SAN FRANCISCO - Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three U.S. presidents, died Thursday at age 94.

Friedman died in San Francisco, said Robert Fanger, a spokesman for the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in Indianapolis. He did not know the cause of death.

“Milton’s passion for freedom and liberty has influenced more lives than he ever could possibly know,” said Gordon St. Angelo, the foundation’s president and CEO, in a statement. “His writings and ideas have transformed the minds of U.S. presidents, world leaders, entrepreneurs and freshmen economic majors alike.”

From the AP press.

When I was an undergrad at Stanford, Milton Friedman came to speak on campus. Of all my 4 years there only Jesse Jackson (at the peak of his popularity) out drew Milton. At an ultra liberal (which college is not?) campus like Stanford, this is a feat in of itself.

To me, he is the progenitor of “market-based socialism” (I’ll get hanged by Friedman scholars for this) . . . and direct influencer of the current community driven web 2.0 vision. Essentially, he argued that personal choice (include greed) will drive toward a better society. That there is nothing in conflict between capitalism, self preservation and public good. . . (how 2.0!) Far from a Reagan apologist, he argued for those on the wrong end of the bell curve as much as he did for the middle class. He is the greatest economist of our times; if not, the most influential to the cause . . .