Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

by Milton Friedman

The government official is supposed to be our servant. When you sit across the desk from a representative of the Internal Revenue Service who is auditing your tax return, which one of you is the master and which the servant?

The new class, enshrined in the universities, the news media, and especially the federal bureaucracy, has become one of the most powerful of the special interests. The new class has repeatedly succeeded in imposing its views, despite widespread public objection, and often despite specific legislative enactments to the contrary.

We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good purposes.