Q: How many Chicago School economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. If the light bulb needed changing, the market would have done it by now.
Chicago-style free-market economics is an easy target for satire, but the movement that flourished at the University of Chicago’s economics department in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s really did change the world. Giants such as Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, Robert Lucas, and Eugene Fama provided the intellectual foundation for the political philosophy of President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In his approach to tax cuts and deregulation, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is an heir to that tradition.
