“ONE OF THE 20TH CENTURY'S LEADING ECONOMIC SCHOLARS… SPIRITUAL HEIR TO ADAM SMITH": SIGNED BY MILTON FRIEDMAN, SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH

FRIEDMAN, Milton. There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court, (1975). Octavo, original half red cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition of a collection of key writings by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, “one of the 20th century’s leading economic scholars, on a par with giants like John Maynard Keynes and Paul Samuelson… [and] spiritual heir to Adam Smith" (New York Times), boldly signed by Friedman on the title page.

Awarded the 1978 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Service, Friedman is “one of the 20th century’s leading economic scholars, on a par with giants like John Maynard Keynes and Paul Samuelson… He was a spiritual heir to Adam Smith, the 18th-century founder of the science of economics” (New York Times). To Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, “Milton Friedman was an intellectual freedom fighter. He revived the economics of liberty when it had been all but forgotten.” There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch collects key writings from the 1960s and early 70s, including many from his influential Newsweek column. Together they reflect his “fervent belief that the promotion of individual freedom should be the prime objective of social arrangements” (Preface). Pivotal to this stance is his position: “if the government spends a dollar, that dollar has to come from producers and workers in the private economy. There is no magical ‘multiplier effect’ by taking from productive Peter and giving to unproductive Paul.” Famously credited with coining this work’s title phrase, Friedman demurred, stating: “I have sometimes been associated with the aphorism ‘There's no such thing as a free lunch,’ which I did not invent” (Wall Street Journal). With Newsweek columns from 1966-1974, interviews in Playboy and Business and Society Review, along with articles initially appearing in Fortune and New York Times Magazine. His Newsweek columns appeared in three volumes: this work, An Economist’s Protest (1972) and Bright Promises, Dismal Performance (1983). Pressman, 157-162. Ruger, Milton Friedman, 196-98.

Book fine; abrasion to rear panel of scarce dust jacket. A scarce near-fine signed copy.