Free to Choose is the title of a book and a PBS television series by Milton Friedman, invoked repeatedly across The Bob Zadek Show as a shorthand for the principle that freedom means the freedom to choose. Guests and host alike treat the work as a common reference point, applying it to tax migration, charter cities, healthcare, natural rights, school choice and occupational licensing. The excerpts do not give a publication date for the book or a broadcast date for the series beyond Bob Zadek’s statement that Friedman wrote the book in 1980 and that it later became a PBS broadcast series hosted by Friedman himself Arizona Chooses Students Over Systems - Matt Beienburg (2022).
The marketplace of ideas
In a 2013 episode on state tax policies and migration, Bob Zadek opened by citing Friedman’s book and PBS series for the proposition that freedom means the freedom to choose. He listed the freedoms at stake: to live where one wishes, to buy what one wants, to pay the price one wants or not, and to vote for whom one wants. He described the marketplace as the mechanism that determines whether an idea or product is what people want, invoking Adam Smith’s “invisible hand of the market” as the setter of prices and desirability. In his framing, the pricing mechanism reflects millions of individual decisions and is a more accurate predictor of value than a dictate from Washington, Sacramento or Albany Where is Everyone Going? (2013).
Estonia and charter cities
In a 2018 episode on charter cities, Dr. Mark Lutter cited Free to Choose in describing Estonia’s post-Soviet trajectory. According to Lutter, legend holds that Estonia’s Prime Minister had read one book on economics, which was Free to Choose by Milton Friedman, and that the country then embraced markets and became extremely successful, with an e-government system he called the envy of the world. Lutter allowed that Estonia is not exactly a charter city per se, but offered it as a success story in the same vein The End of Nation-States? (2018).
Healthcare and the illusion of choice
In a 2019 episode with Sally Pipes, Bob Zadek noted that Friedman’s PBS series from the ’70s was titled Free to Choose, calling “free” and “choice” two words near and dear to the heart of libertarians and other Americans. He asked how choice—selecting a doctor, changing a doctor, getting a second opinion—operates in a single-payer Medicare for All world Sally Pipes on the High Cost of Free Stuff (2019).
Pipes called Milton Friedman and his wife Rose the absolute best and said Milton was her mentor. She said she wondered how he would cope with the push toward government takeover of healthcare, free college education and “free this, free that,” and repeated his teaching that there is no such thing as a free lunch. She identified K-12 public education and the healthcare system as the only areas where choice and competition are not working, and said that universal choice would lead to lower cost and more access for everybody. Friedman wrote the foreword to her first book, Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer Sally Pipes on the High Cost of Free Stuff (2019).
Pipes described the structure of American coverage: employer-sponsored coverage covering 180 million Americans, which she attributed to federal wage and price controls during World War II; individual coverage bought with after-tax dollars; PPOs; and HMOs, which she said were turned on their head in the early ’90s when people found they could not get the doctor they wanted or timely treatment or see specialists. She said 50% of healthcare in the country is already in government hands through Medicare, Medicaid, the CHIP program and the Veterans Administration, which she called a single-payer system, and cited stories of veterans sitting on long lines without access to the latest drugs Sally Pipes on the High Cost of Free Stuff (2019).
Natural rights
In a 2019 episode, C. Bradley Thompson described rights as a discovery rather than a creation of government, arrived at by examining human nature. He said the concept begins with the individual as the primary unit of moral and political value, and that rights are necessary and objective requirements of human life. Among the requirements he listed was that man should be free to choose and pursue actions required to support his life, that it is necessary and right for man to freely exercise his rational faculty, to acquire, keep, use and dispose of property, and to benefit or suffer from his own choices and actions. He attributed the discovery of the concept of rights to Enlightenment philosophers, most notably John Locke, and said it was institutionalized first and most importantly by America’s founding fathers C. Bradley Thompson on America’s Revolutionary Mind (2019).
School choice in Arizona
Two 2022 episodes applied Free to Choose to public education. In both, Bob Zadek stated that Friedman wrote Free to Choose in 1980, that it was a classic inquiry into the relationship between freedom and economics, and that it later became a PBS broadcast series hosted by Friedman himself, still receiving considerable attention over 40 years later. He said the day’s show would apply Free to Choose to public education and learn from Arizona how citizens can free their children from the monopoly of government schools, and mentioned a role played by the United States Supreme Court in enhancing that freedom Arizona Chooses Students Over Systems - Matt Beienburg (2022) Arizona’s School Choice Reform is a Model for the Nation (2022).
Zadek introduced Matt Beienburg as the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute, which he described as a think tank based in Arizona whose influence is felt throughout the country. He credited Beienburg and the Institute with persuading the Arizona legislature to adopt legislation he called probably the most far-reaching of any in the country, allowing citizens for the first time to free themselves from the monopoly of government education and choose the school they wish their children to attend, with tuition substantially if not completely paid for by the state Arizona Chooses Students Over Systems - Matt Beienburg (2022). The episode summary identifies the legislation as Arizona HB 2853 and the mechanism as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or ESAs Arizona Chooses Students Over Systems - Matt Beienburg (2022).
Occupational licensing
In a 2022 episode on occupational licensing, Bob Zadek interrupted Dick Carpenter’s account of a teeth whitening case to note that Carpenter had mentioned Milton Friedman and Free to Choose in the same one-hour podcast, saying the audience had noticed. Carpenter had described entrepreneurs opening teeth whitening businesses in mall kiosks, using the same mild chemicals sold over the counter, and dentists responding by defining teeth whitening within the exclusive scope of practice of dentists so that the entrepreneurs were engaged in dentistry without a license New data shows that occupational licensing does nothing to increase quality (2022).
Carpenter said the pattern extends beyond dental boards to boards of all kinds across the country, including cosmetologists, interior designers and dietitians, which police their fence in part by having people in the occupation report on unlicensed providers. He described licensing boards as created by enabling legislation and populated by people already in the occupation, often the same people who lobbied for the license, producing what he called regulatory capture. Zadek characterized licensing as a series of statutes that are by definition anti-competitive, designed to discourage rather than invite entrants. Carpenter said the Supreme Court found the dental board in North Carolina had engaged in anti-competitive activity, and that occupational licensing is one of the rare public policies that achieves exactly what it intends: it keeps people out New data shows that occupational licensing does nothing to increase quality (2022).
Across episodes
The excerpts show Free to Choose invoked in six episodes spanning 2013 to 2022, but they do not show a developing argument so much as a recurring citation. Bob Zadek supplies the framing in most instances, tying the book and series to migration and the marketplace in 2013, to healthcare choice in 2019, to school choice in the two 2022 Arizona episodes, and to licensing in the November 2022 episode. Guests adapt the reference to their own domains: Lutter to Estonia’s post-Soviet reforms, Pipes to single-payer healthcare, Thompson to the discovery of natural rights, Beienburg to Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, and Carpenter to regulatory capture on licensing boards. The excerpts contain no exchange in which one episode’s treatment of Free to Choose is taken up or revised in a later one.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the publication date of the book Free to Choose beyond Bob Zadek’s statement that Friedman wrote it in 1980, nor the original broadcast dates of the PBS series beyond his reference to the ’70s. They do not describe the contents of the book or series beyond the phrase “freedom to choose” and the general characterization of the book as an inquiry into the relationship between freedom and economics. They do not state what the Supreme Court held in the school choice context, which case Zadek had in mind, or which amendment was at issue. The excerpts also break off mid-sentence in several places, including Zadek’s monologue on the marketplace for governance and his questions following the healthcare and licensing segments.