That is what Joe Biden said in 2020. He also said, in 2019, “When did Milton Friedman die and become king?” Putting aside the non sequitur, Friedman certainly wasn’t running the show during the Biden administration, which is why the consumer price index increased by 21.2%.
That Democrats are ignorant about economics is no surprise. But what about Republicans? I was dismayed to see this clip of a JD Vance interview with Michael Knowles, in which Vance went out of his way to disparage Friedman: The Republican future is “more Alexander Hamilton than Milton Friedman.” Laissez faire is out. Let’s not be guided by the experience of the 1980s. Friedman’s ideas made more sense in the 1980s, because America was more Christian then. You can have laissez faire when there are “Christian guard rails on everything.”
JD Vance is so frustrating. Here he takes gratuitous shots at Milton Friedman as a bad model for Republican economic thinking.
With Friedman as the guiding light, Ronald Reagan won 49 states and ushered in a decade of unrivaled prosperity. pic.twitter.com/MX2MmY9Qta
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) July 2, 2026
I wrote here about Vance’s speech at the 2024 Republican convention, where he “sounded as though he wants to bring international trade to a halt.” An exotic position.
Alexander Hamilton’s economic policies laid the foundation for American prosperity:
Hamilton saw private businesses playing the leading role in building America’s economy, understanding that this required the government to create the best possible conditions for business to flourish:
* A creditworthy government with adequate revenues and the ability to borrow at large scale when necessary.
* Well-defined property rights and contract law.
* Capital that could be readily mobilized for new ventures, requiring standardized, transferable assets and well-functioning securities markets.
* Abundant bank credit.
* Money supply adequate for America’s needs but sufficiently constrained to prevent ruinous inflation.
* A reliable payment system.
* Public encouragement for manufacturing through infrastructure, a modern patent system to promote invention, and regulation to ensure product safety and quality.
* A business community aligned with the new federal government.
That would be an excellent economic program in 2026. To be sure, Hamilton did also advocate tariffs, which no doubt is what Vance has in mind. So did Abraham Lincoln. In general, in the 19th century Northerners wanted tariffs to protect industry against better-established English competition, and Southerners wanted free markets into which to sell their cotton and other agricultural exports.
I have nothing against tariffs, where appropriate to 1) level the trade playing field where other countries impose tariffs on our goods, or 2) assure the United States a secure supply of goods and raw materials that are important for national security–key minerals, pharmaceuticals, and the like.
But, if Vance’s convention speech is any guide, he would go much farther. And his apparent hostility to “laissez-faire” and to the legacy of Milton Friedman, one of the most important conservative thinkers in history, suggests that he would go beyond trade to favor corporatism in other aspects of economic policy. Since “Christian guard rails” no longer protect us.
Contrasts between Vance and Marco Rubio, the two likely contenders for the 2028 Republican nomination–assuming Marco decides to get into the race–have mostly focused on foreign policy, with Vance seen as more isolationist and Rubio as a more traditional advocate for American interests in the world. But if Vance continues to dismiss Milton Friedman and free market economics, and Rubio takes a more Reaganesque approach–as I think he would–an even more important point of difference may emerge.
Speaking for myself, I don’t think we should nominate the ghost of Dick Gephardt.
