Charles Seeburger, Bankable Insight blogger, features these ten great quotes below. Milton FriedmanYou can find his commentary and the full text of each quote below.
- Equality and Freedom. A society that places equality before freedom is not likely to get either. Society that places equality before freedom will receive a high level of both.
- Intentions vs. ResultsIt is a mistake to judge programs and policies by their intentions, rather than their outcomes.
- Weeds. Now here’s somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he’s caught, he goes to jail. Is this moral? Is that right? I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That’s the issue to me. It is only the economic problem that explains why these effects occur. The economic causes are not the reason.
- Programmes for GovernmentA temporary government program is more permanent than anything else.
- Freedom and the Free Market. Most arguments against the free marketplace stem from a lack of belief that freedom is possible.
- Social Responsibility in Business. One and only one social obligation of business is to use its resources to increase profits. This means that it must not engage in deception or fraud.
- Property Rights. 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.
- Legalization of drugs I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. My values system holds that people have the right to kill themselves. Drugs are illegal and cause most of the harm.
- Internet.The Internet will be a major force in reducing government’s role, according to me.
- Greed. Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. Individuals pursue their individual interests. This is how the world works. Government bureaucracies have not been responsible for the great achievements of civilization. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. It is obvious from history that there is no other way of improving the lives of ordinary people than the free-enterprise model.
