ABSTRACT
So famous is Friedman’s thesis that it has even become the subject ofwidely disseminated jokes. O’Brien . . . says that students at Belfast University told him the following story (I heard the same story told at a party of economists in Bangkok four years earlier): “An economist, an engineer and a chemist were stranded together on a desert island with a large tin of ham but no tin-opener. After various unsuccessful exercises in applied science by the engineer and the chemist aimed at opening the tin, they turned in irritation to the economist who all the while had been wearing a superior smile. ‘What would you do ?‘, they asked. ‘Let us assume we have a tinopener’, came the unruflled reply.”
