Free To Choose Network

Free To Choose Network Building support for personal, economic, and political freedom with entertaining media.

Free To Choose® Network is a global media 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that brought you Milton Friedman’s original 1980 10-part television series, Free To Choose. It continues to use accessible and entertaining media to build popular support for capitalism as well as personal and political freedom.

09/07/2026

Why does government control keep expanding into industry after industry, even in sectors full of people who say they believe in free markets? Milton Friedman doesn't blame regulators or political pressure alone. He singles out the producers too, the ones who talk about free markets while actively fostering the government regulation and control that comes to govern their own industry. Health care, in his view, is simply the latest example of a pattern that has already played out many times over.

09/05/2026

Humming noise. Water use. Grid strain. Phil Magness runs through the excuses local governments use to block data centers, and why none of them hold up economically. Lou Perez points out the obvious: ban them in one state and the next state over rolls out the red carpet.

Catch the full conversation on Happy Hour Econ. https://happyhourecon.org/episodes/not-in-my-cloud-or-backyard/

09/04/2026

What does it take to shape a movement from the shadows?

Recorded in 2025, Perspectives Matter host Dennis McCuistion is joined by author and researcher Caleb Franz to discuss his book The Conductor, a biography of abolitionist John Rankin. Franz explains that while there's no evidence Rankin and Harriet Tubman ever crossed paths, his influence still reached deep into the abolitionist movement. William Lloyd Garrison called him his "anti-slavery father," and Harriet Beecher Stowe drew on a story Rankin relayed to her for a pivotal scene in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Watch the full interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qdEnVutFnc&list=PLG2LEPerJ4Dc&index=5

09/04/2026

There's an assumption that more regulation means smaller, more accountable companies. Milton Friedman didn't buy it. He argued that regulations and tax structures tend to favor larger enterprises, not because they compete better, but because they can absorb compliance costs smaller competitors can't. A genuinely free market would likely produce less big business than we have now, and more businesses competing on merit instead of on who can afford the compliance burden.

09/03/2026

"Americans have lost their love for the United States Constitution. And I believe that either they're ignorant, or they have contempt for the United States Constitution. Ignorance is curable, but contempt is not." - Walter Williams

Watch the full program - Walter Williams: Suffer No Fools https://www.freetochoosenetwork.org/programs/suffer_no_fools/

09/03/2026

Factories are loud. Airports are loud. Somehow only data centers get the "not in my backyard" treatment. Lou Perez and Phil Magness call out the selective NIMBYism, pointing to people living minutes from a runway who suddenly can't handle a hum.

The full episode of Happy Hour Econ has more. https://happyhourecon.org/episodes/not-in-my-cloud-or-backyard/

09/02/2026

How did a lantern in a window help guide people escaping slavery toward freedom?

Perspectives Matter host Dennis McCuistion is joined by author and researcher Caleb Franz to discuss John Rankin's hilltop home in Ripley, Ohio, and its role in the Underground Railroad, including why the home's isolated location made it a reliable landmark, the lantern signal used to guide freedom seekers, the constant threat posed by bounty hunters nearby, and the origin of the term "Underground Railroad." Franz's account offers a glimpse into the daily risks behind one of the most storied chapters of the fight for freedom.

Watch the full interview on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qdEnVutFnc&list=PLG2LEPerJ4Dc&index=5

09/02/2026

Data centers are power-hungry, and that's actually a feature, not a bug.

Lou Perez and Phil Magness make the case that surging electricity demand is a market signal — it pushes utilities to build more capacity and upgrade the grid, and the whole neighborhood benefits from the spillover.

Self-interest, it turns out, does more for infrastructure than a strongly worded press release.

Hear the full breakdown on this week's Happy Hour Econ. https://happyhourecon.org/episodes/not-in-my-cloud-or-backyard/

08/31/2026

Recorded in 2025, this closing exchange between Perspectives Matter host Dennis McCuistion and the late Brian Doherty of Reason magazine offers a quiet, unexpected note to end on.

Asked for his final word to the audience, Doherty sets politics aside and points instead toward the life within reach: raising a family, doing meaningful work, and simply living well.

Watch the full interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVlJsf_m-YM&list=PLG2LEPerJ4Dc&index=6

08/31/2026

At what point does paying for something become controlling it?

Milton Friedman traces the chain in healthcare specifically: government spending on medical care leads naturally to control over fees, since any payer wants to know what it's getting for its money. But control over fees doesn't stop there. It extends to control over the practices and behavior of medical personnel. Each link in the chain looks justified on its own.

The question Friedman is really asking is whether you can accept the first link without eventually accepting all of them.

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