Race has undeniably demonstrated a power to polarize American society. Where the newly forming white working class of the 19th century took whiteness as a means of responding to fears of dependency and anguish over the imposition of capitalist discipline, that same fear is seen in the resurgence of white supremacy to counter fears triggered by the spiraling crisis over globalization, downward mobility, and immigrant workers.

After the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman was perhaps the most influential advocate of free-market capitalism in the Cold War era. This article examines how Friedman bolstered the image of capitalism by focusing only the its positive dynamics while also marginalizing its destructive dynamics.