Jim Gwartney, Professor of Economics at Florida State University, is interviewed at Capitaf in May 2022 by Sam Staley, Director of the DeVoe Moore Center at FSU. They discuss how Milton Friedman was a key initiator for the Economic Freedom of the World index, the project that Jim led for over 30 years.
In October 2015, Elisabeth Curtis, Senior Lecturer at Dartmouth College brought her Economics 70 class to Capitaf and together with Bob Chitester spent two hours discussing Friedman’s perspective on economic development. The course involves students doing case studies on Poland’s economic reform efforts, including a two-week visit to Poland.
In October 2016, the Economics 70 class returned for another two-hour session, and they will do so again in October 2017.
In August 2017, the first residential seminar occurred. Ten University of Arkansas students and their advisor spent four nights and three days immersed in discussions with Hoover Institute Fellow David Henderson; Retired CEO of ABF Freight System, Wesley Kemp; and Bob Chitester discussing Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. They also played tennis, canoed on or swam in the pond and did some target shooting. One day involved discussion groups at Dartmouth College.
We look forward to scheduling similar visits from many colleges and youth groups.
Free To Choose Network is a 501-c-3 public charity established by Bob Chitester to continue his work of using mass media to share Milton Friedman’s ideas with millions. The public TV series Chitester persuaded Friedman to undertake continues to find new fans. Over fourteen million viewers watched the Free To Choose TV series on public television. In the first year of publication, the hardcover version of the book sold over 400,000 copies in the U.S and 500,000 in Japan. The book and the ten one-hour TV programs continue to change lives around the world thirty-five years later.
When Chitester realized Capitaf was “on the market,” his first thought was to seek contributors who would make donations to Free To Choose Network for the purchase. Chris Rufer, an FTCN Director, suggested another approach and within a year Chitester had recruited investors who founded “Capitaf Partners LLC.”
FTCN is one of the members of the LLC and, in the members’ agreement, is designated as the manager of the property. As such, FTCN has fiduciary responsibility for the maintenance of the property and marketing and managing programs that make use of the facility.
Capitaf will now become the incubator for future Friedmans, those who will advance these ideas for the next generations. We invite those who seek to build upon his ideas and use those ideas as the foundation for new, improved versions to contact us to find out how to use the atmosphere of working in Milton’s home to find new ways to apply the economic way of thinking to the universal challenge of human thriving. Come take advantage of the physical environment he created and the intellectual inquiry that flourished here.
The members of Capitaf Partners, LLC, which owns the property, are: Free To Choose Network, Inc.; Chris Rufer; David Friedman; Bob Chitester; Maurice Baker; Wesley Kemp; and Mark Chitester.