Jennifer Burns on Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand | Conversations with Tyler

Jennifer Burns is a professor of history at Stanford who works at the intersection of intellectual, political, and cultural history. She’s written two biographies Tyler highly recommends: her 2009 book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and her latest, Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative, provides a nuanced look into the influential economist and public intellectual.
Tyler and Jennifer start by discussing how her new portrait of Friedman caused her to reassess him, his lasting impact in statistics, whether he was too dogmatic, his shift from academic to public intellectual, the problem with Two Lucky People, what Friedman’s courtship of Rose Friedman was like, how Milton’s family influenced him, why Friedman opposed Hayek’s courtesy appointment at the University of Chicago, Friedman’s attitudes toward friendship, his relationship to fiction and the arts, and the prospects for his intellectual legacy. Next, they discuss Jennifer’s previous work on Ayn Rand, including whether Rand was a good screenwriter, which is the best of her novels, what to make of the sex scenes in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, how Rand and Mises got along, and why there’s so few successful businesswomen depicted in American fiction. They also delve into why fiction seems so much more important for the American left than it is for the right, what’s driving the decline of the American conservative intellectual condition, what she will do next, and more.
Recorded August, 30th, 2023
Transcript and links: conversationswithtyler.com/ep...
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[@willosee]

Tyler you continue to remind me as how good an interviewer you are.

[@robhaythorne4464]

Really enjoyed this. Now I have two more books to look forward to reading.

[@anthonypate8657]

Great interview

[@driss7014]

Unusually simple questions from Tyler, like normal interview instead of typical 'conversations...' vibe

[@patricksullivan4329]

When I first heard her speak of Milton's collaboration with women, I thought of Shakespeare. Another outstanding male genius who had clearly known some exceptionally intelligent women. Judging by the quality of the intellects of his female characters, that is.

[@tuckerbugeater]

simp

[@brucetillerson3329]

Gòod interview

[@radiozelaza]

Roy indeed changed his mind, that is he retracted his endorsement of anarchism, good for him but too bad he died too quickly to actually put his thoughts into writing.
as for being Jewish and rejecting anarchism, most anarcho-capitalists are of Jewish background, including Rothbard, Block, David Friedman and Bryan Caplan - and somehow it does not influence their endorsement of a system under which discrimination in private estates is a normal course of the day, as well as a danger from armed private militias. Although i.e. Block disagrees vehemently with Rothbard on the subject of Israel and proper response to Palestinian terrorism.

[@scottsent8120]

Would someone please teach this Stanford professor that _phenomena_ is the plural form of _phenomenon_ ?

[@patricksullivan4329]

Yes, I've noticed her misuse of the word too. But everything else I've heard from her is first rate intellectual history.

[@tuckerbugeater]

I'm glad she solved all our problems. If only we had feminism during the enlightenment. @@patricksullivan4329

[@panushjo]

Did she really say that he would have been just a good economist without women? lol.