{{Infobox economist

| name = David D. Friedman

| school_tradition = Chicago school of economics

| image = David Friedman by Gage Skidmore.jpg

| birth_name=David Director Friedman

| birth_date =

| birth_place =

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality =

| spouse = Elizabeth Cook

| children = Patri Friedman

| institution = Santa Clara University

| field = Economics, law

| influences = Ronald Coase, Friedrich Hayek, Robert A. Heinlein, Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman, Adam Smith, Richard Timberlake, Alfred Marshall, Murray Rothbard

| contributions = The Machinery of FreedomConsequentialist libertarianism

| awards =

| signature =

| repec_prefix =e | repec_id = pfr16

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|website=Official website|education=Harvard University (BA) University of Chicago (MA, PhD)

| image_caption=Friedman in 2016

|father=Milton Friedman|mother=Rose Friedman}}

David Director Friedman (; born February 12, 1945) is an American economist, physicist, and legal scholar. He is known for his textbook writings on microeconomics and the libertarian theory of anarcho-capitalism, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom. Described by Walter Block as a "free-market anarchist" theorist, Friedman has also authored several other books and articles, including Price Theory: An Intermediate Text (1986), Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (2000), Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life (1996), and Future Imperfect (2008).Free Market Mojo. "An Interview with David D. Friedman" .

Life and work

David Friedman is the son of economists Rose and Milton Friedman. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1965, with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and physics.Faculty Profile: David Friedman . Santa Clara Law School He later earned a master's in 1967, and a PhD in 1971 in theoretical physics from the University of Chicago. Despite his later career, he never took a class for credit in either economics or law. He was a professor of law at Santa Clara University from 2005 to 2017, and a contributing editor for Liberty magazine. He is currently a professor emeritus. He is an atheist.Friedman, David D. "Atheism and Religion", Ideas. His son, Patri Friedman, has also written about libertarian theory and market anarchism, particularly seasteading.

The Machinery of Freedom

In his book The Machinery of Freedom (1973), Friedman sketched a form of anarcho-capitalism where all goods and services including law itself can be produced by the free market. Friedman advocates an incrementalist approach to achieve anarcho-capitalism by gradual privatization of areas that government is involved in, ultimately privatizing the law itself. In the book, he states his opposition to violent anarcho-capitalist revolution.

He advocates a consequentialist version of anarcho-capitalism, arguing for it on a cost–benefit analysis of state versus no state.Morris, Christopher. 1992. An Essay on the Modern State. Cambridge University Press. p. 62. It is contrasted with the natural-rights approach as propounded most notably by economist and libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard.

Non-academic interests

Friedman is a longtime member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he is known as Duke Cariadoc of the Bow. He is known throughout the worldwide society for his articles on the philosophy of recreationism and practical historical recreations, especially those relating to the medieval Middle East. His work is compiled in the popular Cariadoc's Miscellany. He is sometimes credited with founding the largest and longest-running SCA event, the Pennsic War; as king of the Middle Kingdom he challenged the East Kingdom, and later as king of the East accepted the challenge and lost (to himself).F.L. Watkins (Fólki Þorgilsson). 2005. Herstadr-Saga: An Incomplete History of Pennsic Urbana, Illinois: Folump Enterprises

He was a teenage wargamer who taught his school friend, Jack Radey, founder of People's War Games, how to play such wargames as Tactics II. Radey relates how Friedman and himself wrote to Charles S. Roberts claiming that they had found a first turn winning strategy for each of the two sides. Roberts replied that their interpretation of the rules was valid.

He is a long-time science fiction fan, and has written three novels. Harald (Baen Books, 2006) is set in an invented world drawn from European history.<ref>{{cite web

|url=http://daviddfriedman.com/harald/Harald_background_info.html

|title=Harald - Background Information |first=David |last=Freidman |date=2020-03-17}}</ref>

Salamander (2011) and its sequel Brothers (2020) are fantasy.

He has spoken in favor of a non-interventionist foreign policy.

Bibliography

Nonfiction

  • 1988. Cariadoc's Miscellany.
  • 1990 (2nd ed.; 1st ed.: 1986). Price Theory: An Intermediate Text. Southwestern Publishing.
  • 1996. Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life. .
  • 2000. Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters. Princeton Univ. Press.
  • 2005. "The Case for Privacy" in Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics. Wiley-Blackwell.
  • 2008. Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World.
  • 2015 (3rd ed.; 2nd ed.: 1989; 1st ed.: 1973). The Machinery of Freedom.
  • 2019. Legal Systems Very Different from Ours.

Fiction

  • Salamander, 2011
  • Brothers, 2020

References

  • Profile on the website of Santa Clara University
  • Booknotes interview with Friedman on Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, October 20, 1996.