The Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman famously argued in
Capitalism and Freedom (1962) that free markets were a necessary condition
for political freedom, as well as being the only true motor of economic
growth. In his provocative and ambitious new book Free Market – The History
of an Idea (Basic Books, 2022), Professor Jacob Soll suggests that studying
the history of economic thought back to Cicero suggests praise for free
markets was usually bound up with Ciceronian moral philosophy and a greater
degree of state intervention than mid-twentieth century free marketeers
countenanced.
Jacob Soll is Professor of History and Accounting at the University of
Southern California
Free Market – The History of an Idea | New Work In Intellectual History podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
