Free to Choose is a television series broadcast by PBS in 1980 and 1990, accompanied by the 1980 book of the same name written by economists Milton and Rose Friedman. Originally broadcast in ten parts beginning in January 1980, it was filmed at the invitation of Bob Chitester, the owner of WQLN-TV.
Free to Choose first aired on January 11, 1980, on KMRA, a PBS station in Denver. The format of each episode consists of two parts: first, a documentary film in which Milton Friedman travels around the world and examines economic successes and failures in history, which he attributes to free-market capitalism or the lack thereof. After the documentary, Friedman engages in a discussion at the University of Chicago, moderated by Robert McKenzie, with a number of others who have watched the film. The discussion participants are drawn from government, trade unions, the academy, media, and the business community, such as Donald Rumsfeld, then of G. D. Searle & Company, Frances Fox Piven of Boston University, and Thomas Sowell of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The interlocutors offer objections to or support for the proposals put forward by Friedman, who in turn responds. After the final episode, Friedman sits down for an interview with Lawrence Spivak.
The series was rebroadcast in 1990 with five episodes, moderated by Linda Chavez, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Shultz, Ronald Reagan, David D. Friedman, and Steve Allen, each give personal introductions for one episode. In the rebroadcast, after the documentary segment, Friedman sits down with a single discussion participant to debate the points raised in the episode.
Production In 1976, Bob Chitester, the president of WQLN-TV, a public television station in Erie, Pennsylvania, planned to produce a seminar on society and technology. His conversations with Edward E. David Jr., who had served as science advisor to President Richard Nixon, and W. Allen Wallis, chancellor of the University of Rochester, led Chitester to Milton Friedman, the recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences that year. After reading Capitalism and Freedom, which Friedman wrote in the 1950s, and which was published in 1962, Chitester proposed a television series with Friedman. With Wallis' assistance, Chitester raised $2.5 million to produce a ten-part series of one-hour programs.
Guest debaters
Guest debaters included:
Gregory Anrig (Commissioner of Massachusetts Department of Education) – Episode 6 Jagdish Bhagwati (economist) – Episode 2 Samuel Bowles (economist) – Vol. 3 Episode 5 William H. Brady (Founder and President of W.H. Brady Co.) – Episode 8 Clarence J. Brown (politician) – Episode 9 Joan Claybrook (Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) – Episode 7 Barber Conable (politician, President of the World Bank) – Episode 1 John Coons (law professor, school choice activist) – Episode 6 Robert Crandall (Brookings Institution economist) – Episode 7 Richard Deason (IBEW union leader) – Episode 2 James R. Dumpson (bureaucrat, social worker, academic) – Episode 4 Otmar Emminger (President of Deutsche Bundesbank) – Episode 9 Bob Galvin (CEO of Motorola, Inc.) – Episode 1 Ernest Green (U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor) – Episode 8 Michael Harrington (author, academic, activist) – Episode 1 Nicholas von Hoffman (journalist, political commentator/columnist) – Episode 3 Helen Hughes (economist) – Episode 2 Peter Jay (economist, journalist, diplomat) – Episodes 3, 5 Robert Lampman (economist) – Episode 4 Richard Landau (medical professor) – Episode 7 Robert Lekachman (economist) – Episode 3 William McChesney Martin (former Chairman of the Federal Reserve) – Episode 9 Helen O'Bannon (economist, bureaucrat, social worker) – Episode 4 Kathleen O'Reilly (Consumer Federation of America consumer advocate) – Episode 7 Russell W. Peterson (chemist, politician) – Episode 1 Frances Fox Piven (academic) – Episode 5 Donald Rumsfeld (politician, President of G. D. Searle & Company) – Episode 2 Albert Shanker (President of United Federation of Teachers and American Federation of Teachers teachers' unions) – Episode 6 Thomas Shannon (executive director of the National School Boards Association) – Episode 6 Thomas Sowell (economist, author, columnist) – Episodes 4, 5 Beryl Wayne Sprinkel (Executive Vice President of Harris Bank) – Episode 9 Peter Temin (economist) – Episode 3 Lynn R. Williams (International Secretary of United Steelworkers) – Episode 8 Walter E. Williams (economist, political commentator) – Episode 8
1980 episodes
1990 episodes The Power of the Market – Introduction by Arnold Schwarzenegger The Tyranny of Control – Introduction by George Shultz Freedom and Prosperity (featured only in the 1990 version) – Introduction by Ronald Reagan The Failure of Socialism (original title: "What's Wrong With Our Schools?") – Introduction by David D. Friedman Created Equal – Introduction by Steve Allen
References
External links Streaming of the original 1980 series and the updated 1990 version