Glory Liu

The University of Chicago doesn't have the reputation that it does today when Jacob Viner and Frank Knight were around in like the 1930s.

They teach Smith as an early theorist of price.

So teaching Smith as an early theorist of price and somebody who gives scientific value and a kind of objectivity to economics is really important for building intellectual credibility, let's call it, of Chicago's way of doing economics.

They die, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Let's start with self-interest.

Self-interest in old Chicago school view is not just rational utility maximizing individualism.

It's a human motivation among many.

And there are extreme versions of self-interest that are dangerous.

We lose that texture when we get to somebody like George Stigler, who looks to Smith as the Prometheus of economics.

Self-interest has the most explanatory power.

I think it was both.

And the reason why I say this is because Stigler loved the history of economic thought.

And so I don't want to treat Stigler like this kind of- A fanboy.

A fanboy who's just cherry picking.

But I do think that it was this symbiotic relationship where Stigler loved reading Smith, and he also happened to find the

perfect mascot that coincided with his own views of what economics should be and how to think about economics in relation to the politics of deregulation.

Friedman was a rhetorical genius.

Like he was so charismatic and he was so good at speaking to the public.

For Friedman, the idea of the invisible hand as the price mechanism isn't just a descriptive metaphor.