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Podcast: History Unplugged Podcast
Episode: Everyone Loves Free Markets. But This Meant One Thing To Romans And Something Completely Different to Milton Friedman
Description: “Free market” is a concept beloved by many but understood in incredibly different ways. Most use Milton Friedman’s definition: the absence of any and all government activity in economic affairs. In the Cold War, free markets were understood to be a feature of liberty that set the free world apart from the planned economies of communist nations. Politicians use “free markets” as a stand-in for less government regulation or red tape or taxation. To interrogate this idea is Jacob Soll, author of “Free Market: The history of an idea.” He wonders why, in the United States, where the concept of fre...