The phrase was later attributed to
Milton Friedman in the December 31, 1965, edition of
Time magazine. Although generally attributed to Friedman, economics columnist
Henry Hazlitt had prominently used that expression a decade earlier in a Newsweek column. In the February 4, 1966, edition, Friedman wrote a letter clarifying that his original statement had been "In one sense, we are all Keynesians now; in another, nobody is any longer a Keynesian".
Friedman's expression was purportedly a rejoinder to the 1888 claim of British politician
William Vernon Harcourt that "We are all socialists now"; a declaration that was reprinted for a
Newsweek magazine cover story in 2009.
In 1971, after taking the United States off the
Bretton Woods system, Nixon was quoted as saying he was "now a Keynesian in economics", which became popularly associated with Friedman's phrase.
In 2002,
Peter Mandelson wrote an article in
The Times declaring "we are all
Thatcherites now", referring to the acceptance among the other political parties of
Margaret Thatcher's
economic policies.
The phrase was used during the
2008 financial crisis, when economists called for massive investment in infrastructure and job creation as a means of economic stimulation