The following exchange between Gottfried Haberler and Milton Friedman is really quite remarkable. It is the second observation by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror of Gottfried Haberler trashing a liberal/radical economist on the q.t. The first instance involved John Kenneth Galbraith in 1948 (though I cannot say that I would personally fault Haberler for his having ranked Paul Samuelson above John Kenneth Galbraith as an economist). It will come as a surprise to some people that Milton Friedman defended the scholarly honor of one of the leading, if not the leading, radical economists in 1970. As we see below Friedman in no uncertain terms let Haberler know that he still considered his earlier support of Samuel Bowles for an untenured appointment at the University of Chicago to have been based solely on the analytical merits displayed by Bowles.
You do not want to miss the Harvard anecdote relayed by Roy Weintraub that is posted below as a comment!
__________________
PERSONAL
May 14, 1970
Professor Milton Friedman
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637
Dear Milton:
I was told that Chicago has made an offer to Sam Bowles and that you supported it warmly. Frankly, I am somewhat surprised. He has certainly some analytic abilities but in general he is very radical, almost as wild as Arthur MacEwan, and thoroughly demagogic in his interventions in faculty meetings and talks to students. I would really like to know whether it is true that Chicago offered him a job.
Sincerely yours,
Gottfried Haberler
H:w
__________________
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
1126 EAST 59THSTREET
CHICAGO—ILLINOIS 60637
May 19, 1970
Professor Gottfried Haberler
Department of Economics
Harvard University
326 Littauer Center
Cambridge, Masachusetts 02138
Dear Gottfried:
Some years back I had occasion to read some of the work which Bowles had done in connection with our consideration of him at that time. I was very favorably impressed indeed by the intellectual quality of the work and the command that it displayed of analytical economics. At that time I was very much in accord with our decision to make him an offer of a position. He turned us down to stay at Harvard.
I have very vague recollections about what has happened this year. I do not know for certain whether or not we did make an offer to him this year. We may have done so; and if so, I would not have objected since the only consideration I would have considered relevant would have been his intellectual qualities.
I will try to find out more definitely and let you know.
Sincerely yours,
[signed, “Milton”]
Milton Friedman
ah
[Handwritten addition: P.S. I have checked. No offer was made to him this year. We made an offer some years ago at the Ass’t Prof level when he first went to Harvard. We made a later offer a couple of years ago again on a term basis. There is no offer outstanding now.]
Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Gottfried Haberler Papers. Box 12, Folder “GH—Milton Friedman”.
Image Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst . Police Department, “Board of Trustees fee increase demonstration: Economics professor Samuel Bowles speaking to protesters, April 15, 1976“, University Photograph Collection (RG 110-176). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
One reply on “Harvard/Chicago. Gottfried Haberler and Milton Friedman on Samuel Bowles, 1970”
Speaking of Haberler, the following email came in from my colleague:
E. Roy Weintraub
Emeritus Professor of Economics
Fellow, Center for the History of Political Economy
Duke University
Years ago, when a young Larry Summers gave a talk at Duke when I was chair (1983-1987), several of us took him to dinner afterwards. He asked us about any Duke Faculty Club, but we had no such thing. He said that he and his Harvard colleagues were cautious about lunching at their club because “God Forbid Haberler” might sit down with them.