He leaned libertarian, and so pushed for the abolition of many government agencies.
His vision for government was simple; just big enough to keep Americans safe.
Milton Friedman’s ideas of government efficiency hinged on one characteristic… the smallness of government.
In that and many other ways, his ideas were very similar to Elon Musk’s plans for DOGE.
In fact, Elon shared the legendary economist’s 1999 interview in which he seemed to espouse many of the ideas pushed by DOGE:
Wise words
pic.twitter.com/kuSuFSNEWh— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2025
One consistency with Friedman’s reasoning was the pragmatic simplicity by which he easily kept or deleted government departments.
Like a form of government minimalism, he narrowed government down to its’ fundamental functions… and what wasn’t needed for those basic pillars of governance — gone!
He was quick to get rid of nearly every department of government, according to a report in the Daily Mail:
Late Nobel Prize laureate Milton Friedman supported the abolition of most government departments, as seen in a resurfaced video shared by Elon Musk.
The legendary economist, who identified as a libertarian, explained his vision for a government that is less intrusive but able to keep citizens safe in a 1999 interview.
When asked which government cabinet departments he would abolish, Friedman replied that he would get rid of all of them except the departments of Defense, State, Treasury and Justice.
Musk shared the clip after he and Vivek Ramaswamy was tapped by president-elect Donald Trump to ‘dismantle’ the $6.5 trillion bloated U.S. bureaucracy by spearheading the new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE).
Friedman said he would get rid of the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Education, Labor, Transportation and Veteran Affairs.
He also recommended axing the department of Housing and Urban Development, which he said ‘has done an enormous amount of harm’ and has ‘destroyed parts of cities under the rubric of eliminating slums.’
Friedman the Department of Energy should also be abolished – ‘except when it ties in with the military.’
In terms of the National Institute of Health, Friedman said ‘There is room for some public health activities to prevent contagion,’ but he would abolish the agency, which he claimed ‘was mostly a research agency.’
‘That’s a question of whether the government should be involved in financing research, and that’s a very complicated issue and it’s not an easy answer,’ Friedman added.
ADVERTISEMENTFriedman was one of the most influential economists of the 20th century.
He headed the Chicago School of Economics, a group of economic thinkers associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago.
Friedman was a strong advocate of economic liberty, free markets and free enterprise, and opposed the interventionist Keynesian economic policies of the US government in the 1960s.
He received a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1976 for his work.
‘Milton Friedman was the best,’ the SpaceX founder said of Milton’s take on government size and spending.
Check out this video of Friedman explaining the “Broken Window Fallacy”.
We have fallen victim to this fallacy in our own time, and with any luck — DOGE is about to pull us back from the brink of economic ruin partly by recovering our common sense, and breaking free of the “broken window fallacy”.
This video of Milton Friedman explaining the “Broken Window Fallacy” should be mandatory viewing for @DOGE and all government staff. pic.twitter.com/TI4fEsOaIq
— Students For Liberty (@sfliberty) January 6, 2025
Friedman, like Elon, believed that government should be stripped down.
Its’ most basic functions should manifest in the different apparatus of its parts, with preserving the peace, defending the country, and proving a means of adjudicating disputes as the primary requirements of basic governance, according to a report in Fox Business:
“Milton Friedman was the best,” Musk wrote in a post on X, sharing an interview the late Nobel laureate gave, wherein he went through a list of entire federal agencies that should never have been created in the first place, as well as those that he felt were important.
In the interview, Friedman was asked to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether certain agencies should be kept or abolished.
Friedman said the Department of Agriculture and the Commerce Department should both be “gone,” right off the bat, but said the U.S. should keep in place its Department of Defense.
He said the Department of Education should be abolished, as well as the Department of Energy, except for the parts that deal with nuclear, which should be moved under the Defense Department.
When asked about the Department of Health and Human Services, Friedman said that “there is some room for public health activities to prevent the contagion,” but argued half of the agency should be eliminated.
The economist, who died in 2006, also said the Department of Housing and Urban Development should also go, saying it “had done an enormous amount of harm.”
In his opinion, Friedman said, the federal government should be stripped down to its basic functions, which he said are to “preserve the peace, defend the country, [and] provide a mechanism whereby individuals can adjudicate their disputes.”
One concept not covered by Friedman, but important nonetheless, is the question of accountability.
We are discovering that our government has corruptly stolen from us in ways more creative than we guessed.
So DOGE just confirmed our politicians, bureaucrats, and NGOs, are stealing from us on an unfathomable scale.
Eventually, we will have to address the elephant in the room.
Those responsible have to be punished.
Severely. pic.twitter.com/NWeGdGkAZW
— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) February 6, 2025
And at some point soon, the question will need to be answered:
What punishment must be met out in order to ensure such crimes do not happen again for at least a hundred years?
As far as I know, Milton Friedman didn’t have anything to say on that topic.
Nevertheless, we must answer it.
Or we risk a repeat scenario as soon as bureaucrats are able to vote back in someone who will pay them to steal from us once again.
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