7 The Chicago School of Economics

In their positions after the 1950s, Friedman, Stigler, and others at Chicago moved away from emphasis on equality, as well as from theories of imperfect competition requiring government intervention, and toward focus on monetary rather than fiscal policy in influencing economic activity. To this, Friedman in particular would add criticism of government at almost all times and in almost all ways, with far less empirical support than his and other Chicagoans’ work at other times in other areas. That is, in its reflexive antigovernment bias, the Friedman Chicago school of economics became more ideological than scientific, at least in addressing the general public.