It is hard to find an article in the past century more influential in economic methodology than Milton Friedman’s “The Methodology of Positive Economics.” Its significance lies not in presenting groundbreaking new ideas but in its power to organize and articulate existing ones that had already been shaping the subconscious of many economists. Since its publication in 1953, this essay has become a cornerstone of mainstream economic methodology—a mainstream economic “bible” of sorts.
However, there is a surprising twist: Friedman himself later regretted writing it. This revelation was as shocking to me as it might be to you. I first came across this claim while reading Deirdre McCloskey’s Beyond Positivism, Behaviorism, and Neo-Institutionalism in Economics. On page 60, McCloskey writes: “I have said, in Samuelson’s PhD thesis (1941) and in Friedman’s ‘The Methodology of Positive Economics’ (1953)—a paper, Friedman told me, that he later regretted.”
That was very hard to take because mainstream economics uses these method all the time!! He was one of the people most influential in using mathematics in economics! He thought it was a mistake after associating with Heyak.
Fascinating. I think my own intellectual journey may have paralleled Friedman's in a sense.
I was attracted to the mathematical formalism of economics. That's what hooked me in the first place.
But later, having worked in the field for over a decade, I am somewhat jaded by it and no longer attracted to formal mathematical models.
I still think they have their uses, but the weight assigned to them by the profession is out of proportion to their utility (in comparison to less mathematical modes of debate)
Yes that was the big draw of praxeology from the beginning. Although a lot of people do not like the a priori method of starting points, however you have to start the reasoning chain somewhere and this is the most solid anchor. To me, anyway, I saw a lot of the mathematical type economics come to some very unsettling conclusions. It took another way of thinking about economics to satisfy my curiosity.
Taking the con out of econometrics?
Yes, you could say that. Taking the mics away, too.
Friedman associated positive economics with Hayek?
No. Friedman wrote the positive economics paper. Then, later, associated with Hayek and learned of the Austrian school.
I know they had disagreements about methodology and monetary theory
Who, Hayek and Friedman?
Yes, Hayek vs Friedman