SAN FRANCISCO – At 93, Milton Friedman speaks a bit more haltingly than in past years, but his groundbreaking ideas about the value of free markets are reverberating powerfully around the globe.

While his theories helped trigger dramatic economic transformations in Latin America, Russia, and China, the Nobel Prize-winning scholar is modest about his accomplishments.

“I hope what I wrote contributed to that, but it was not the moving force,” Mr. Friedman told The New York Sun yesterday. “People like myself, what we did was keep these ideas open until the time came when they could be accepted.”

Tonight, hundreds of Mr. Friedman’s admirers are planning to gather here to salute his contributions and to see a few glimpses of a new 90-minute documentary about his life, “The Power of Choice.” PBS plans to air the program this fall.

In a telephone interview from his San Francisco home, Mr. Friedman said he hopes to attend the tribute, even though he’s recovering from a bout of bronchitis that recently landed him in the hospital for a few days. “In general, I’m in surprisingly good shape,” he said.

Whatever his physical frailties, Mr. Friedman is sharp as ever with his assessments of where his free-market evangelism has won converts and where people and politicians are failing to heed his call.

Asked about the biggest problem facing the American economy at the moment, Mr. Friedman picked a target that might seem obscure to most, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a 2002 law that requires more intensive auditing of public companies and establishes increased penalties for corporate officers deemed to have defrauded investors.

“Sarbanes-Oxley is terrible. It ought to be eliminated,” Mr. Friedman said. “It’s costing the country a great deal.”

The law, named for its sponsors, Senator Sarbanes, a Democrat of Maryland, and Rep. Michael Oxley, a Republican of Ohio, was a response to scandals involving companies such as Enron. The statute has been a boon to accounting firms, but some business leaders have denounced it as overly onerous.

“Sarbanes-Oxley says to every entrepreneur, ‘For God’s sake don’t innovate. Don’t take chances because down will come the hatchet. We’re going to knock your head off,'” the renowned economist said. He said he views the federal Securities and Exchange Commission as unnecessary “on the whole.”

Long an iconic figure among economists, Mr. Friedman has made inroads into the mainstream. He gained notoriety as an adviser to Senator Goldwater in his presidential campaign, and to President Nixon. In 1969, Time magazine dedicated a cover story to Mr. Friedman, then a professor at the University of Chicago.

In 1980, he hosted a series of programs on PBS, “Free to Choose.” The shows, and a book by the same name, were intended as a counterpoint to an earlier series featuring a Harvard professor and renowned Keynesian, John Kenneth Galbraith.

The producer of those shows and the forthcoming documentary, Robert Chitester, said the series was so successful that PBS rebroadcast it three times. “It had a very, very big audience,” he said.

Mr. Friedman described the new documentary as “much more biographical” than his earlier television forays. “It covers the life and times.”

Mr. Chitester said the Nobel Prize winner has complained the documentary dwells too much on his story, including his life with his wife, fellow economist, and frequent co-author, Rose. “When he first saw the program, he was a little bit personally embarrassed by it,” the producer said. “He really is a person who doesn’t need awards and praise. Whether a conclusion is popular or not is irrelevant to him.”

Mr. Friedman said yesterday he is “very pleased” with the documentary.

Explaining economic theory on television can be “pretty heavy lifting,” as Mr. Chitester put it. Still, the new show ventures into territory previously uncharted on the airwaves, such as a discussion of the consumption function, Mr. Friedman’s assessment of how people spend based on their expected income not just their current situation. It also includes some whose views differ from Mr. Friedman’s, such as Mr. Galbraith.

Tonight’s tribute, which was arranged by a San Francisco think tank, the Pacific Research Institute, is intended to raise money to promote the broadcast, Mr. Chitester said.

Mr. Friedman, a libertarian, has endeared himself to conservatives with his vigorous support for policies such as government vouchers for private school tuition. A foundation he started with his wife is devoted to pressing for vouchers.

“I’ve found no reason whatsoever for having a public school system. You would have a better educational system, elementary and secondary system, if government were not involved,” he said yesterday.

Not all of Mr. Friedman’s policy prescriptions have been lauded by politicians, even in the abstract. For more than three decades, he has advocated the legalization of drugs, a stance which has attracted little support from the political establishment.

Still, Mr. Friedman’s advice is sought out by figures such as Governor Schwarzenegger of California. “I think he’s very good,” said Mr. Friedman, who is a member of the governor’s economic council. The economist described as “a great loss” the failure of much of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s agenda in a series of referenda last fall.

Mr. Friedman’s attitude toward President Bush is a bit more reserved. The Nobel laureate praised the president for being “very courageous,” but skewered him over federal spending. “I think it’s really disgraceful that the Republican Party, which preaches holding down the size of government, should have been, and the Bush administration should have been, such a big spender,” the economist said.

Even that critique leaves Mr. Bush in better stead than President Nixon. Mr. Friedman once called him “the most socialist” of modern American presidents.

As doomsayers warn of the migration of good American jobs overseas, Mr. Friedman said he remains upbeat about the country’s economy. “It’s never been better,” he said.

The economist dismissed official numbers showing a massive trade deficit as “a statistical artifact” that fails to take full account of risky and rewarding investments Americans make abroad. “I wouldn’t be concerned about it whatsoever,” he said.

Mr. Friedman also decried the recent campaign to block a company owned in part by the government of Dubai from buying a firm that operates American ports. “It’s absurd, absolutely absurd,” he said. “It’s a strictly protectionist reaction. If you eliminate all transactions involving foreign entities, we would cut our standard of living more than in half.”