Milton Friedman disagreed in many ways with Hayek and still more so with Keynes, but he, too, shared their belief in the longterm po liti cal impact of economic ideas. An article in Time in 1969 compared Friedman to "a Paris designer whose haute couture is bought by a select few, but who nonetheless infl uences almost all pop u lar fashions." A year later, he explained to the magazine the pro cess through which his ideas entered the po liti cal mainstream: … Act I: The views of crackpots like myself are avoided. Act II: The defenders of the orthodox faith become uncomfortable because the ideas seem to have an element of truth. … Act III: People say, "We all know that this is an impractical and theoretically extreme view— but of course we have to look at more moderate ways to move in this direction." … Act IV: [They] convert my ideas into untenable caricatures so that they can move over and occupy the ground where I formerly stood.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 547