While Friedman never made a public statement about this regret, McCloskey’s account suggests he may have been dissatisfied with the consequences of the methodological tradition he helped establish.

In his later years, Friedman’s intellectual interests seemed to shift. He grew closer to economists like Friedrich Hayek, whose methodological views often diverged from the mainstream. While Friedman acknowledged the utility of mathematical tools in economic analysis, he was never as fervent a champion of formalism as Paul Samuelson was.