July 16, 2008
RALEIGH – The John Locke Foundation will honor the late Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman July 31 as part of the national Friedman Legacy for Freedom campaign. July 31 would have been Friedman’s 96th birthday.
A luncheon event held in partnership with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice will explore the impact Friedman and his free-market theories have had on our society. “We are very pleased to participate in the celebration of Dr. Friedman’s legacy,” said Kory Swanson, JLF Executive Vice President.
Richard Stroup, visiting professor of economics at N.C. State University, will discuss “Milton Friedman, Economic Freedom, and Environmental Quality” during the noon event at the John Locke Foundation offices at 200 West Morgan Street in Raleigh.
Friedman, who passed away in November 2006, was regarded as one of the world’s most powerful and influential promoters of freedom. He argued that the voluntary choices of individuals, not the dictates of the state, should be the default mode of human life. Government is justified only insofar as it preserves, protects, and defends people’s liberty, Friedman said. His revolutionary work in economic theory earned him the Nobel Prize in 1976.
“Milton Friedman was a true visionary and advocate for human freedom,” said Robert Enlow, executive director and COO of the Friedman Foundation. “His writings and ideas transformed the minds of U.S. presidents, world leaders, entrepreneurs, and freshman economics majors alike. We’re delighted to have the John Locke Foundation join us in celebrating his legacy for freedom.”
Even in his 90s, Friedman never chose to slow down. He spent the last decade of his life fighting to bring educational freedom to all of America’s children. In 1996, he and his wife Rose founded the Friedman Foundation to promote his vision for universal school choice – an idea he first proposed in 1955.
Before moving to North Carolina, Stroup taught economics at Montana State University for 37 years and served as Director of the Office of Policy Analysis in the U.S. Department of Interior, Senior Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), and Adjunct Scholar for the CATO Institute.
“Dr. Stroup is a widely published author and speaker on economics, and his contributions to environmental and natural resource economics are numerous,” Swanson said. “In the late 1970s, he was one of the originators of the ‘New Resource Economics,’ the academic approach popularly known as free-market environmentalism.”
For more information about the luncheon, contact Jana Dunkley at 919-828-3876. Or contact JLF Communications Director Mitch Kokai at 919-828-3876, 919-306-8736, or [email protected].