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Milton Friedman Quotes - Page 5

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Drugs are a tragedy for addicts. But criminalizing their use converts that tragedy into a disaster for society, for users and non-users alike. Our experience with the prohibition of drugs is a replay of our experience

Drugs are a tragedy for addicts. But criminalizing their use converts that tragedy into a disaster for society, for users and non-users alike. Our experience with the prohibition of drugs is a replay of our experience with the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

Milton Friedman
Drug, Tragedy, Use

Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery.

Milton Friedman
Political, Typical, Misery
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.9, University of Chicago Press

The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a thing for them.

Milton Friedman
Jobs, Numbers, People
Interview with Brian Lamb on "In Depth Book TV", 2000.

Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.

Milton Friedman
Perfectly Good, Government, Ink And Paper

A society based on the freedom to choose is better than a society based on the principles of socialism, communism and coercion.

Milton Friedman
Liberty, Principles, Coercion

Political leaders in capitalist countries who cheer the collapse of socialism in other countries continue to favor socialist solutions in their own. They know the words, but they have not learned the tune.

Milton Friedman
Country, Cheer, Leader
Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty. And a society that aims first for liberty will not end up with equality, but it will end up with a closer approach to equality than any other kind of system that has ever been developed.

Milton Friedman
Liberty, Firsts, Kind

Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

Milton Friedman
Party, Pie, Liberty
Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.31, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

Milton Friedman
Favors, Notable, Businessman
Milton Friedman (1984). “The suicidal impulse of the business community”

I am a libertarian with a small "l" and a Republican with a capital "R". And I am a Republican with a capital "R" on grounds of expediency, not on principle.

Milton Friedman
Principles, Libertarian, Republican
"Charlie Rose Show", November 2005.

The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rule of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.

Milton Friedman
Government, Games, Umpires
"Capitalism and Freedom". Book by Milton Friedman, 1962.

The Founding Fathers envisioned a federal government that trusts its people with their money and freedom, outlining this limited, non-intrusive federal government in...the Constitution, leaving the other powers to people...or to the states.

Milton Friedman
Father, Government, People

See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.

Milton Friedman
War, Drug Cartels, Government
"Friedman & Szasz On Liberty and Drugs". Interview with Randy Paige on "America's Drug Forum", www.druglibrary.org. 1991.

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.

Milton Friedman
Trying, Way, Firsts

The state of our educational system is a disgrace to our country. We have an elementary and secondary school system in which close to half of the youngsters never graduate properly. It's a disgrace that there is more illiteracy today than there was 100 years ago.

Milton Friedman
Country, Educational, School
Source: www.foxnews.com

How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant.

Milton Friedman
Government, Becoming, Protect
"Capitalism and Freedom". Book by Milton Friedman, 1962.

Keynes was a great economist. In every discipline, progress comes from people who make hypotheses, most of which turn out to be wrong, but all of which ultimately point to the right answer. Now Keynes, in 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,' set forth a hypothesis which was a beautiful one, and it really altered the shape of economics. But it turned out that it was a wrong hypothesis. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a great man!

Milton Friedman
Beautiful, Mean, Men
Opinion Journal, July 22, 2006.

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.

Milton Friedman
Government, People, Ordinary
"The Phil Donahue Show", www.youtube.com. 1979.

Even the most ardent environmentalist doesn't really want to stop pollution. If he thinks about it, and doesn't just talk about it, he wants to have the right amount of pollution. We can't really afford to eliminate it - not without abandoning all the benefits of technology that we not only enjoy but on which we depend.

Milton Friedman
Thinking, Technology, Want
There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch introduction (1975)

Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.

Milton Friedman
Change, Real, Lying
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.14, University of Chicago Press

Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with.

Milton Friedman
Pennies, Politician, Get Away

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.

Milton Friedman
People, Drug, Favors
"‪If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?". Book by John Mitchinson, p. 87, 2009.

All of the progress that the US has made over the last couple of centuries has come from unemployment. It has come from figuring out how to produce more goods with fewer workers, thereby releasing labor to be more productive in other areas. It has never come about through permanent unemployment, but temporary unemployment, in the process of shifting people from one area to another.

Milton Friedman
Couple, People, Progress

Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp.

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

If capitalism worked as the socialists think an economic system ought to work, and provided a constant equality of living conditions for all, regardless of whether a man was able or not, resourceful or not, diligent or not, thrifty or not, if capitalism put no premiums on resourcefulness and effort and not penalty on idleness or vice, it would produce only an equality of destitution.

Milton Friedman
Men, Thinking, Effort

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