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Milton Friedman Quotes - Page 4

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The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can't do that.

The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can't do that.

Milton Friedman
Religious, Hate, Government
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Doing good with other people's money has two basic flaws. In the first place, you never spend anybody else's money as carefully as you spend your own. So a large fraction of that money is inevitably wasted. In the second place, and equally important, you cannot do good with other people's money unless you first get the money away from them. So that force - sending a policeman to take the money from somebody's pocket - is fundamentally at the basis of the philosophy of the welfare state.

Milton Friedman
Philosophy, Two, People
Milton Friedman (1978). “Tax limitation, inflation and the role of government”, Fisher Inst

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?

Milton Friedman
Kings, Plato, Selfish

The stock market and economy are two different things.

Milton Friedman
Two, Different, Economy

Government is a way by which every individual believes he can live at the expense of everybody else.

Milton Friedman
Believe, Government, Way

In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work.

Milton Friedman
Useless
Milton Friedman, William Richard Allen (1983). “Bright promises, dismal performance: an economist's protest”, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.

The big problem for a democratic government - democrat with a small "d" - is how to hold down government spending.

Milton Friedman
Government, Problem, Bigs
Source: www.foxnews.com

In the 1960s, The National Education Association changed its character. The NEA changed into a union. And from that point on you can see deterioration in the quality of schooling in the United States.

Milton Friedman
Character, Quality, United States
Source: www.foxnews.com

Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

Milton Friedman
Thinking, People, Giving
Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman (2002). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.15, University of Chicago Press

The growing role that the government has played in financing and administering schooling has led not only the enormous waste of taxpayers money but also to a far poorer educational system.

Milton Friedman
Educational, Government, Roles

To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.

Milton Friedman
Country, Mean, Men
"Capitalism and Freedom". Book by Milton Friedman, 1962.

Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power.

Milton Friedman
Mind, Plant, Concentration
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.2, University of Chicago Press

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

Milton Friedman
Power, Harm
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.3, University of Chicago Press

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

Milton Friedman
Government, Cynical, Political

What works for Sweden wouldn't work for France or Germany or Italy. In a small state, you can reach outside for many of your activities. In a homogeneous culture, they are willing to pay higher taxes in order to achieve commonly held goals. But "common goals" are much harder to come by in larger, more heterogeneous populations.

Milton Friedman
Order, Goal, Population
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.

Milton Friedman
Wisdom, Knowledge, Mean

A free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.

Milton Friedman
Country, Men, Can Do
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.2, University of Chicago Press

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.

Milton Friedman
People, Political, Liberty
Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The excuse for the destruction of liberty is always the plea of necessary ' that there is no alternative

Milton Friedman
Liberty, Alternatives, Excuse

The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.

Milton Friedman
Government, Civilization, Achievement
"The Phil Donahue Show", www.youtube.com. 1979.

I'm not in favor of no government. You do need a government. But by doing so many things that the government has no business doing, it cannot do those things which it alone can do well. There's no other institution in my opinion that can provide us with protection of our life and liberty. However, the government performs that basic function poorly today, precisely because it is devoting too much of its efforts and spending too much of our income on things which are harmful. So I have no doubt that that's the major single problem we face.

Milton Friedman
Government, Effort, Doubt

You must distinguish sharply between being pro free enterprise and being pro business.

Milton Friedman
Enterprise, Free Enterprise
Milton Friedman - Big Business, Big Government, www.youtube.com. September 14, 2012.

Cutting government spending and government intrusion in the economy will almost surely involve immediate gain for the many, short-term pain for the few, and long-term gain for all.

Milton Friedman
Pain, Cutting, Government

The Federal Reserve the privately owned U.S. central bank definitely caused The Great Depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by one third from 1929 to 1933.

Milton Friedman
Great Depression, Currency, Federal Reserve

A society that puts equality - in the sense of equality of outcome - ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality or freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom. On the other hand, a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today's less well off to become tomorrow's rich, and in the process, enables almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a richer and fuller life.

Milton Friedman
Mean, Opportunity, Hands
Free to Choose ch. 5 (1980).

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