According to a little research on Google Trends, the most well known/popular advocates of a free economy are (with relative scores):
Ron Paul (1.0)
Ayn Rand (0.4)
Penn & Teller (0.32)
Milton Friedman (0.2)
Peter Schiff (0.1)
John Stossel (0.06)
Lew Rockwell (0.04)
Tom Woods / Thomas Woods (0.04)
David Friedman (< 0.03)
Ludwig von Mises (0.01)
Friedrich Hayek (0.0045)
Murray Rothbard (0.0005)
Who am I missing?
Pretty solid list, I would add Jim Demint.
I’m surprised Milton Friedman is only a 0.2.
Jim Demint:
He’s a religious right conservative, he’s not a true ‘Ron Paul’ free economy advocate. He’s certainly much better than most other republicans, but this is a list of freedom advocates, and as a freedom advocate you absolutely must have a consistent and pure philosophy.
Well no, he’s not a libertarian.
The first numbers were based on ‘all years’. Ron Paul was very popular during his presidential campaign, which skews the numbers. So these are the numbers for the ‘last 12 months’:
Ron Paul (1.0)
Ayn Rand (0.78)
Peter Schiff (0.42)
Penn & Teller (0.42)
Milton Friedman (0.26)
John Stossel (0.14)
Tom Woods / Thomas Woods (0.14)
Lew Rockwell (0.1)
Ludwig von Mises (0.04)
David Friedman (< 0.04)
Friedrich Hayek (0.02)
Murray Rothbard (0.004)
… What exactly is it that the numbers show? .02 percent popularity? Is that to say 2% popularity? What?
It’s understandable why those people who are actually alive and active twoards the public would be at the top, Atlas Shrugged is one of the best selling novels ever, Mises and Rothbard are relativly unknown out of economic circles while Friedman was the second most important and probably the most famous economist of the 20th century, Hayek was extremely influential but not well known outside of the economics profession, Thomas Woods and Lew Rockwell are also rather obscure… In 5 years, who knows?
Like I mentioned, they are relative scores. They are only meaningful relative to each other.
I was under the impression that Hayek was much better known than that. Perhaps he’s better known in Europe.
Remember these figures are only about search queries (and possibly news hits). So they’re not that significant, though probably still a good rough indicator.
Before I opened this I had a feeling that whatever list there is Ron Paul would be on the top. I’m not that surprised to see Ayn Rand as second, but having both Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman in the top 5 bothers me (and I don’t really know anything about Penn & Teller involving the free-market). When I get into a conversation with someone who’s not knowledgable about free-market economics, or a socialist/leftist, the first people they name to seem like they know what they are talking about is Rand and Friedman. I honestly don’t know how people can come across Friedman before Rothbard or Mises.
Friedman has been on TV a lot. He actually does have a bunch of good - and even great - things to say. Look through the uploads from: http://www.youtube.com/user/LibertyPen . And then there’s his ‘Free to Choose’ series, which helped me out a lot too when I was younger.
It’s just sad that he couldn’t be consistent and apply his free market insight to all things.
Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller got me into libertarianism through his former radio show Penn Radio. The archives can be found here: http://www.pennfans.net/category/Audio_Archive/PennRadio/
Their show ‘Bullshit’ is well-made, and works for a mainstream-esque audience, yet cuts through a lot lefty, superstitious, and nanny-state bullshit.