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Milton Friedman Quotes - Page 9

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Statistics do not speak for themselves.

Statistics do not speak for themselves.

Milton Friedman
Statistics, Speak
Source: www.pbs.org

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.

Milton Friedman
Freedom, Government, Opening Up

The Great Depression was not a sign of the failure of monetary policy or a result of the failure of the market system as was widely interpreted. It was instead a consequence of a very serious government failure, in particular a failure in the monetary authorities to do what they'd initially been set up to do.

Milton Friedman
Government, Serious, Great Depression

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.

Milton Friedman
Freedom, People, Together

Anybody who was easily converted was not worth converting.

Milton Friedman
Converting

Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.

Milton Friedman
Humility, Arrogance, Virtue
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.188, University of Chicago Press

The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument. And the emotional faculties are more highly developed in most men than the rational, paradoxically or especially even in those who regard themselves as intellectuals.

Milton Friedman
Simple, Men, Emotional

. . . it is worth discussing radical changes, not in the expectation that they will be adopted promptly but for two other reasons. One is to construct an ideal goal, so that incremental changes can be judged by whether they move the institutional structure toward or away from that ideal. The other reason is very different. It is so that if a crisis requiring or facilitating radical change does arise, alternatives will be available that have been carefully developed and fully explored.

Milton Friedman
Change, Moving, Two
Milton Friedman, Kurt R. Leube (1987). “The essence of Friedman”, Hoover Inst Pr

The central banks cannot control interest rates. That's a mistake. They can control a particular rate, such as the Federal Funds rate, if they want to, but they can't control interest rates.

Milton Friedman
Mistake, Want, Interest

Government power must be dispersed. If government is to exercise power, better in the county than in the state, better in the state than in Washington. If I do not like what my local community does, be it in sewage disposal, or zoning, or schools, I can move to another local community, and though few may take this step, the mere possibility acts as a check. If I do not like what Washington imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations.

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

If you do not force political freedom, economic freedom will be stymied sooner or later.

Milton Friedman
Political, Economic, Force
Source: www.foxnews.com

Complete free trade is not politically feasible. Why? Because it's only in the general interest and in no one's special interest.

Milton Friedman
Special, Interest, Trade

The Great Depression in the United States was caused - I won't say caused, was enormously intensified and made far worse than it would have been by bad monetary policy.

Milton Friedman
United States, Great Depression, Made
Source: www.pbs.org

If you really want to engage in policy activity, don't make that your vocation. Make it your avocation. Get a job. Get a secure base of income. Otherwise, you're going to get corrupted and destroyed.

Milton Friedman
Jobs, Political, Income
"The Best of Both Worlds". Interview with Brian Doherty, reason.com. June 1995.

If freedom led to wider inequality, I would prefer that to a world in which I got artificial equality at the expense of freedom. My objective, my god... is freedom of individuals to pursue their own values.

Milton Friedman
World, Individual, Inequality

The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years. And the thing that I will really be proud of is if some of the work I have done is still cited in the text books long after I am gone.

Milton Friedman
Book, Years, Long
"The Power of Choice: The Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman". Documentary, January 29, 2007.

Theories can be based on any assumptions, however bizarre.

Milton Friedman
Assumption, Bizarre, Theory

To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them... He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive.

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

The free market is not only a more efficient decision maker than even the wisest central planning body, but even more important, the free market keeps economic power widely dispersed.

Milton Friedman
Decision, Important, Body

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.

Milton Friedman
Believe, Government, Long

There is no figure who had more of an influence, no person had more of an influence on the intellectuals behind the Iron Curtain than Friedrich Hayek. His books were translated and published by the underground and black market editions, read widely, and undoubtedly influenced the climate of opinion that ultimately brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Milton Friedman
Book, Iron, Black

For example, the supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number--for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs--jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.

Milton Friedman
Jobs, Real, Mean
Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.58, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.

Milton Friedman
History, Political, Capitalism
Capitalism and Freedom ch. 1 (1962)

You can travel from one end of the industrialized world to the other and almost the only people you will find engaging in backbreaking toil are people who are doing it for sport. To find people whose day's toil has not been lightened by mechanical invention, you must go to the non-capitalist world.

Milton Friedman
Sports, People, Toil
Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.166, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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

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

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