To use Deirdre McCloskey’s recent terminology, the prudence only economics of Capitalism and Freedom gives way to a more nuanced understanding of the operation of a free economy and free society that must account for prudence + many other virtues, history, and institutional analysis. Whereas Friedman sees Capitalism and Freedom as more theoretical, and Free to Choose as more concrete, I think the introduction into the analysis of the issues of (1) the quantity of information that must be processed and utilized in the economy, as well as the quality of information that must be assessed by economic participants to produce the coordination of economic activities through time, and (2) the role of interest groups, political structure, and the constitutional level of analysis, make Free to Choose a more subtle and ultimately a more persuasive text about the case for the free market economy and the problems of political intervention into the market economy. But that was then, and this is now, so there probably are some readers of BHL (like me) for whom Free to Choose was in fact a pivotal text in their introduction to free market ideas and the philosophy of limited government.
Since all of my teachers and mentors in classical liberalism came to their position well before 1980, they did not see Free to Choose as a transformational work, but instead as at best a popularization of ideas they had already come to accept. I agree it is a powerful book, I just think Free to Choose is one of the best books I ever read in economics. I always disagreed with the assessment that Capitalism and Freedom was the superior book from an academic perspective. I grew into a classical liberal/libertarian movement where all my elders were influenced either by The Road to Serfdom (1944), or Capitalism and Freedom (1962) well before they ever read Free to Choose (1980). This does describe me, as I first became convinced of these libertarian ideas in 1977-1978, in part from reading Capitalism and Freedom. He speculates that it is held largely by people who were first persuaded by Capitalism and Freedom, and so were already convinced and familiar with libertarian ideas when they read Free to Choose. Boettke argues this is the common view, but he argues it is mistaken. I had always thought of Capitalism and Freedom as the better academic book, regarding Free to Choose as a popularization of Friedman’s ideas. Over at the Bleeding Hearts Libertarian blog, Peter Boettke has an interesting post comparing these two defenses of freedom by Milton Friedman.
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