David Friedman is the son of economists Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman. His son, Patri Friedman, has also written on anarcho-capitalism topics, particularly seasteading. David Friedman holds an A.B. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago, although he is mostly known for his work in political theory, law, and economics. He is currently a professor of law at Santa Clara University as well as a contributing editor for Liberty magazine. He is an atheist.

Anarcho-capitalism

In his book The Machinery of Freedom (1973), Friedman sketched a form of anarcho-capitalism where all goods and services including law itself can be produced by the free market. This differs from the version proposed by Murray Rothbard, where a legal code would first be consented to by the parties involved in setting up the anarcho-capitalist society. Friedman advocates an incrementalist approach to achieve anarcho-capitalism by gradual privatization of areas that government is involved in, ultimately privatizing law and order itself. In the book, he states his opposition to violent anarcho-capitalist revolution.

He uses a consequentialist version of anarcho-capitalism. Friedman's version of individualist anarchism is not based on the assumption of inviolable natural rights but rather rests on a cost/benefit analysis of state versus no state. It is contrasted with the natural-rights approach as propounded most notably by Austrian School economist and libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard.

Friedman is a longtime member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he is known as Duke Cariadoc of the Bow. He is known throughout the worldwide society for his articles on the philosophy of recreationism and practical historical recreations, especially those relating to the medieval Middle East. His work is compiled in the popular Cariadoc's Miscellany. He is sometimes credited with founding the largest and longest-running SCA event, the Pennsic War; as king of the Middle Kingdom he challenged the East Kingdom, and later as king of the East accepted the challengeand lost.

He is a long-time science fiction fan, and has written a fantasy novel, Harald (Baen Books, 2006).

Nonfiction

• 1989 (1973). The Machinery of Freedom.
• 1990 (1986). Price Theory: An Intermediate Text Southwestern Publishing.
• 1996. Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life.
• 2000. Law’s Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters. Princeton Univ. Press.
• 2008. Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World.

Fiction

• Harald, 2006
• Salamander, unpublished