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Milton Friedman Quotes - Page 7

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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.

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.

Milton Friedman
Voice, People, Ordinary

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.

Milton Friedman
Depression, Government, Unemployment
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.38, University of Chicago Press

To really understand something you've got to reduce it to its principles.

Milton Friedman
Principles

If you spend your own money on yourself, you care how much you spend and how well you spend it. If you spend your own money on someone else, you care how much you spend, but you don't care how well it is spent. If you spend someone else's money on yourself, you don't care how much you spend, but you do care how well it is spent. And finally, if you spend someone else's money on someone else, you don't care how much you spend, and you don't care how well it is spent. That is government.

Milton Friedman
Government, Care, Wells

Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy - all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values.

Milton Friedman
Self, Discipline, Goal
Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The facts never speak for themselves. They have to be interpreted in terms of some understanding of where they come from and what the relation between them is.

Milton Friedman
Understanding, Facts, Speak
Source: www.pbs.org

The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.

Milton Friedman
Philosophy, Organization, Greed
Milton Friedman (1968). “Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist's Protest”, San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

The most unresolved problem of the day is precisely the problem that concerned the founders of this nation: how to limit the scope and power of government. Tyranny, restrictions on human freedom, come primarily from governmental restrictions that we ourselves have set up.

Milton Friedman
Government, Limits, Problem

There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.

Milton Friedman
Responsibility, Social, Increase
"The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits By Milton Friedman". James Duffy, Original article from the New York Times Magazine, www.morethanaccountants.co.uk. September 13, 1970.

I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintainence of a free society is a very difficult and complicated thing and it requires a self-denying ordinance of the most extreme kind. It requires a willingness to put up with temporary evils on the basis of the subtle and sophisticated understanding that if you step in to do something about them you not only may make them worse, you will spread your tenticles and get bad results elsewhere.

Milton Friedman
Self, People, Evil
Interview with Richard Heffner on "The Open Mind", December 7, 1975.

Making prohibition work is like making water run uphill; it's against nature.

Milton Friedman
Running, Freedom, Water

If a tax cut increases government revenues, you haven't cut taxes enough.

Milton Friedman
Cutting, Government, Politics
"Milton Friedman's Last Lunch" by Mark Skousen, www.forbes.com. November 24, 2006.

Now that I'm 60, every morning I look in the mirror and say, "I don't know who you are, stranger, but I'm gonna shave you anyway".

Milton Friedman
Birthday, Morning, Mirrors

Saying it is one thing. Doing it is very different.

Milton Friedman
Different, One Thing
Source: www.foxnews.com

Every friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

Milton Friedman
Army, Jail, Alcohol
"An Open Letter to Bill Bennett". Milton Friedman, The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 1989.

Economic freedom is ... an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.

Milton Friedman
Freedom, Mean, Independent
Capitalism and Freedom ch. 1 (1962)

If the government is to try and ban private consumption of alcohol and tobacco, it must surely ban such activities as hang-gliding, skiing, rock-climbing and so on. Where should it stop? Rugby? American Football? Ice Hockey? Insofar as the government has information not generally available about the merits or demerits of the items we ingest or the activities we engage in, let it give us the information. But let it leave us free to choose what chances we want to take with our own lives.

Milton Friedman
Football, Hockey, Rocks

Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. It is made by or stopped by the central bank.

Milton Friedman
Made, Phenomenon, Inflation
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

There have been unions based on gold or silver, but not on fiat money - money tempted to inflate - put out by politically independent entities.

Milton Friedman
Independent, Gold, Unions
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?

Milton Friedman
Order, Law, Alcohol
Milton Friedman (1972). “An economist's protest: columns in political economy”

The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.

Milton Friedman
Statistics, Tests, Predictions
Milton Friedman, Kurt R. Leube (1987). “The essence of Friedman”, Hoover Inst Pr

Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.

Milton Friedman
Athlete, Ideas, Understanding

Whenever we depart from voluntary cooperation and try to do good by using force, the bad moral value of force triumphs over good intentions.

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

I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there's something wrong, pass a law and do something about it.

Milton Friedman
Moving, Simple, Thinking
Milton Friedman (2017). “Milton Friedman on Freedom: Selections from The Collected Works of Milton Friedman”, p.65, Hoover Press

The only reason free markets have a ghost of a chance is that they are so much more efficient than any other form of organization.

Milton Friedman
Organization, Chance, Ghost
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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