 1405115483
2008. Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World. ISBN 0521877326
2015 (3rd ed.; 2nd ed.: 1989; 1st ed.: 1973). The Machinery of Freedom. ISBN 978-1507785607
2019. Legal Systems Very Different from Ours. ISBN 1793386722

Fiction

David D. Friedman (2006). Harald. Baen Books. ISBN 9781416520566. OL 16070848W.
Salamander, 2011
Brothers, 2020

References

^ "The Machinery of Freedom" (PDF). p. 124. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 December 2013. Retrieved 25 November 2012. Much is made in libertarian circles of the division between 'Austrian' and 'Chicago' schools of economic theory, largely by people who understand neither. I am classified as 'Chicago'.
^ Caplan, Bryan (2008). "Friedman, David (1945–)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). Friedman, David (1945– ). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 194–195. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n117. ISBN 978-1412965804. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
^ Block, Walter E. (2011). "David Friedman and Libertarianism: A Critique". Libertarian Papers. 35 (3): 22.
^ Free Market Mojo. "An Interview with David D. Friedman" Archived 2010-11-22 at the Wayback Machine.
^ Faculty Profile: David Friedman Archived 2014-07-22 at the Wayback Machine. Santa Clara Law School
^ "My Academic Page". www.daviddfriedman.com.
^ Athiparambath, Shanu (14 February 2016). "Economist David Friedman Says India Must Go Taller To Make Homes Affordable". Market Urbanism. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
^ University, Santa Clara. "Santa Clara University". phonebook.scu.edu.
^ Friedman, David D. "Atheism and Religion", Ideas.
^ Friedman, David D (1995). "Revolution Is the Hell of It". The Machinery of Freedom. Open Court. pp. 149–150. ISBN 0-8126-9069-9.
^ Morris, Christopher. 1992. An Essay on the Modern State. Cambridge University Press. p. 62.
^ "The World From an Anarchist-Anachronist-Economist's View with Dr. David Friedman". The Wealth Standard. July 11, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2023.
^ "Friedman, David D. "On Restructuring the SCA"".
^ "Cariadoc's Miscellany". www.pbm.com.
^ F.L. Watkins (Fólki Þorgilsson). 2005. Herstadr-Saga: An Incomplete History of Pennsic Urbana, Illinois: Folump Enterprises
^ ^a ^b Serval, Fred. "Jack Radey part 1 – The Origins of People's War Games". Homo Ludens. Fred Serval. Archived from the original on 2021-12-11. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
^ Freidman, David (2020-03-17). "Harald - Background Information".
^ VoluntaryVirtues0com (22 September 2013). "Dr David Friedman on US Foreign Policy, Syria, Assad, Terrorism, WWII, Hitler, and much more..." Archived from the original on 2021-12-11 – via YouTube.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)