The widespread belief that monetarism has failed is open to question. Certain strong monetarist positions have been damaged by unfolding events, but more moderate propositions live on in current "Keynesian" consensus.

This paper offers a retrospective on the monetarist debate started by Milton Friedman in the 1950s, discussing both monetarist theory and policy recommendations. While the inability to find a controllable monetary aggregate with a velocity that can be accurately predicted has severely damaged...