Milton Friedman – wikiquote https://en.wikiquote.

org/wiki/Milton_Friedman

Milton Friedman (31 July 1912 – 16 November 2006) was an American economist noted for his support for free
markets and a reduction in the size of government. In 1976 he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics.

 If we are to use effectively these abstract models and this descriptive material, we must have a
comparable exploration of the criteria for determining what abstract model it is best to use for particular
kinds of problems, what entities in the abstract model are to be identified with what observable entities,
and what features of the problem or of the circumstances have the greatest effect on the accuracy of
the predictions yielded by a particular model or theory.
o "The Methodology of Positive Economics" (1953)

 The construction of hypotheses is a creative act of inspiration, intuition, invention; its essence is the
vision of something new in familiar material. The process must be discussed in psychological, not
logical, categories; studied in autobiographies and biographies, not treatises on scientific method; and
promoted by maxim and example, not syllogism or theorem.
o "The Methodology of Positive Economics" (1953)

 Over the period covered by these data, a drastic change has occurred in the responsibilities undertaken
by the state to provide assistance to the aged, unemployed and otherwise dependent. This change has
had divergent results on the particular data under discussion. The availability of assistance from the
state would clearly tend to reduce the need for private reserves and so to reduce private saving—it is
equivalent, in terms of our hypothesis, to a reduction in the variance of transitory components.
o A Theory of the Consumption Function (1957)

 I have no right to coerce someone else, because I cannot be sure that I'm right and he is wrong.
o "Say 'No' to Intolerance", Liberty magazine, vol. 4, no. 6, (July 1991) pp. 17-20.

 Now, when anybody starts talking about this [an all-volunteer force] he immediately shifts language. My
army is 'volunteer,' your army is 'professional,' and the enemy's army is 'mercenary.' All these three
words mean exactly the same thing. I am a volunteer professor, I am a mercenary professor, and I am a
professional professor. And all you people around here are mercenary professional people. And I trust
you realize that. It's always a puzzle to me why people should think that the term 'mercenary' somehow
has a negative connotation. I remind you of that wonderful quotation of Adam Smith when he said, 'You
do not owe your daily bread to the benevolence of the baker, but to his proper regard for his own
interest.' And this is much more broadly based. In fact, I think mercenary motives are among the least
unattractive that we have.
o The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives, Sol Tax, edit., chapter: “Recruitment of
Military Manpower Solely by Voluntary Means,” chairman: Aristide Zolberg, University of
Chicago Press (1967) p. 366, based on the Conference Held at the University of Chicago,
December 4-7, 1966, also in Two Lucky People, Milton and Rose Friedman, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 380.

 Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be
produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. … A steady rate
of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a country can have little
inflation and much growth. It will not produce perfect stability; it will not produce heaven on earth; but it
can make an important contribution to a stable economic society.
o The Counter-Revolution in Monetary Theory (1970)
 Make politics an avocation, not a vocation.
o As quoted in “Milton Friedman: A Tribute”, David R. Henderson, antiwar.com, (Nov. 20,
2006), told to Henderson (May, 1970)

 There was nothing in these views to repel a student; or to make Keynes attractive. Keynes had nothing
to offer those of us who had sat at the feet of Simons, Mints, Knight, and Viner.
o Milton Friedman, "Comments on the Critics", Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 80, No. 5
(Sep. - Oct., 1972)

 So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in
their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my
answer to that is, no they do not.
o Interview "Milton Friedman Responds" in Chemtech (February 1974) p. 72.

 The problem in this world is to avoid concentration of power - we must have a dispersion of
power.
o Milton Friedman - Big Business, Big Government

 Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
o Observer (September 22, 1974), also in Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotes, Third Edition,
Elizabeth Knowles, edit., Oxford University Press (2007) p. 124

 I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often
makes the problem worse.
o An Economist's Protest (1975), p. 6; often quoted as "The government solution to a problem
is usually as bad as the problem."

 I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintenance 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 tentacles and get bad results elsewhere.
o Interview with Richard Heffner on The Open Mind (7 December 1975)

 I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it's only the waste that
prevents the harm from being greater.
o Interview with Richard Heffner on The Open Mind (7 December 1975)

 If we have system in which government is in a position to give large favor - it's human nature to
try to get this favor - whether those people are large enterprises, or whether they're small
businesses like farmers, or whether they're representatives of any other special group. The only
way to prevent that is to force them to engage in competition one with the other.
o Milton Friedman - Big Business, Big Government

 One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their
results.
o Interview with Richard Heffner on The Open Mind (7 December 1975)

 In this day and age, we need to revise the old saying to read, "Hell hath no fury like
a bureaucrat scorned."
o "Bureaucracy Scorned" in Newsweek (29 December 1975), later published in Bright
Promises, Dismal Performance : An Economist's Protest (1983)
 The elementary truth is that the Great Depression was produced by government mismanagement. It
was not produced by the failure of private enterprise, it was produced by the failure of government to
perform a function which had been assigned to it.
o "Economic Myths and Public Opinion” The Alternative: An American Spectator vol. 9, no. 4,
(January 1976) pp. 5-9, Reprinted in Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist’s
Protest, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1983) pp. 60-75

 This leads to my next myth—the myth that government can spend money at nobody’s expense. What
was really involved in that last story was that somehow the local people do not pay out the money
coming down from Washington somebody else does. Of course, the truth is that the money makes a
round trip between Florida and Washington, and there is a discount taken off for cash as it passes
through Washington. Some of you may remember that wonderful description of government by the
French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who said that government is that fiction whereby everybody
believes that he can live at the expense of everybody else.
o “Economic Myths and Public Opinion”, The Alternative: An American Spectator, vol. 9, no.
4, (January 1976) pp. 5-9

 That is a widespread myth, that it is possible to spend money with nobody paying for it. You have
everybody screaming that we ought to have new, bigger, more generous government programs. Where
are we going to raise the money? Tax business. But business corporations can’t pay any taxes. A
corporate executive may sign the check, but where does he get the money? From his stockholders or
from his customers or from his employees. Unlike the federal government, he doesn’t have a printing
press in his basement. So the only way he can pay money to the government is imposing a burden on
somebody. Government cannot spend money at nobody’s expense.
o “Economic Myths and Public Opinion”, The Alternative: An American Spectator, vol. 9, no.
4, (January 1976) pp. 5-9

 It's nice to elect the right people, but that isn't the way you solve things. The way you solve things is
by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.
o About changing congress (c. 1977)

 The great enemy of human freedom is the Government. By taking money out of our pockets and
spending it, it destroys our freedom.
o The National Times, Australia, (March 1, 1977)

 [A] society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual
freedom.
o As quoted in "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: A Symposium" (1 April 1978), edited
by William Barrett, Commentary

 There's a sense in which all taxes are antagonistic to free enterprise … and yet we need
taxes. We have to recognize that we must not hope for a Utopia that is unattainable. I would like to see
a great deal less government activity than we have now, but I do not believe that we can have a
situation in which we don't need government at all. We do need to provide for certain essential
government functions — the national defense function, the police function, preserving law and order,
maintaining a judiciary. So the question is, which are the least bad taxes? In my opinion the least bad
tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many,
many years ago.
o As quoted in The Times Herald, Norristown, Pennsylvania (1 December 1978)

 They think that the cure to big government is to have bigger government... the only effective
cure is to reduce the scope of government - get government out of the business.
o Milton Friedman - Big Business, Big Government
 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. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great
achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. 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. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative
way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the
productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.
o from an interview with Phil Donahue (1979): partial transcript from SiP TV ; or find link to full
interview in the External links Section

 "The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power.
Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces
them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are
willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business."
o From The Tyranny of Control, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series
(1980, vol. 2 transcript)

 [I]t is very hard to achieve good objectives through bad means. And the means we have been
using are bad in two very different respects. In the first place, all of these programs involve some people
spending other people’s money for objectives that are determined by still a third group of
people. Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody has
the same dedication to achieving somebody else’s objectives that he displays when he pursues his
own. Beyond this, the [welfare] programs have an insidious effect on the moral fiber of both the people
who administer the programs and the people who are supposedly benefiting from it. For the people
who administer it, it instills in them a feeling of almost Godlike power. For the people who are
supposedly benefiting it instills a feeling of childlike dependence. Their capacity for personal
decision making atrophies. The result is that the programs involved are misuse of money, they do not
achieve the objectives which it was their intention to achieve. But far more important than this, they tend
to rot away the very fabric that holds a decent society together.
o “Free to Choose: From Cradle to Grave,” episode 4, PBS telecast the series (1980)

 Whether it is in the slums of New Delhi or in the affluence of Las Vegas, it simply isn't fair that there
should be any losers. Life is unfair — there is nothing fair about one man being born blind and another
man being born with sight. There is nothing fair about one man being born of a wealthy parent and one
of an impecunious parent. There is nothing fair about Muhammad Ali having been born with a skill that
enables him to make millions of dollars one night. There is nothing fair about Marlene Dietrich having
great legs that we all want to watch. There is nothing fair about any of that. But on the other hand, don't
you think a lot of people who like to look at Marlene Dietrich's legs benefited from nature's unfairness in
producing a Marlene Dietrich. What kind of a world would it be if everybody was an absolute identical
duplicate of anybody else. You might as well destroy the whole world and just keep one specimen left
for a museum. In the same way, it's unfair that Muhammad Ali should be a great fighter and should be
able to earn millions. But would it not be even more unfair to the people who like to watch him if you
said that in the pursuit of some abstract idea of equality we're not going to let Muhammad Ali get more
for one nights fight than the lowest man on the totem pole can get for a days unskilled work on the
docks. You can do that but the result of that would be to deny people the opportunity to watch
Muhammad Ali. I doubt very much he would be willing to subject himself to the kind of fights he's gone
through if he were to get the pay of an unskilled docker.
o From Created Equal, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series (1980, vol. 5
transcript).

 Society doesn't have values. People have values.

 o From Created Equal, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series (1980, vol. 5
transcript).

 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.
o From Created Equal, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series (1980, vol. 5
transcript).

 There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of
which will be to harm themselves.
o From Who protects the consumer?, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series
(1980, vol. 7 transcript)

 Governments never learn. Only people learn.

o Statement made in 1980, as quoted in The Cynic's Lexicon : A Dictionary Of Amoral
Advice (1984), by Jonathon Green, p. 77

 Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

o Tyranny of the Status Quo, San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1980) p. 115

 Will we read next that government control of prices has created a shortage of sand in the Sahara?
o “Things That Ain’t So by Milton Friedman”, Newsweek (March 10, 1980) p. 79

 If you look at every program that the government has adopted in the direction of extending its scope, it
took an enormous propaganda campaign by special propaganda groups to get those measures passed.
There was no underlining public demand for those measures. On the contrary, the demand had to be
created, it had to be developed, it had to be produced. And it was created, it was developed, it was
produced, by people… who sincerely wanted to see an expansion in the scope of government.
o “The Social Security Myth” (1980s)

 Let me take the example which is today the greatest sacred cow of them all—Social Security. Was there
an overwhelming demand for Social Security in the 1930s when the law was adopted? Far from it.
There was no public demand for it, it had to be sold. How was it sold? By the slickest devices of
Madison Avenue, by imaginative packaging and deceptive labeling. Social Security was sold as an
insurance scheme. It is not an insurance scheme. There is very little relationship to the amount of
money any one individual pays and the amount of money he is entitled to receive. Social Security is a
combination of a bad tax system with a bad way of distributing welfare… If you look at the tax system,
who could defend a wage tax, a tax on wages up to a maximum, a tax on work, a tax which discourages
employers from hiring people, and discourages people from going to work; a tax which is borne by the
lowest wage group, workers? It is a regressive tax. You could never in a million Sundays… have gotten
such a tax passed as a tax.
o “The Social Security Myth” (1980s)

 In my opinion, a society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty. A
society that aims first for liberty will not end up with equality, but it will end up with a closer approach to
equality than any other kind of system that has ever been developed.
o “Milton Friedman vs Free Lunch Advocate” (1980s)

 You can only aim at equality by giving some people the right to take things from others. And what
ultimately happens when you aim for equality is that A and B decide what C should do for D, except that
they take a bit of commission off on the way.”
o “Milton Friedman vs Free Lunch Advocate” (1980s)
 With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to
it when it comes to themselves.
o Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against
Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin ISBN 067080410X

 The broader and more influential organisations of businessmen have acted to undermine the basic
foundation of the free market system they purport to represent and defend.
o Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against
Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin

 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.
o "An Open Letter to Bill Bennett" in The Wall Street Journal (7 September 1989)

 Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test,
government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is
now 45 percent socialist.
o Article "We Have Socialism, Q.E.D." in The New York Times (31 December 1989)

 So far, twenty-two people have received the Nobel award in economics. Not one of them has been
female—so, to judge only from the past, the most important thing to do if you want to be a Nobel
laureate is to be male. I hasten to add that the absence of females is not, I believe, attributable to male
chauvinist bias on the part of the Swedish Nobel Committee. I believe that the economics profession as
a whole would have been nearly unanimous that, during the period in question, only one female
candidate met the relevant standards—the English economist Joan Robinson, who has since died. The
failure of the Nobel Committee to award her a prize may well have reflected bias but not sex bias. The
economists here will understand what I am talking about. … A second requirement is to be a U.S.
citizen. Twelve of the twenty-two recipients of the Nobel Prize were from the United States, four from
the United Kingdom, two from Sweden, and one each from four other countries. … Of the twelve
Americans who have won the Nobel Prize in economics, nine either studied or taught at the University
of Chicago. So the next lesson is to go to the University of Chicago.
o "Milton Friedman" in William Breit and Roger W. Spencer (ed.) Lives of the laureates

 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.
o ”“Interview with Milton Friedman”, David Levy, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (June
1, 1992)

 The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care
what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most
effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one
another and help one another.
o "Why Government Is the Problem" (February 1, 1993), p. 19

 After the fall of communism, everybody in the world agreed that socialism was a failure. Everybody in
the world, more or less, agreed that capitalism was a success. And every capitalist country in the world
apparently deduced from that what the West needed was more socialism.
o Milton Friedman: The Rise of Socialism is Absurd and There’s No Such Thing as a Free
Lunch, Grand opening speech at Cato Institutes’ headquarters in Washington, D.C. (May
1993)
 Thank heaven that we don’t get all of the government that we are made to pay for.
o Quoted in the House of Lords, (Nov. 24, 1994), also in Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotes,
Third Edition, Elizabeth Knowles, edit., Oxford University Press (2007) p. 124

 The stock of money, prices and output was decidedly more unstable after the establishment of the
Reserve System than before. The most dramatic period of instability in output was, of course, the period
between the two wars, which includes the severe (monetary) contractions of 1920-1, 1929-33, and
1937-8. No other 20 year period in American history contains as many as three such severe
contractions.
This evidence persuades me that at least a third of the price rise during and just after World War I is
attributable to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System... and that the severity of each of the
major contractions — 1920-1, 1929-33 and 1937-8 is directly attributable to acts of commission and
omission by the Reserve authorities...
Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes —
excusable or not — can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers
in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic
— this is the key political argument against an independent central bank...
To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the central bankers.
o As quoted in The Money Masters (1995)

 I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp
decline in the stock of money and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not
accompanied by a severe depression.
o As quoted in The Money Masters (1995)

 Joan Robinson, a leading Keynesian and radical, produced a specimen for me to analyze. I said
something like, "This is obviously the writing of a foreigner, so it's difficult for me to analyze. But I would
say it is written by someone who had considerable artistic but not much intellectual talent." It turned out
to be the handwriting of Lydia Lopokova, the world-famous Russian ballerina whom Keynes had
married. That was surely my greatest triumph of the year at Cambridge!
o Two Lucky People

 In the course of General Westmoreland's testimony, he made the statement that he did not want to
command an army of mercenaries. I stopped him and said, 'General, would you rather command an
army of slaves?' He drew himself up and said, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as
slaves.' I replied, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries.' But I went on to
say, 'If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary
general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat
from a mercenary butcher.' That was the last that we heard from the general about mercenaries.
o Two Lucky People: Memoirs, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1998) p. 380.

 There's a smokestack on the back of every government program.

o Interview (10 February 1999) in the video production Take It To The Limits: Milton Friedman
on Libertarianism

 The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the
people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a
thing for them.
o Interview with Brian Lamb, In Depth Book TV (2000)

 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.
o PBS “Interview: On freedom and free markets” Commanding Heights series (Oct. 1, 2000)
 The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both
parties benefit.
o PBS “Interview: On freedom and free markets” Commanding Heights series (Oct. 1, 2000)

 I was not in Chile as a guest of the government. I was in Chile as the guest of a private organization… I
must say, it's such a wonderful example of a double standard, because I had spent time in Yugoslavia,
which was a communist country. I later gave a series of lectures in China. When I came back from
communist China, I wrote a letter to the Stanford Daily newspaper in which I said, '"It's curious. I gave
exactly the same lectures in China that I gave in Chile. I have had many demonstrations against me for
what I said in Chile. Nobody has made any objections to what I said in China. How come?"
o “Commanding Heights, Interview on PBS”, (Oct. 1, 2000)

 The Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military
junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is
that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.
o “Commanding Heights, Interview on PBS”, (Oct. 1, 2000)

 I think it is only because capitalism has proved so enormously more efficient than alternative methods
that it has survived at all. (...) I'm not sure capitalism is the right word. There is a sense in which every
society is capitalist. The Soviet Union was capitalist, but it was state capitalism. Latin American
societies in the past have been capitalist, but it has been oligarchic capitalism. So what we really need
to talk about is not capitalism but free market or competitive capitalism which is the system that we
would like to have adopted, not just capitalism.
o Interview with Parker in Randall E. Parker(ed.), Reflection on the Great Depression (2002)

 The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I'm not sure that I would as of today
push it as hard as I once did.
o Financial Times [UK] (7 June 2003)

 There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When
you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your
money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present
for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about
the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money
on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on
somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned
about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s
close to 40% of our national income.
o Fox News interview (May 2004)

 I am a libertarian with a small "l" and a Republican with a capital "R". And I am a Republican with a
capital "R" on grounds of expediency, not on principle.
o Charlie Rose Show (November 2005)

 You must distinguish sharply between being pro free enterprise and being pro business.
o Milton Friedman - Big Business, Big Government

 I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason,
whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending.
I believe our government is too large and intrusive, that we do not get our money's worth for the roughly
40 percent of our income that is spent by government … How can we ever cut government down to
size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their
allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes.
 o As quoted in Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and other big government
Republicans hijacked the conservative cause (2006) by Richard A Viguerie, p. 46

 Keynes was a great economist. In every discipline, progress comes from people who make
hypotheses, most of which turn out to be wrong, but all of which ultimately point to the right answer.
Now Keynes, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, set forth a hypothesis which
was a beautiful one, and it really altered the shape of economics. But it turned out that it was a wrong
hypothesis. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a great man!
o As quoted in Opinion Journal (22 July 2006)

 Thanks to economists, all of us, from the days of Adam Smith and before right down to the
present, tariffs are perhaps one tenth of one percent lower than they otherwise would have been.
… And because of our efforts, we have earned our salaries ten-thousand fold.
o Speaking at a meeting of the American Economic Association, as quoted by Walter Block
in "Milton Friedman RIP" in Mises Daily (16 November 2006)

 If a tax cut increases government revenues, you haven't cut taxes enough.
o As quoted in "Milton Friedman's Last Lunch" at Forbes.com (11 December 2006)

 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.
o As quoted in The Power of Choice (January 2007)

 I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill
themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because
they are illegal.
o As quoted in If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? (2009) by John
Mitchinson, p. 87

Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

 There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental
arrangements. 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 politically inevitable.
o Preface (1982 edition), p. ix

 President Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you —ask what you can do for your
country.’… Neither half of that statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government
that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. ‘What your country can do for you’ implies that
the government is the patron, the citizen the ward. ‘What you can do for your country’ assumes that the
government is the master, the citizen the servant.
o Introduction, p. 1

 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 worshipped and served.
o Introduction, p. 2
 The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
He will ask rather 'What can I and my compatriots do through government' to help us discharge
our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to
protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the
government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it
to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the
great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our
freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating
power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this
power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they
exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp.
o Introduction, p. 2

 The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power.
But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture
or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized
government. … Government can never duplicate the variety and diversity of individual action.
o Introduction, pp. 2-3

 The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not
tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.
o Introduction, p. 3

 By relying primarily on voluntary co-operation and private enterprise, in both economic and other
activities, we can insure that the private sector is a check on the powers of the governmental sector and
an effective protection of freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought.
o Introduction, p. 3

 As it developed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the intellectual movement that
went under the name of liberalism emphasized freedom as the ultimate goal and the individual as the
ultimate entity in the society. It supported laissez faire at home as a means of reducing the role of the
state in economic affairs and thereby enlarging the role of the individual; it supported free trade abroad
as a means of linking the nations of the world together peacefully and democratically. In political
matters, it supported the development of representative government and of parliamentary institutions,
reduction in the arbitrary power of the state, and protection of the civil freedoms of individuals.
o Introduction, p. 5

 The nineteenth-century liberal regarded an extension of freedom as the most effective way to promote
welfare and equality; the twentieth-century liberal regards welfare and equality as either prerequisites of
or alternatives to freedom.
o Introduction, p. 5

 Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and
the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical
state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth
century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical
development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the
development of capitalist institutions. So also did political freedom in the golden age of Greece and in
the early days of the Roman era.
History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is
not a sufficient condition.
o Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, p. 10
 As liberals, we take freedom of the individual, or perhaps the family, as our ultimate goal in judging
social arrangements. Freedom as a value in this sense has to do with the interrelations among people
o Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 12

 The liberal conceives of men as imperfect beings. He regards the problem of social organization to be
as much a negative problem of preventing 'bad' people from doing harm as of enabling 'good' people to
do good; and, of course, 'bad' and 'good' people may be the same people, depending on who is judging
them.
o Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 12

 The basic problem of social organization is how to co-ordinate the economic activities of large numbers
of people.
o Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 12

 Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is
central direction involving the use of coercion—the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian
state. The other is voluntary co-operation of individuals—the technique of the market place.
o Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, pp. 12-13

 Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental
threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or
a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such
concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of
whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.
o Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 15

 The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the
contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the 'rule of the game' and as an
umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.
o Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, p. 15

 A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it … gives people what they want
instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments
against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
o Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, page
15

 The widespread use of the market reduces the strain on the social fabric by rendering conformity
unnecessary with respect to any activities it encompasses. The wider the range of activities covered by
the market, the fewer are the issues on which explicitly political decisions are required and hence on
which it is necessary to achieve agreement. In turn, the fewer the issues on which agreement is
necessary, the greater is the likelihood of getting agreement while maintaining a free society.
o Ch. 2 The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 24

 The need for government in these respects arises because absolute freedom is impossible. However
attractive anarchy may be as a philosophy, it is not feasible in a world of imperfect men.
o Ch. 2 The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 25

 The organization of economic activity through voluntary exchange presumes that we have provided,
through government, for the maintenance of law and order to prevent coercion of one individual by
another, the enforcement of contracts voluntarily entered into, the definition of the meaning of property
rights, the interpretation and enforcement of such rights, and the provision of a monetary framework.
o Ch. 2 The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 27
 Exchange is truly voluntary only when nearly equivalent alternatives exist. Monopoly implies the
absence of alternatives and thereby inhibits effective freedom of exchange.
o Ch. 2, The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 28

 Freedom is a tenable objective only for responsible individuals. We do not believe in freedom for
madmen or children. The necessity of drawing a line between responsible individuals and others is
inescapable, yet it means that there is an essential ambiguity in our ultimate objective of freedom.
Paternalism is inescapable for those whom we designate as not responsible.
o Ch. 2 The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 33

 A government which maintained law and order, defined property rights, served as a means whereby we
could modify property rights and other rules of the economic game, adjudicated disputes about the
interpretation of the rules, enforced contracts, promoted competition, provided a monetary framework,
engaged in activities to counter technical monopolies and to overcome neighborhood effects widely
regarded as sufficiently important to justify government intervention, and which supplemented private
charity and the private family in protecting the irresponsible, whether madman or child—such a
government would clearly have important functions to perform. The consistent liberal is not an anarchist.
o Ch. 2 The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 34

 A liberal is fundamentally fearful of concentrated power. His objective is to preserve the maximum
degree of freedom for each individual separately that is compatible with one man's freedom not
interfering with other men's freedom. He believes that this objective requires that power be dispersed.
He is suspicious of assigning to government any functions that can be performed through the market,
both because this substitutes coercion for voluntary co-operation in the area in question and because,
by giving government an increased role, it threatens freedom in other areas.
o Ch. 3 The Control of Money, p. 39

 The Great Depression in the United States, far from being a sign of the inherent instability of the private
enterprise system, is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men
when they wield vast power over the monetary system of a country.
o Ch. 3 The Control of Money, p. 50

 To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the Central Bankers.
o Ch. 3 The Control of Money, p. 50-51

 With respect to teachers' salaries .... Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly
underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.
o Ch. 6 The Role of Government in Education, p. 95

 The view has been gaining widespread acceptance that corporate officials and labor leaders
have a "social responsibility"... beyond serving the interests of their stockholders or their
members. This view shows a fundamental misconception of the character of a free economy. In
such an economy there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its
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. Similarly, the "social responsibility" of labor leaders is to serve the interests of the
members of their unions. It is the responsibility of the rest of us to establish a framework of law
such that an individual... is, to quote Adam Smith... "led by an invisible hand... I have never
known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."
o Ch. 8 Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor, p. 133

 Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance
by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders
 as possible. This is a fundamentally subversive doctrine. If businessmen do have a social responsibility
other than making maximum profits for stockholders, how are they to know what it is? Can self-selected
private individuals decide what the social interest is? Can they decide how great a burden they are
justified in placing on themselves or their stockholders to serve that social interest?
o Ch. 8 Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor, p. 133

 Those of us who believe in freedom must believe also in the freedom of individuals to make their own
mistakes. If a man knowingly prefers to live for today, to use his resources for current enjoyment,
deliberately choosing a penurious old age, by what right do we prevent him from doing so? We may
argue with him, seek to persuade him that he is wrong, but are we entitled to use coercion to prevent
him from doing what he chooses to do? Is there not always the possibility that he is right and that we
are wrong? Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.
o Ch. 11, Social Welfare Measures, p. 187

 The major disadvantage of the proposed negative income tax is its political implications. It establishes a
system under which taxes are imposed on some to pay subsidies to others. And presumably, these
others have a vote.
o Ch. 12 The Alleviation of Poverty, 2002 edition, p. 194

 The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the
most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights, subject only to the proviso that he
not interfere with the freedom of other individuals to do the same. This implies a belief in the equality of
man in one sense; in their inequality in another.
o Ch. 12 The Alleviation of Poverty, 2002 edition, p. 195

 An income tax intended to reduce inequality and promote the diffusion of wealth has in practice fostered
reinvestment of corporate earnings, thereby favoring the growth of large corporations, inhibiting the
operation of the capital market, and discouraging the establishment of new enterprises.
o Ch. 13 Conclusion, 2002 edition, p. 198

 As Adam Smith once said, 'There is much ruin in a nation'. Our basic structure of values and the
interwoven network of free institutions will withstand much. I believe that we shall be able to preserve
and extend freedom despite the size of the military programs and despite the economic powers already
concentrated in Washington. But we shall be able to do so only if we awake to the threat that we face,
only if we persuade our fellowmen that free institutions offer a surer, if perhaps at times a slower, route
to the ends they seek than the coercive power of the state. The glimmerings of change that are already
apparent in the intellectual climate are a hopeful augury.
o Ch. 13 Conclusion, 2002 edition, p. 202

 Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
o Ch. 13 Conclusion, p. 201

A Monetary History of the United States (1963)[edit]

Main article: A Monetary History of the United States

 The contraction from 1929 to 1933 was by far the most severe business-cycle contraction during
the near-century of U.S. history we cover and it may well have been the most severe in the whole of
U.S. history.
o "The Great Contraction, 1929-1933" (1963), with Anna J. Schwartz

An Economist's Protest: Columns in Political Economy (1966)[edit]

Glen Ridge, NJ, Thomas Horton and Company, 1966

 The key need in policy-setting is to reverse the growth of government!

 o p. xvi

 The elementary fact is that ‘business’ does not and cannot pay taxes. Only people can pay taxes.
Corporate officials may sign the check, but the money that they forward to Internal Revenue comes
from the corporation’s employees, customers, or stockholders.
o p. 86

 We have heard much these past few years of how the government protects the consumer. A far
more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
o p. 107

 A military draft is undesirable and unnecessary. We can and should man our armed forces with
volunteers—as the United States has traditionally done except in major wars.
o p. 121

 In a free society, a government has no business using the power of the law or the taxpayer's money
to propagandize for some views and to prevent the transmission of others.
o p. 153

 There is an invisible hand in politics that operates in the opposite direction to the invisible hand in
the market.
o p. 143

 The old saw is that the Quakers went to the New World to do good and ended up doing well. Today,
well-meaning reformers go to Washington to do good and end up doing harm.
o p. 155

 Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law
enforcement.
o p. 161

 I am convinced that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books
—in its effect, not its intent.
o p. 163

 The draft is inequitable because irrelevant considerations play so large a role in determining who
serves. It is wasteful because deferment of students, fathers, and married men jams colleges,
raises the birth rate, and fuels divorce court. It is inconsistent with a free society because it exacts
compulsory service from some and limits the freedom of others to travel abroad, emigrate, or even
to talk and act freely. So long as compulsion is retained, these defects are inevitable.
o p. 189 (1975 edition)

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