“Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised.” PeoplePoliticalLibertyEconomicEssentialsAreasEconomicsLibertarianLibertarianismCoercionPolitical PowerEnablingEconomic FreedomPolitical Freedom Book:Free to Choose: A Personal Statement Source: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
“The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank.” PeopleIfsMenNeedsGivingImportantBodyPoliticalMistakeLibertyPowerEconomicEffectsTrustKeysArgumentIndependentDetermineBelieverChecksAlternativesReachingQuantityArbitraryDiscretionSpiritedCentral BanksEconomic FreedomPolitical Arguments Author:Milton Friedman
“If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies.” PeopleIfsHelpingGovernmentLibertyLibertarianMotiveLibertarianismInvolvementSubsidiesTuitionGovernment Involvement Author:Milton Friedman
“You had a flood of immigrants, millions of them, coming to this country. What brought them here? It was the hope for a better life for them and their children. And, in the main, they succeeded. It is hard to find any century in history, in which so large a number of people experience so great an improvement in the conditions of their life, in the opportunities open to them, as in the period of the 19th and early 20th century.” PeopleChildrenCountryHardOpportunityNumbersMillionsConditionsCenturyPeriodsImprovementImmigrationImmigrantsFlood20th CenturyBetter Life Author:Milton Friedman
“What's the difference? How can people be so inconsistent? Why is it that free immigration was a good thing before 1914 and free immigration is a bad thing today? Well, there is a sense in which that answer is right. There's a sense in which free immigration, in the same sense as we had it before 1914 is not possible today. Why not?” PeopleWellsTodayDifferencesAnswersGood ThingsImmigrationWhy NotBad ThingsInconsistent Author:Milton Friedman
“If you have free immigration, in the way we had it before 1914, everybody benefited. The people who were here benefited. The people who came benefited. Because nobody would come unless he, or his family, thought he would do better here than he would elsewhere. And, the new immigrants provided additional resources, provided additional possibilities for the people already here. So everybody can mutually benefit.” PeopleIfsWayPossibilityBenefitsResourcesImmigrationImmigrantsElsewhere Author:Milton Friedman
“But on the other hand, if you come under circumstances where each person is entitled to a pro-rata share of the pot, to take an extreme example, or even to a low level of the pie, than the effect of that situation is that free immigration, would mean a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level. Of course, I'm exaggerating, it wouldn't go quite that far, but it would go in that direction. And it is that perception, that leads people to adopt what at first seems like inconsistent values.” PeopleIfsFirstsMeanPersonsHandsSeemsValuesCoursesLevelsSituationShareEffectsExampleCircumstancesPerceptionLowsExtremesImmigrationPotUniformsPieEntitledReductionInconsistentLow LevelExaggerating Author:Milton Friedman
“That's an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it's no good. Why? Because as long as it's illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don't qualify for social security, they don't qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don't qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They're hard workers, they're good workers, and they are clearly better off.” PeopleThinkingKindLongCountryHardJobsLeftSocialInterestingSecurityHard WorkBenefitsWorkersImmigrationWelfarePocketsIllegalParadoxGood WorkSocial SecurityBetter OffEmployersUnwillingResidentsHard WorkerMigrate Author:Milton Friedman
“The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.” PeopleIfsPersonsDifferentGovernmentForcePayToo MuchProduceWillingArgumentTradeUnionsOfficialsEnterpriseExecutivesGoodsStrongestShut UpFree EnterpriseTrade UnionsGovernment OfficialsToo Much Power Author:Milton Friedman
“The long-range sloution to high unemployment is to increase the incentive for ordinary people to save, invest, work, and employ others. We make it costly for employers to employ people; we subsidize people not to go to work We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.” PeopleLongTaxesOrdinaryIncreaseRangeUnemploymentOrdinary PeopleIncentivesEmployers Author:Milton Friedman
“What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.” PeopleThinkingWantGivingHardBeliefEconomyObjectsOughtShapesCriticismBottomFree MarketMarket Economy Author:Milton Friedman
“I have long been a critic of Social Security, basically because I believe that it is not the business of government to tell people what fraction of their incomes they should devote to providing for their own or someone else's old age.” PeopleShouldBelieveLongGovernmentAgeI BelieveSocialSecurityCriticsIncomeOld AgeProvidingSocial SecurityFractions Author:Milton Friedman
“The evidence of history speaks with a single voice. I do not know any exception to the proposition that if you compare like with like, the freer the system, the better off the ordinary poor people have been.” PeopleIfsKnowsHas BeensSpeakVoicePoorOrdinaryEvidenceCompareExceptionPropositionsPoor PeopleBetter Off Author:Milton Friedman
“The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in "On Liberty." The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.” PeopleSaidGovernmentPoliticalIndividualLibertyRolesMiddleCenturyHarmInterfereNineteenth CenturyPreventingMillsPreventionRole Of GovernmentPurpose Of Government Author:Milton Friedman
“The real tragedy of minimum wage laws is that they are supported by well-meaning groups who want to reduce poverty. But the people who are hurt most by higher minimums are the most poverty stricken.” PeopleWantWellsRealLawHurtPovertyGroupsHigherTragedyMinimumMinimum Wage Author:Milton Friedman
“You could not possibly maintain the current level of government taxation without the taxes being hidden, and they are hidden in two very different ways. They are hidden through withholding, but they are also hidden by being imposed on business, supposedly on business, when really, of course, business can't pay taxes, only people can pay taxes.” PeopleWayTwoDifferentGovernmentCoursesLevelsPayTaxesCurrentsDifferent WaysTaxationWithholdingFunny Political Author:Milton Friedman
“How can thinking people believe that a government that cannot deliver the mail can deliver gas better than Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Gulf, and the rest?” PeopleThinkingBelieveGovernmentGasMail Book:There's no such thing as a free lunch Source: There's no such thing as a free lunch
“People who intend only to seek their own benefit are “led by an invisible hand to serve a public interest which was no part of” their intention. I say that there is a reverse invisible hand: People who intend to serve only the public interest are led by an invisible hand to serve private interests which was no part of their intention.” PeopleHandsInterestIntentionInvisiblePublic InterestInvisible Hand Author:Milton Friedman
“I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintenance of a free society is a very difficult and complicated thing and it requires a self-denying ordinance of the most extreme kind” PeopleWantKindSelfDifficultConditionsExtremesComplicatedSophisticatedMaintenanceFree SocietyOrdinancesComplicated Things Author:Milton Friedman
“The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.” PeopleWaySolveRight ThingProfitable Author:Milton Friedman
“What does it mean to say that government might have a responsibility? Government can't have a responsibility any more than the business can. The only entities which can have responsibilities are people.” PeopleMeanDoeGovernmentMightResponsibilityEntity Book:There's no such thing as a free lunch Source: There's no such thing as a free lunch
