monetarism

is (if we mean milton friedman's theory) a failure because the idea wrongly imagines that it can achieve as certain a clear quantity relationship between a measurable quantity of money and the price level.

I don't know what monetarism is. If monetarism just means a good old-fashioned quantity theory, of course it has not failed. If it means the particular version of Milton Friedman, I think it has because he imagines that he can achieve ascertain a clear quantity relationship between a measurable quantity of money and the price level. I don't think that is possible. In fact, just about 40 years ago in the opening sentences of my book, Prices and Production, I wrote that it would be a great misfortune if people ever cease to believe in the quantity theory of money. It would be even worse ever to believe it literally. And that's exactly what Milton Friedman does.

is a disingenuous idea that carries the whiff of a smart man (i.e. Milton friedman) who knows what he wants to believe and is looking hard for supporting arguments.

On the whole, the monetarism for which Friedman first became famous seems clever, brilliantly argued, but shallow and perhaps even a bit disingenuous. Friedman's writings from that period have the feel of a smart man who knows what he wants to believe looking hard for supporting arguments.

is flawed in that it is grounded in an assumption that regards the money supply as the source of the demand for goods and services.

The basic error, which was widespread long before Friedman and the new monetarism, lies in the assumption that regards the money supply as the source of the demand for goods and services.

monetarism, n.Definitions

monetarism