No one man did more to popularize the ideals of libertarianism than Milton Friedman. A distinguished Noble laureate, Friedman was an economist by training and quickly became an eloquent public speaker tirelessly advocating for limited government, free markets and the securing of our nature rights.

Friedman was born into a middle-class family in Brooklyn, New York, on July 31, 1912. A graduate of Rutgers, the University of Chicago famous school of economics and Columbia; Friedman passed away three years ago at the age of 94.

Friedman starting writing in defense of the free market at a time when such views were strongly denounced and dismissed. In the age of the New Deal and the subsequent decades, Keynesian-Big Government economics was championed. The prevailing view what that the free market was chaotic and unjust and thus needed to be restrained through widespread government controls and even, in some circumstances, central planning. In an essay co-published in an economic academic journal criticizing rent control, Friedman was attacking as unworthy and deserving of censure. When he published his first advocacy book - Capitalism and Freedom - most newspapers and magazines did not even bother to review it. The Economist of London was the only prominent journal to do so.

An adviser to many governments, Friedman always refused to take an official position because he wanted to remain “irresponsible” and government jobs often require some degree of selling-out.

Although his views started out as fringe, Friedman was part of the free market movement that rose to power in the Reagan and Thatcher years and went on to dominant the world. The fall of the Berlin Wall, Friedman once remarked, did more to advance free market principles than any of his writing. It showed the entire world the fallacy of socialism and lead to free trade and lower taxes around the world.

Friedman, naturally, made some enemies along the way. He was attacked by people who accused him of promoting anti-social and selfish measures that hurt the power. His detectors were all wrong. The free market has done more for the advancement of mankind than governments have ever done. The proper question to ask is not: why are people poor? Poverty is the birth condition of man. Man is born poor. The question to ask is: why are people wealthy? People of wealthy because in a free society with property rights and an impartial court they have been able to utilize their God-given talents to pursue business. Friedman dedicated his life to making sure that people remembered that and re-instituted those principles.

Some of his wisdom:

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.

The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that’s why it’s so essential to preserving individual freedom.

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.