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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.

-Milton Friedman

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The Existence Of A

Milton Friedman

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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.

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The Word 'free' Is Used Three Times In The Declaration Of Independence And Once In The First Amendment To The Constitution, Along With 'freedom.' The Word 'fair' Is Not Used In Either Of Our Founding Documents.

The Case Against A Fully Independent Central Bank Is Strong Indeed.

The Only Corporate Social Responsibility A Company Has Is To Maximize Its Profits.

The Excuse For The Destruction Of Liberty Is Always The Plea Of Necessary ' That There Is No Alternative

Nobody Spends Somebody Else's Money As Carefully As He Spends His Own.

Economy And Economics

For One Thing, There Are Many "inventions" That Are Not Patentable. The "inventor" Of The Supermarket, For Example, Conferred Great Benefits On His Fellowmen For Which He Could Not Charge Them. Insofar As The Same Kind Of Ability Is Required For The One Kind Of Invention As For The Other, The Existence Of Patents Tends To Divert Activity To Patentable Inventions.

By Encouraging Men To Spy And Report On One Another, By Making It In The Private Interest Of Large Numbers Of Citizens To Evade The Controls, And By Making Actions Illegal That Are In The Public Interest, The Controls Undermine Individual Morality.

I'd Like To Promote Lots Of Things. I'd Like To Promote Elimination Of Drug Prohibition. I'd Like To Promote Parental Choice In Education Through Vouchers. Those Are Two Things I Think Are Very Urgent And Important. They're Both More Important Than The Harm Which Social Security Will Do.

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.

Look, For Example, At The Obvious, Immediate, Practical Example Of Illegal Mexican Immigration. Now, That Mexican Immigration, Over The Border, Is A Good Thing. It's A Good Thing For The Illegal Immigrants. It's A Good Thing For The United States. It's A Good Thing For The Citizens Of The Country. But, It's Only Good So Long As Its Illegal....

No Central Banker Would Disagree With The Proposition That Inflation Is Primarily A Monetary Phenomenon. Not One Of Them Will Disagree That Every Inflation Has Been Accompanied By A Rapid Increase In The Quantity Of Money And Every Deflation By A Decline In The Quantity Of Money.

Inflation Is The One Form Of Taxation That Can Be Imposed Without Legislation.

Had Drugs Been Decriminalized, Crack Would Never Have Been Invented And There Would Today Be Fewer Addicts... The Ghettos Would Not Be Drug-and-crime-infested No-man's Lands... Colombia, Bolivia And Peru Would Not Be Suffering From Narco-terror, And We Would Not Be Distorting Our Foreign Policy Because Of It.

One Role Of Prohibition Is In Making The Drug Market More Lucrative.

I Want People To Take Thought About Their Condition And To Recognize That The Maintainence 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 Tenticles And Get Bad Results Elsewhere.

One Man's Opportunism Is Another Man's Statesmanship.

There's Nothing That Does So Much Harm As Good Intentions.

The Federal Reserve The Privately Owned U.s. Central Bank Definitely Caused The Great Depression By Contracting The Amount Of Currency In Circulation By One Third From 1929 To 1933.

Great Depression

Federal Reserve

A Crackpot Theory. Instead Of Saying Labor's Exploited, As Marx Did, Kelso Says Capital's Exploited. It's Worse Than Marx. It's Marx Stood On Its Head.

Italy May Well Be The Main Problem. It Has Benefited Most From The Euro By Having Been Able To Get The Euro Interest Rate Instead Of What Otherwise Would Have Been Its Own. That Would Be Much Higher Because Italy Has Been Accumulating So Much Debt. In The Past, Italy Has Inflated Away Its Debt. The Virtue Of The Euro Is That Italy Can't Do It Alone. A Tight Ecb Policy Wouldn't Permit That To Happen Again.

Significant Changes In The Growth Rate Of Money Supply, Even Small Ones, Impact The Financial Markets First. Then, They Impact Changes In The Real Economy, Usually In Six To Nine Months, But In A Range Of Three To 18 Months. Usually In About Two Years In The Us, They Correlate With Changes In The Rate Of Inflation Or Deflation." "the Leads Are Long And Variable, Though The More Inflation A Society Has Experienced, History Shows, The Shorter The Time Lead Will Be Between A Change In Money Supply Growth And The Subsequent Change In Inflation.

Significant Change

Corruption Is Government Intrusion Into Market Efficiencies In The Form Of Regulations.

Market Efficiency

Complete Free Trade Is Not Politically Feasible. Why? Because It's Only In The General Interest And In No One's Special Interest.

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.

The Fall Of The Berlin Wall Did More For The Progress Of Freedom Than All Of The Books Written By Myself Or Friedrich Hayek Or Others.

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 Cooperation Of Individuals - The Technique Of The Marketplace.

If You Do Not Force Political Freedom, Economic Freedom Will Be Stymied Sooner Or Later.

Inflation Is Taxation Without Legislation.

My Major Problem With The World Is A Problem Of Scarcity In The Midst Of Plenty ... Of People Starving While There Are Unused Resources ... People Having Skills Which Are Not Being Used.

When A Man Spends His Own Money To Buy Something For Himself, He Is Very Careful About How Much He Spends And How He Spends It. When A Man Spends His Own Money To Buy Something For Someone Else, He Is Still Very Careful About How Much He Spends, But Somewhat Less What He Spends It On. When A Man Spends Someone Else's Money To Buy Something For Himself, He Is Very Careful About What He Buys, But Doesn't Care At All How Much He Spends. And When A Man Spends Someone Else's Money On Someone Else, He Does't Care How Much He Spends Or What He Spends It On. And That's Government For You.

[trade Licensing] Almost Inevitably Becomes A Tool In The Hands Of A Special Producer Group To Maintain A Monopoly Position At The Expense Of The Rest Of The Public. There Is No Way To Avoid This Result.

Everywhere, And At All Times, Economic Progress Has Meant Far More To The Poor Than To The Rich.

What's The Difference? How Can People Be So Inconsistent? Why Is It That Free Immigration Was A Good Thing Before 1914 And Free Immigration Is A Bad Thing Today? Well, There Is A Sense In Which That Answer Is Right. There's A Sense In Which Free Immigration, In The Same Sense As We Had It Before 1914 Is Not Possible Today. Why Not?

If Freedom Were Not So Economically Efficient It Certainly Wouldn't Stand A Chance.

Never Try To Walk Across A River Just Because It Has An Average Depth Of Four Feet.

A Society That Puts Equality Before Freedom Will Get Neither. A Society That Puts Freedom Before Equality Will Get A High Degree Of Both.

If Capitalism Worked As The Socialists Think An Economic System Ought To Work, And Provided A Constant Equality Of Living Conditions For All, Regardless Of Whether A Man Was Able Or Not, Resourceful Or Not, Diligent Or Not, Thrifty Or Not, If Capitalism Put No Premiums On Resourcefulness And Effort And Not Penalty On Idleness Or Vice, It Would Produce Only An Equality Of Destitution.

What Works For Sweden Wouldn't Work For France Or Germany Or Italy. In A Small State, You Can Reach Outside For Many Of Your Activities. In A Homogeneous Culture, They Are Willing To Pay Higher Taxes In Order To Achieve Commonly Held Goals. But "common Goals" Are Much Harder To Come By In Larger, More Heterogeneous Populations.

Unfortunately, Unanimity Is Not Always Feasible.

Undoubtedly Internet Has Reduced The Possibilities Of Taxation. Why Should I Buy Something Here If I Can Buy It From A Company In Japan Or England Or Brazil With A Lower Tax?

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.

Anybody Who Was Easily Converted Was Not Worth Converting.

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

China's Productive System Draws Upon The Other East Asian Countries To A Great Extent. The Volume Of Trade Is Much Larger Than The Net Amount Being Exported From China. China Needs Substantial Reserves To Finance All That.

There's No Doubt In My Mind That Ronald Reagan Was By Far The Greatest. Because He Had Real Principles And He Stuck By Them. He Made Clear What He Was Going To Do, And He Did It. He Didn't Back Down.

Why Is It That Private Insurance Companies Are Not In Trouble Because People Are Getting Older? Aren't They Subject To The Same Demographics? The Difference Is That They've Accumulated A Fund, Not A Pay-in, Pay-out System.

If A Tax Cut Increases Government Revenues, You Haven't Cut Taxes Enough.

Only A Crisis, Actual Or Perceived, Produces Real Change.

When You Have A Time Of Crisis What Happens Depends On What Ideas Are Floating Around, And What Ideas Have Been Developed, And Thought Through, And Are Made Effective.

Times Of Crisis

The Great Virtue Of Free Enterprise Is That It Forces Existing Businesses To Meet The Test Of The Market Continuously, To Produce Products That Meet Consumer Demands At Lowest Cost, Or Else Be Driven From The Market. It Is A Profit-and-loss System. Naturally, Existing Businesses Generally Prefer To Keep Out Competitors In Other Ways. That Is Why The Business Community, Despite Its Rhetoric, Has So Often Been A Major Enemy Of Truly Free Enterprise.

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.

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 A Free-enterprise System.

The History Of Mankind Is The History Of Money Losing Value.

A Free Society Releases The Energies And Abilities Of People To Pursue Their Own Objectives. It Prevents Some People From Arbitrarily Suppressing Others. It Does Not Prevent Some People From Achieving Positions Of Privilege, But So Long As Freedom Is Maintained, It Prevents Those Positions Of Privilege From Becoming Institutionalized; They Are Subject To Continued Attack By Other Able, Ambitious People.

I Am Favor Of Cutting Taxes Under Any Circumstances And For Any Excuse, For Any Reason, Whenever It's Possible.

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.

Since The 1930s The Technique Of Buying Votes With The Voters' Own Money Has Been Expanded To An Extent Undreamed Of By Earlier Politicians.

I Think There Is Universal Agreement Within The Economics Profession That The Decline - The Sharp Decline In The Quantity Of Money Played A Very Major Role In Producing The Great Depression.

The Only Reason Free Markets Have A Ghost Of A Chance Is That They Are So Much More Efficient Than Any Other Form Of Organization.

The Euro Is Good For Europe. But Only If There Is Flexibility All Around.

The Fed Was Largely Responsible For Converting What Might Have Been A Garden-variety Recession, Although Perhaps A Fairly Severe One, Into A Major Catastrophe. Instead Of Using Its Powers To Offset The Depression, It Presided Over A Decline In The Quantity Of Money By One-third From 1929 To 1933 ... Far From The Depression Being A Failure Of The Free-enterprise System, It Was A Tragic Failure Of Government.

The Benefits Of A Tariff Are Visible. Union Workers Can See They Are "protected". The Harm Which A Tariff Does Is Invisible. It's Spread Widely. There Are People That Don't Have Jobs Because Of Tariffs But They Don't Know It.

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.

My Monetary Studies Have Led Me To The Conclusion That Central Banks Could Profitably Be Replaced By Computers Geared To Provide A Steady Rate Of Growth In The Quantity Of Money. Fortunately For Me Personally, And For A Select Group Of Fellow Economists, That Conclusion Has Had No Practical Impact… Else There Would Have Been No Central Bank Of Sweden To Have Established The Award [nobel Prize] I Am Honoured To Receive.

Speeches By Businessmen On Social Responsibility...may Gain Them Kudos In The Short Run. But It Helps To Strengthen The Already Too Prevalent View That The Pursuit Of Profits Is Wicked.... There Is One And Only One Social Responsibility Of Business-to...engage In Open And Free Competition Without Deception Or Fraud.

To Really Understand Something You've Got To Reduce It To Its Principles.

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.

Now Here's Somebody Who Wants To Smoke A Marijuana Cigarette. If He's Caught, He Goes To Jail. Now Is That Moral? Is That Proper? 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. The Economic Issue Comes In Only For Explaining Why It Has Those Effects. But The Economic Reasons Are Not The Reasons.

Every Person Shall Be Free To Do Good ' At His Own Expense.

Plato Assumes Somehow That Government Is A Way In Which You Put Unselfish And Ungreedy Men In Charge Of Selfish And Greedy Men. But Government Is An Institution Whereby The People Who Have The Greatest Drive To Get Power Over Their Fellow Men, Get In A Position Of Controlling Them. Look At The Record Of Government. Where Are These Philosopher Kings That Plato Supposedly Was Trying To Develop?

I Start ... From A Belief In Individual Freedom And That Derives Fundamentally From A Belief In The Limitations Of Our Knowledge, From A Belief ... That Nobody Can Be Sure That What He Believes Is Right, Is Really Right ... I'm An Imperfect Human Being Who Cannot Be Certain Of Anything, So What Position ... Involved The Least Intolerance On My Part? ... The Most Attractive Position ... Is Putting Individual Freedom First.

The Way You Solve Things Is By Making It Politically Profitable For The Wrong People To Do The Right Thing.

The Major Basis For My Opposition To Marijuana Prohibition Has Not Been How Badly It's Worked, The Fact That It's Produced Much More Harm Than Good - It Has Been Primarily A Moral Reason: I Don't Think The State Has Any More Right To Tell Me What To Put Into My Mouth Than It Has To Tell Me What Can Come Out Of My Mouth.

In Response To A Suggestion That Total Free Trade Would End In Cheaper Foreign Products Flooding The Market And Causing Unemployment.

What Happened Was That For Every $100 Of Money, By Which I Mean The Cash That People Keep In Their Pockets, And The Deposits They Have In The Bank, For Every $100 Of Money That There Was In 1929, By 1933 There Was Only $67. The Federal Reserve Allowed The Quantity Of Money To Decline By A Third. While, At All Times, It Had The Possibilities And The Power Of Preventing That From Happening.

Americans Know Very Little About Social Statistics, But I Am Not Sure That It's Important That Americans Know About Social Statistics.

Adam Smith's Key Insight Was That Both Parties To An Exchange Can Benefit And That, So Long As Cooperation Is Strictly Voluntary, No Exchange Can Take Place Unless Both Parties Do Benefit.

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?

Our Emphasis Here Is Based Not Only On The Growing Seriousness Of Drug-related Crimes, But Also On The Belief That Relieving Our Police And Our Courts From Having To Fight Losing Battles Against Drug Use Will Enable Their Energies And Facilities To Be Devoted More Fully To Combating Other Forms Of Crime.

The Great Danger To The Consumer Is The Monopoly -whether Private Or Governmental. His Most Effective Protection Is Free Competition At Home And Free Trade Throughout The World. The Consumer Is Protected From Being Exploited By One Seller By The Existence Of Another Seller From Whom He Can Buy And Who Is Eager To Sell To Him. Alternative Sources Of Supply Protect The Consumer Far More Effectively Than All The Ralph Naders Of The World.

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.

The Stock Market Crashed In October 1929. But That Was Not The Cause Of What Caused The Great Depression. It Was, In My Opinion, A Very Minor Element Of It. What Happened Was That From 1929 To 1933 You Had A Major Contraction Which, In My Opinion, Was Caused Primarily By The Failure Of The Federal Reserve System, To Follow The Course Of Action For Which It Was Set Up. It Was Set Up To Prevent Exactly What Happened From 1929 To 1933. But Instead Of Preventing It, They Facilitated It.

The Essential Notion Of A Capitalist Society ... Is Voluntary Cooperation, Voluntary Exchange. The Essential Notion Of A Socialist Society Is Force.

Hong Kong Is The Bellwether. If The Chinese Stick To Their Agreement To Let Hong Kong Go Its Own Path, Then China Will Also Go That Way. If They Don't, That Is A Very Bad Sign. I'm Optimistic.

If You Spend Your Own Money On Yourself, You Care How Much You Spend And How Well You Spend It. If You Spend Your Own Money On Someone Else, You Care How Much You Spend, But You Don't Care How Well It Is Spent. If You Spend Someone Else's Money On Yourself, You Don't Care How Much You Spend, But You Do Care How Well It Is Spent. And Finally, If You Spend Someone Else's Money On Someone Else, You Don't Care How Much You Spend, And You Don't Care How Well It Is Spent. That Is Government.

There Is One And Only One Social Responsibility Of Business - To Use It 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.

The Countries That Have Risen And Separated Out As A Result Of The Collapse Of The Soviet Union Are, On The Whole, Following Freer Economic Policies. Most Of These States Have Freer Government And Less Restrictions On Trade.

The Problem Of Social Organization Is How To Set Up An Arrangement Under Which Greed Will Do The Least Harm, Capitalism Is That Kind Of A System.

The Problem In This World Is To Avoid Concentration Of Power - We Must Have A Dispersion Of Power.

Economists May Not Know How To Run The Economy, But They Know How To Create Shortages Or Gluts Simply By Regulating Prices Below The Market, Or Artificially Supporting Them From Above.

The State Of Our Educational System Is A Disgrace To Our Country. We Have An Elementary And Secondary School System In Which Close To Half Of The Youngsters Never Graduate Properly. It's A Disgrace That There Is More Illiteracy Today Than There Was 100 Years Ago.

Reality Ensures That The End Of History Will Never Come.

Governments Never Learn. Only People Learn.

The Internet Is The Most Effective Instrument We Have For Globalization.

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.

There's Only One Thing That All Of The Central Banks Control And That Is The Base, Their Own Liability, And They Can Control That In Various Ways. They Can Control It Directly By Open Market Operations, Buying And Selling Government Securities Or Other Assets, For Example, Buying And Selling Gold, Or They Can Control It Indirectly By Altering The Rate At Which Banks Lend To One Another.

The Most Important Ways In Which I Think The Internet Will Affect The Big Issue Is That It Will Make It More Difficult For Government To Collect Taxes.

There's No Way To Avoid A Burden On Your Freedom. The Costs Themselves Are A Burden On Your Freedom. The Restrictions That Are Necessary In Order To Get Rid Of The Terrorists Are A Burden To Your Freedom. So There's No Way In The Short Run To Avoid A Restriction On Your Freedom.

Education Spending Will Be Most Effective If It Relies On Parental Choice & Private Initiative -- The Building Blocks Of Success Throughout Our Society.

Positive Economics Is In Principle Independent Of Any Particular Ethical Position Or Normative Judgment...in Short, Positive Economics Is Or Can Be An "objective" Science.

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.

Times Of Crisis

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.

You Mustn't Judge A Politician By Talk. You Have To Judge Them By Performance.

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.

The Power To Determine The Quantity Of Money... Is Too Important, Too Pervasive, To Be Exercised By A Few People, However Public-spirited, If There Is Any Feasible Alternative. There Is No Need For Such Arbitrary Power... 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.

Humility Is The Distinguishing Virtue Of The Believer In Freedom; Arrogance, Of The Paternalist.

There Is Still A Tendency To Regard Any Existing Government Intervention As Desirable, To Attribute All Evils To The Market, And To Evaluate New Proposals For Government Control In Their Ideal Form, As They Might Work If Run By Able, Disinterested Men Free From The Pressure Of Special Interest Groups.

I Am A Limited-government Libertarian.

Limited Government

What You Have As A Result Of Past Policies Is That German Entrepreneurs Go Outside Of Germany For Many Of Their Activities. They Are Investing Abroad Instead Of At Home Because There Isn't The Openness, Fluidity And Opportunity They Find Outside Their Borders.

The High Rate Of Unemployment Among Teenagers, And Especially Black Teenagers, Is Both A Scandal And A Serious Source Of Social Unrest. Yet It Is Largely A Result Of Minimum Wage Laws. We Regard The Minimum Wage Law As One Of The Most, If Not The Most, Anti-black Laws On The Statute Books.

Personal Freedom Has Grown Greatly Within China, And That Will Provoke Ever More Points Of Conflict Between The Individual And State.

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.

If You Cannot State A Proposition Clearly And Unambiguously, You Do Not Understand It.

Socialism, In The Traditional Sense, Meant Government Ownership And Operation Of The Means Of Production. Outside Of North Korea And A Couple Of Other Spots, No One In The World Today Would Define Socialism That Way. That Will Never Come Back.

To The Free Man, The Country Is The Collection Of Individuals Who Compose It, Not Something Over And Above Them.

Individual Price And Wage Changes Will Not Be Prevented. In The Main, Price Changes Will Simply Be Concealed By Taking The Form Of Changes In Discounts, Service, And Quality, And Wage Changes, In Overtime, Perquisites And So On…. But To Whatever Extent The Freeze Is Enforced, It Will Do Harm By Distorting Relative Prices.

It All Would Have Been Much Better If Individuals Saved For Their Own Old Age.

Theories Can Be Based On Any Assumptions, However Bizarre.

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.

Not All Schooling Is Education Nor All Education, Schooling.

When Everybody Owns Something, Nobody Owns It, And Nobody Has A Direct Interest In Maintaining Or Improving Its Condition. That Is Why Buildings In The Soviet Union - Like Public Housing In The United States - Look Decrepit Within A Year Or Two Of Their Construction.

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.

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.

If You Put The Federal Government In Charge Of The Sahara Desert, In 5 Years There'd Be A Shortage Of Sand.

If China Don't Free Up The Political Side, Its Economic Growth Will Come To An End - While It Is Still At A Very Low Level.

If The Us Government Spends 40 Percent Of The Nation's Income, As It Does Through Either Borrowing Or Taxes, That Income Is Not Available For People To Spend. The Deficit Is An Indirect Method Of Taxation. Of Course, Politicians Prefer To Borrow Instead Of Tax Because Then Someone Down The Road Has To Deal With The Consequences.

[u]nemployment Is ... A Side Effect Of The Cure For Inflation.

What Most People Really Object To When They Object To A Free Market Is That It Is So Hard For Them To Shape It To Their Own Will. The Market Gives People What The People Want Instead Of What Other People Think They Ought To Want. At The Bottom Of Many Criticisms Of The Market Economy Is Really Lack Of Belief In Freedom Itself.

I Think In Some Ways It Would Make More Sense To Have As A Poverty Level A Relative Concept And Say, The Level Of Poverty Is That Level Of Income Or That Level Of Consumption Below Which 10 Percent Of The People Now Are.

A Society That Aims For Equality Before Liberty Will End Up With Neither Equality Nor Liberty. And 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.

Statistics Do Not Speak For Themselves.

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.

There Is Not A Line In 'the Wealth Of Nations' That Is Not Still Applicable To This Day.

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.

A Society That Puts Equality — In The Sense Of Equality Of Outcome — Ahead Of Freedom Will End Up With Neither Equality Nor Freedom. The Use Of Force To Achieve Equality Will Destroy Freedom, And The Force, Introduced For Good Purposes, Will End Up In The Hands Of People Who Use It To Promote Their Own Interests.

I Think That The Internet Is Going To Be One Of The Major Forces For Reducing The Role Of Government.

Making Prohibition Work Is Like Making Water Run Uphill; It's Against Nature.

Columbus Did Not Seek A New Route To The Indies In Response To A Majority Directive.

People Hired By Government Know Who Is Their Benefactor. People Who Lose Their Jobs Or Fail To Get Them Because Of The Government Program Do Not Know That That Is The Source Of Their Problem. The Good Effects Are Visible. The Bad Effects Are Invisible. The Good Effects Generate Votes. The Bad Effects Generate Discontent, Which Is As Likely To Be Directed At Private Business As At The Government.

Most Of The Energy Of Political Work Is Devoted To Correcting The Effects Of Mismanagement Of Government.

You Must Distinguish Sharply Between Being Pro Free Enterprise And Being Pro Business.

Free Enterprise

When They So-called 'target The Interest Rate', What They're Doing Is Controlling The Money Supply Via The Interest Rate. The Interest Rate Is Only An Intermediary Instrument.

If You Look At The Balance Sheet, The Us Is Heavily In Debt. If You Look At The Income Account - The Amount Of Interest The Us Pays Abroad - It Is Almost Exactly Equal To The Amount Of Interest That It Receives From Abroad. American Assets Held Abroad Are Earning A Higher Rate Of Return Than Foreign Assets Held Here.

Most Economic Fallacies Derive From The Tendency To Assume That There Is A Fixed Pie, That One Party Can Gain Only At The Expense Of Another.

I Would Say That In This World, The Greatest Source Of Inequality Has Been Special Privileges Granted By Government.

The Stock Market And Economy Are Two Different Things.

The Most Important Single Central Fact About A Free Market Is That No Exchange Takes Place Unless Both Parties Benefit.

The Preservation Of Liberty, Not The Promotion Of Efficiency, Is The Primary Justification For Private Property. Efficiency Is A Happy, Though Not Accidental, By-product - And A Most Important By-product Because Liberty Could Not Have Survived If It Had Not Also Produced Affluence.

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.

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.

The Current Oil Crisis Has Not Been Produced By The Oil Companies. It Is A Result Of Governmental Mismanagement Exacerbated By The Mideast War.

When You Argue For Free Markets, You Are Arguing Against The Trend.

There Is No Place For Government To Prohibit Consumers From Buying Products The Effect Of Which Will Be To Harm Themselves.

What Is Not Forbidden In Sweden, Is Obligatory.

If Instead Of Looking At Income, You Look At Levels Of Consumption, If Anything That's Become More Equal. The Fraction Of Families That Have A Dishwasher, That Have A Sewing Machine, That Have A Television Set. In Respect To Consumption, It's Very Hard To Avoid The View That People Have Been Getting More Equal Rather Than More Unequal.

If The Government Is To Try And Ban Private Consumption Of Alcohol And Tobacco, It Must Surely Ban Such Activities As Hang-gliding, Skiing, Rock-climbing And So On. Where Should It Stop? Rugby? American Football? Ice Hockey? Insofar As The Government Has Information Not Generally Available About The Merits Or Demerits Of The Items We Ingest Or The Activities We Engage In, Let It Give Us The Information. But Let It Leave Us Free To Choose What Chances We Want To Take With Our Own Lives.

The Key Insight Of Adam Smith's Wealth Of Nations Is Misleadingly Simple: If An Exchange Between Two Parties Is Voluntary, It Will Not Take Place Unless Both Believe They Will Benefit From It. Most Economic Fallacies Derive From The Neglect Of This Simple Insight, From The Tendency To Assume That There Is A Fixed Pie, That One Party Can Gain Only At The Expense Of Another.

Why Have We Had Such A Decline In Moral Climate? I Submit To You That A Major Factor Has Been A Change In The Philosophy Which Has Been Dominant, A Change From Belief In Individual Responsibility To Belief In Social Responsibility. If You Adopt The View That A Man Is Not Responsible For His Own Behavior, That Somehow Society Is Responsible, Why Should He Seek To Make His Behavior Good?

Only Government Can Take Perfectly Good Paper, Cover It With Perfectly Good Ink And Make The Combination Worthless.

Doing Good With Other People's Money Has Two Basic Flaws. In The First Place, You Never Spend Anybody Else's Money As Carefully As You Spend Your Own. So A Large Fraction Of That Money Is Inevitably Wasted. In The Second Place, And Equally Important, You Cannot Do Good With Other People's Money Unless You First Get The Money Away From Them. So That Force - Sending A Policeman To Take The Money From Somebody's Pocket - Is Fundamentally At The Basis Of The Philosophy Of The Welfare State.

You Cannot Be Sure That You Are Right Unless You Understand The Arguments Against Your Views Better Than Your Opponents Do.

And What Does Reward Virtue? You Think The Communist Commissar Rewards Virtue? You Think A Hitler Rewards Virtue? You Think, Excuse Me, If You'll Pardon Me, American Presidents Reward Virtue? Do They Choose Their Appointees On The Basis Of The Virtue Of The People Appointed Or On The Basis Of Their Political Clout?

One Of The Great Mistakes Is To Judge Policies And Programs By Their Intentions Rather Than Their Results.

A Society Based On The Freedom To Choose Is Better Than A Society Based On The Principles Of Socialism, Communism And Coercion.

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.

You Never Can Cure Poverty. Poverty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder.

The Real Tragedy Of Minimum Wage Laws Is That They Are Supported By Well-meaning Groups Who Want To Reduce Poverty. But The People Who Are Hurt Most By Higher Minimums Are The Most Poverty Stricken.

Political Leaders In Capitalist Countries Who Cheer The Collapse Of Socialism In Other Countries Continue To Favor Socialist Solutions In Their Own. They Know The Words, But They Have Not Learned The Tune.

The Argument For Collectivism Is Simple; Free Market Is Not.

Self-interest Is Not Myopic Selfishness. It Is Whatever It Is That Interests The Participants, Whatever They Value, Whatever Goals They Pursue. The Scientist Seeking To Advance The Frontiers Of His Discipline, The Missionary Seeking To Convert Infidels To The True Faith, The Philanthropist Seeking To Bring Comfort To The Needy - All Are Pursuing Their Interests, As They See Them, As They Judge Them By Their Own Values.

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.

The Price Works So Well, So Efficiently, That We Are Not Aware Of It Most Of The Time.

But On The Other Hand, If You Come Under Circumstances Where Each Person Is Entitled To A Pro-rata Share Of The Pot, To Take An Extreme Example, Or Even To A Low Level Of The Pie, Than The Effect Of That Situation Is That Free Immigration, Would Mean A Reduction Of Everybody To The Same, Uniform Level. Of Course, I'm Exaggerating, It Wouldn't Go Quite That Far, But It Would Go In That Direction. And It Is That Perception, That Leads People To Adopt What At First Seems Like Inconsistent Values.

George Stigler Was A Delightful Correspondent. In A Letter From London In 1948, After Remarking On The Inconvertibility Of The Pound And The Inedible, Still-rationed Food, He Concluded, "so Here I Am Losing Weight And Gaining Pounds.

Rich People Are The Experimental Ground For Every New Development. The Nature Of Progress Is That What Begins As A Luxury For The Rich Becomes A Necessity For The Poor As It's Developed And Passed On.

I Am Convinced That The Minimum-wage Law Is The Most Anti-negro Law On Our Statute Books In Its Effect, Not Its Intent.

I Do Not Believe There Is A Natural Resource Economics. I Believe There Is Good Economics And Bad Economics.

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.

The World Runs On Individuals Pursuing Their Self 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.

I Cannot Disagree With You That Having Something Like 500 Economists Is Extremely Unhealthy. As You Say, It Is Not Conducive To Independent, Objective Research. You And I Know There Has Been Censorship Of The Material Published. Equally Important, The Location Of The Economists In The Federal Reserve Has Had A Significant Influence On The Kind Of Research They Do, Biasing That Research Toward Noncontroversial Technical Papers On Method As Opposed To Substantive Papers On Policy And Results

Political Freedom Means The Absence Of Coercion Of A Man By His Fellow Men.

The Big Issue Is Whether The United States Will Succeed In Its Venture Of Reshaping The Middle East. It Is Not Clear To Me That Using Military Force Is The Way To Do It. We Should Not Have Gone Into Iraq. But We Have.

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.

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Bureaucrat Scorned.

The Power To Determine The Quantity Of Money... Is Too Important, Too Pervasive, To Be Exercised By A Few People, However Public-spirited, If There Is Any Feasible Alternative. There Is No Need For Such Arbitrary Power.

You Cannot Simultaneously Have Free Immigration And A Welfare State.

You Could Not Possibly Maintain The Current Level Of Government Taxation Without The Taxes Being Hidden, And They Are Hidden In Two Very Different Ways. They Are Hidden Through Withholding, But They Are Also Hidden By Being Imposed On Business, Supposedly On Business, When Really, Of Course, Business Can't Pay Taxes, Only People Can Pay Taxes.

There Is Only One Social Responsibility Of Business

Social Responsibility

We Don't Have A Desperate Need To Grow. We Have A Desperate Desire To Grow.

If The Only Motive Was To Help People Who Could Not Afford Education, Advocates Of Government Involvement Would Have Simply Proposed Tuition Subsidies.

Economists May Not Know Much. But We Know One Thing Very Well: How To Produce Surpluses And Shortages. Do You Want A Surplus? Have The Government Legislate A Minimum Price That Is Above The Price That Would Otherwise Prevail. That Is What We Have Done At One Time Or Another To Produce Surpluses Of Wheat, Of Sugar, Of Butter, Of Many Other Commodities. Do You Want A Shortage? Have The Government Legislate A Maximum Price That Is Below The Price That Would Otherwise Prevail.

History Suggests That Capitalism Is A Necessary Condition For Political Freedom. Clearly It Is Not A Sufficient Condition.

What Kind Of Society Isn't Structured On Greed?

If You Have Free Immigration, In The Way We Had It Before 1914, Everybody Benefited. The People Who Were Here Benefited. The People Who Came Benefited. Because Nobody Would Come Unless He, Or His Family, Thought He Would Do Better Here Than He Would Elsewhere. And, The New Immigrants Provided Additional Resources, Provided Additional Possibilities For The People Already Here. So Everybody Can Mutually Benefit.

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.

Every Businessman Is In Favor Of Freedom For Everybody Else, But When It Comes To Himself That's A Different Question. He's Always The Special Case. He Ought To Get Special Privileges From The Government, A Tariff, This, That And The Other Thing.

Economic Freedom Is An Essential Requisite For Political Freedom. By Enabling People To Cooperate With One Another Without Coercion Or Central Direction, It Reduces The Area Over Which Political Power Is Exercised.

Every Economist Knows That Minimum Wages Either Do Nothing Or Cause Inflation And Unemployment. That's Not A Statement, It's A Definition.

Rapid Increases In The Quantity Of Money Produce Inflation. Sharp Decreases Produce Depression.

A Free Man Will Ask Neither What His Country Can Do For Him Nor What He Can Do For His Country.

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