quotes by Milton Friedman

"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."
— Milton Friedman

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."
— Milton Friedman

"I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they’re responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of."
— Milton Friedman

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
— Milton Friedman

""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

"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 (There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch)

"When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody's expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger - there's more for the worker, but there's also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.

That's the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That's the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries."
— Milton Friedman (Free to Choose: A Personal Statement)

"Governments never learn. Only people learn."
— Milton Friedman

" "I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.""
— Milton Friedman

"Only a crisis, real 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 politically inevitable."
— Milton Friedman

"It is because it's prohibited. 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

"In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic "what your country can do for you" implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, "what you can do for your country" implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. 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 worshiped and served. 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

"Education spending will be most effective if it relies on parental choice & private initiative -- the building blocks of success throughout our society."
— Milton Friedman

"Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government."
— Milton Friedman

""Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.""
— Milton Friedman

""There's no such thing as a free lunch.""
— Milton Friedman

"The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both"
— Milton Friedman

"We do not influence the course of events by persuading people that we are right when we make what they regard as radical proposals. Rather, we exert influence by keeping options available when something has to be done at a time of crisis."
— Milton Friedman

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand."
— Milton Friedman

"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned."
— Milton Friedman

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

"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