“So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free-enterprise system.” PeopleWayGovernmentClearRecordsActivityOrdinaryCapitalismInvestingAlternativesEnterpriseProductiveCandleImprovingFree MarketOrdinary PeopleCrystalsTrue HappinessFree EnterpriseUnleashed Author:Milton Friedman
“The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way.” WorldWaySelfGovernmentRunningOrderIndividualInterestTheoryIndustryCivilizationAchievementCapitalismConstructsFree MarketSelf InterestAutomobileBureaucratsGreat AchievementAutomobile Industry Author:Milton Friedman
“The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” PeopleWayTogetherIndividualFreedomEconomyEssentialsEconomicsPartnershipFree MarketIndividual FreedomFree Market Capitalism Author:Milton Friedman
“The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people.” PeopleWayGovernmentBlackFreedomEconomyEconomicsOpeningWorking ItFree MarketEnablingOpening UpMarket EconomyFree Market Capitalism Author:Milton Friedman
“The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make it more difficult for government to collect taxes.” ThinkingWayImportantBigsGovernmentDifficultIssuesInternetTaxesTaxationThink Big Author:Milton Friedman
“Whenever you try to do good with someone else's money, you are committed to using force. How can you do good with somebody else's money, unless you first take it away from them? The only way you can take it away from them is the threat of force: you have a policeman, tax collector, who comes and takes it from them.” WayTryingFirstsForceTaxesThreatCommittedPolicemenCollectors Author:Milton Friedman
“There's no way to avoid a burden on your freedom. The costs themselves are a burden on your freedom. The restrictions that are necessary in order to get rid of the terrorists are a burden to your freedom. So there's no way in the short run to avoid a restriction on your freedom.” WayRunningOrderCostBurdenTerroristRestrictionYour Freedom Author:Milton Friedman
“[Trade licensing] almost inevitably becomes a tool in the hands of a special producer group to maintain a monopoly position at the expense of the rest of the public. There is no way to avoid this result.” WayHandsResultsGroupsSpecialPositionToolsTradeProducersExpensesMonopolyLicensing Author:Milton Friedman
“If we have system in which government is in a position to give large favor - it's human nature to try to get this favor - whether those people are large enterprises, or whether they're small businesses like farmers, or whether they're representatives of any other special group. The only way to prevent that is to force them to engage in competition one with the other.” PeopleIfsWayGivingTryingHumansGovernmentForceGroupsSpecialHuman NaturePositionCompetitionFavorsEnterpriseFarmersRepresentativesSmall Business Author:Milton Friedman
“There's only one thing that all of the central banks control and that is the base, their own liability, and they can control that in various ways. They can control it directly by open market operations, buying and selling government securities or other assets, for example, buying and selling gold, or they can control it indirectly by altering the rate at which banks lend to one another.” WayGovernmentOne ThingSecurityExampleGoldRateVariousSellingOperationsBuyingAssetsLiabilityCentral BanksBuying And Selling Author:Milton Friedman
“What central banks can control is a base and one way they can control the base is via manipulating a particular interest rate, such as a Federal Funds rate, the overnight rate at which banks lend to one another. But they use that control to control what happens to the quantity of money. There is no disagreement.” WayUseHappensInterestParticularRateOne WayFundQuantityDisagreementInterest RateCentral Banks Author:Milton Friedman
“You can only make money if you buy a product, whatever it is - maybe a currency, maybe wheat and maybe something else - at a relatively low price and sell it at a higher price than you buy it at. There's no other way to make money.” IfsWayProductsHigherLowsSellsMaking MoneyCurrencyWheat Author:Milton Friedman
“The big issue is whether the United States will succeed in its venture of reshaping the Middle East. It is not clear to me that using military force is the way to do it. We should not have gone into Iraq. But we have.” WayShouldStatesBigsForceUnitedUnited StatesGoneIssuesClearMiddleMilitarySucceedIraqEastMiddle EastVentureMilitary Force Author:Milton Friedman
“It is most attractive about the US to people and countries with wealth is that it can provide security, insurance really, against political instability. Nobody is afraid that the money they place in the US is at risk of expropriation or of in some other way being taken away. For this safety, the wealth holders of the world are willing to accept a lower rate of return.” PeopleWorldWayCountryPoliticalWealthAcceptingTakenRiskSecurityWillingReturnSafetyRateAttractiveInstabilityPolitical Instability Author:Milton Friedman
“It doesn't worry me a bit that China and Japan hold so much US debt. In a way, it seems foolish for them to do it because they get lower returns than they might elsewhere. But that is their business.” WaySeemsMightBitsWorryReturnChinaDebtFoolishJapanElsewhereChina And Japan Author:Milton Friedman
“Hong Kong is the bellwether. If the Chinese stick to their agreement to let Hong Kong go its own path, then China will also go that way. If they don't, that is a very bad sign. I'm optimistic.” IfsWayPathSticksChinaOptimisticChineseAgreementHong Kong Author:Milton Friedman
“Socialism, in the traditional sense, meant government ownership and operation of the means of production. Outside of North Korea and a couple of other spots, no one in the world today would define socialism that way. That will never come back.” WorldWayMeanGovernmentTodayCoupleProductionsSocialismTraditionalSpotsOperationsOwnershipKoreaNorth KoreaWorld Today Author:Milton Friedman
“Plato assumes somehow that government is a way in which you put unselfish and ungreedy men in charge of selfish and greedy men. But government is an institution whereby the people who have the greatest drive to get power over their fellow men, get in a position of controlling them. Look at the record of government. Where are these philosopher kings that Plato supposedly was trying to develop?” PeopleMenWayTryingLooksGovernmentRecordsPositionKingsFellowsInstitutionsAssumingPhilosopherSelfishPlatoGreedyFellow ManUnselfish Author:Milton Friedman
“I think in some ways it would make more sense to have as a poverty level a relative concept and say, the level of poverty is that level of income or that level of consumption below which 10 percent of the people now are.” PeopleThinkingWayLevelsPovertyPercentConceptsIncomeRelativeConsumption Author:Milton Friedman
“Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion - the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals - the technique of the marketplace.” WayTwoStatesUseIndividualLibertyMillionsEconomicModernActivityEconomicsArmyLibertarianTechniqueCooperationLibertarianismFree MarketMarketplaceCoercionTwo WaysInvolvingIndividual LibertyTotalitarian StateCoordinating Book:Milton Friedman on Freedom: Selections from The Collected Works of Milton Friedman Source: Milton Friedman on Freedom: Selections from The Collected Works of Milton Friedman
“Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other” WayKindMeanImportantEndsPoliticalEconomyEconomicEffectsCapitalismOrganizationConcentrationArrangementsPolitical PowerGlobal EconomyEconomic FreedomPolitical FreedomEconomic PowerDispersion Book:Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition Source: Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
“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
“Government is a way by which every individual believes he can live at the expense of everybody else.” WayBelieveGovernmentIndividualExpenses 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
“I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. ... because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending.” ThinkingWayBelieveReasonProblemBigsGovernmentI BelieveCuttingAmountCircumstancesTaxesExcuseSpendingFavorsIncomeEffectivenessBig ProblemsGovernment SpendingEconomic FreedomBudgetingSystemic ChangeEconomic Reforms 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
“The great virtue of free enterprise is that it forces existing businesses to meet the test of the market continuously, to produce products that meet consumer demands at lowest cost, or else be driven from the market. It is a profit-and-loss system. Naturally, existing businesses generally prefer to keep out competitors in other ways. That is why the business community, despite its rhetoric, has so often been a major enemy of truly free enterprise.” WayForceCommunityLossBusinessEnemyVirtueProduceProductsCostDemandMajorsTestsProfitDrivenDespiteConsumersEnterpriseRhetoricLowestCompetitorsFree EnterpriseProfit And Loss Author:Milton Friedman
