Summers openly declared that all honest Democrats are now Friedmanites.

Evidence

If Keynes was the most influential economist of the first half of the 20th century, then Milton Friedman was the most influential economist of the second half … Any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites … I grew up in a family of progressive economists, and Milton Friedman was a devil figure. But over time, as I studied economics myself and as the world evolved, I came to have grudging respect and then great admiration for him and his ideas … Today we take it as given that free financial markets shape finance … At the time Mr. Friedman first proposed flexible exchange rates and open financial markets, it was thought that they would be inherently destabilizing. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 559

Categorization

• XREF: Directly contradicts any mainstream claim that the crisis discredited Friedmanism among Democrats; supports the reader’s core thesis that neoliberalism’s thought collective absorbed the left.
• SEED: Angle: the ‘we are all Friedmanites now’ admission as proof that Democrat leadership never abandoned the pre-crisis doctrine.