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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.

-Milton Friedman

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The Word 'free' Is

Milton Friedman

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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.

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

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.

We Had Much Freer Trade In The 19th Century. We Have Much Less Globalization Now Than We Did Then.

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

Many People Want The Government To Protect The Consumer. A Much More Urgent Problem Is To Protect The Consumer From The Government.

Whenever You Try To Do Good With Someone Else's Money, You Are Committed To Using Force. How Can You Do Good With Somebody Else's Money, Unless You First Take It Away From Them? The Only Way You Can Take It Away From Them Is The Threat Of Force: You Have A Policeman, Tax Collector, Who Comes And Takes It From Them.

The Great Virtue Of A Free Market Is That It Enables People Who Hate Each Other, Or Who Are From Vastly Different Religious Or Ethnic Backgrounds, To Cooperate Economically. Government Intervention Can't Do That.

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

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.

When A Private Enterprise Fails, It Is Closed Down; When A Government Enterprise Fails, It Is Expanded. Isn't That Exactly What's Been Happening With Drugs?

It Is A Mark Of How Far We Have Gone On The Road To Serfdom That Government Allocation And Rationing Of Oil Is The Automatic Response To The Oil Crisis.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My Interest In Political Philosophy Was Rather Casual Until I Met Hayek.

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.

Universities Exist To Transmit Knowledge And Understanding Of Ideas And Values To Students Not To Provide Entertainment For Spectators Or Employment For Athletes.

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.

The Combination Of Economic And Political Power In The Same Hands Is A Sure Recipe For Tyranny.

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.

How Can Thinking People Believe That A Government That Cannot Deliver The Mail Can Deliver Gas Better Than Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Gulf, And The Rest?

Freedom In Economic Arrangements Is Itself A Component Of Freedom Broadly Understood, So Economic Freedom Is An End In Itself ... Economic Freedom Is Also An Indispensable Means Toward The Achievement Of Political Freedom.

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

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.

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

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.

The One Thing That’s Missing, But That Will Soon Be Developed, Is A Reliable E-cash, A Method Whereby On The Internet You Can Transfer Funds From A To B, Without A Knowing B Or B Knowing A.

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?

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

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

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

The Rule Of Law Does Not Guarantee Freedom, Since General Law As Well As Personal Edicts Can Be Tyrannical. But Increasing Reliance On The Rule Of Law Clearly Played A Major Role In Transforming Western Society From A World In Which The Ordinary Citizen Was Literally Subject To The Arbitrary Will Of His Master To A World In Which The Ordinary Citizen Could Regard Himself As His Own Master

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.

In The Current World, With The Skills Needed, Dropouts [like No Secondary Education] Are Condemned To Being Members Of The Underclass. In My View, This Is A Fault Of The American School System, Which Is A Government Monopoly.

I Am Myself Persuaded, On The Basis Of Extensive Study Of The Historical Evidence, That... The Severity Of Each Of The Contractions - 1920-21, 1929-33, And 1937-38 - Is Directly Attributable To Acts Of Commission And Omission By The Reserve Authorities And Would Not Have Occurred Under Earlier Monetary And Banking Arrangements.

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.

The Soviet Experience Was Much Worse Than Experts In The West Had Thought. That Discovery Had A Tremendous Impact Both On The Intellectual Community And On The Public At Large.

Anybody Who Was Easily Converted Was Not Worth Converting.

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?

In This Day And Age, We Need To Revise The Old Saying To Read, "hell Hath No Fury Like A Bureaucrat Scorned.

Hell Hath No Fury

There Is No Figure Who Had More Of An Influence, No Person Had More Of An Influence On The Intellectuals Behind The Iron Curtain Than Friedrich Hayek. His Books Were Translated And Published By The Underground And Black Market Editions, Read Widely, And Undoubtedly Influenced The Climate Of Opinion That Ultimately Brought About The Collapse Of The Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, Unanimity Is Not Always Feasible.

Whenever We Depart From Voluntary Cooperation And Try To Do Good By Using Force, The Bad Moral Value Of Force Triumphs Over 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

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

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.

The Important Issue Is Not How Much Inequality There Is But How Much Opportunity There Is For Individuals To Get Out Of The Bottom Classes And Into The Top. If There Is Enough Movement Upward, People Will Accept The Efficiency Of The Markets. If You Have Opportunity, There Is A Great Tolerance For Inequality. That Has Been The Saving Grace Of The American System.

There Is Only One Social Responsibility Of Business

Social Responsibility

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.

Nothing Is So Permanent As A Temporary Government Program.

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.

Even The Most Ardent Environmentalist Doesn't Really Want To Stop Pollution. If He Thinks About It, And Doesn't Just Talk About It, He Wants To Have The Right Amount Of Pollution. We Can't Really Afford To Eliminate It - Not Without Abandoning All The Benefits Of Technology That We Not Only Enjoy But On Which We Depend.

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.

Now That I'm 60, Every Morning I Look In The Mirror And Say, "i Don't Know Who You Are, Stranger, But I'm Gonna Shave You Anyway".

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Bureaucrat Scorned.

Freedom Means Diversity But Also Mobility. It Preserves The Opportunity For Today's Disadvantaged To Become Tomorrow's Privileged And, In The Process, Enables Almost Everyone, From Top To Bottom, To Enjoy A Fuller And Richer Life.

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

Nobody Spends Somebody Else's Money As Carefully As He Spends His Own. Nobody Uses Somebody Else's Resources As Carefully As He Uses His Own. So If You Want Efficiency And Effectiveness, If You Want Knowledge To Be Properly Utilized, You Have To Do It Through The Means Of Private Property.

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.

The Invisible Hand In Politics Operates In The Opposite Direction To The Invisible Hand In The Market.

It's A Moral Problem That The Government Is Making Into Criminals People, Who May Be Doing Something You And I Don't Approve Of, But Who Are Doing Something That Hurts Nobody Else.

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

Germany's Problem, In Part, Is That It Went Into The Euro At The Wrong Exchange Rate That Overvalued The Deutsche Mark.

A Minimum-wage Law Is, In Reality, A Law That Makes It Illegal For An Employer To Hire A Person With Limited Skills.

Indeed, 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.

In A Bureaucratic System, Useless Work Drives Out Useful Work.

The Economic Miracle That Has Been The United States Was Not Produced By Socialized Enterprises, By Government-unon-industry Cartels Or By Centralized Economic Planning. It Was Produced By Private Enterprises In A Profit-and-loss System. And Losses Were At Least As Important In Weeding Out Failures, As Profits In Fostering Successes. Let Government Succor Failures, And We Shall Be Headed For Stagnation And Decline.

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.

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.

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

Japan Has Introduced Fiscal Stimulus Five Times In The Past Seven Or Eight Years And Each Time It's Been A Failure And That's Not A Surprise. Fiscal Stimulus Is Not Stimulating In And Of Itself.

There Is No Good Way Of Measuring Poverty.

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.

It Is My View That What Is Important Is Cutting Government Spending, However Spending Is Financed. A So-called Deficit Is A Disguised And Hidden Form Of Taxation. The Real Burden On The Public Is What Government Spends (and Mandates Others To Spend). As I Have Said Repeatedly, I Would Rather Have Government Spend One Trillion Dollars With A Deficit Of A Half A Trillion Than Have Government Spend Two Trillion Dollars With No Deficit.

Drugs Are A Tragedy For Addicts. But Criminalizing Their Use Converts That Tragedy Into A Disaster For Society, For Users And Non-users Alike. Our Experience With The Prohibition Of Drugs Is A Replay Of Our Experience With The Prohibition Of Alcoholic Beverages.

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

The Growing Role That The Government Has Played In Financing And Administering Schooling Has Led Not Only The Enormous Waste Of Taxpayers Money But Also To A Far Poorer Educational System.

No Major Institution In The Us Has So Poor A Record Of Performance Over So Long A Period As The Federal Reserve, Yet So High A Public Reputation.

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.

If You Really Want To Engage In Policy Activity, Don't Make That Your Vocation. Make It Your Avocation. Get A Job. Get A Secure Base Of Income. Otherwise, You're Going To Get Corrupted And Destroyed.

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

Free Enterprise

We Economists Don't Know Much, But We Do Know How To Create A Shortage. If You Want To Create A Shortage Of Tomatoes, For Example, Just Pass A Law That Retailers Can't Sell Tomatoes For More Than Two Cents Per Pound. Instantly You'll Have A Tomato Shortage. It's The Same With Oil Or Gas.

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.

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.

The Same Thing Will Happen In China That Happened In Chile. Political Freedom Will Ultimately Break Out Of Its Shackles. Tiananmen Square Was Only The First Episode. It Is Headed For A Series Of Tiananmen Squares. It Cannot Continue To Develop Privately And At The Same Time Maintain Its Authoritarian Character Politically. It Is Headed For A Clash. Sooner Or Later, One Or The Other Will Give.

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.

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

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

Money Is A Very Powerful Thing, Which You Hardly Notice When It Goes Right, But Which Can Create Havoc When It Goes Wrong.

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

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.

Society Doesn't Have Values. People Have Values.

The Only Relevant Test Of The Validity Of A Hypothesis Is Comparison Of Prediction With Experience.

...only Physicians Are Likely To Be Regarded As Competent To Judge The Qualifications Of Potential Physicians, So Licensing Boards In The Various States...are Typically Composed..of Physicians,...members Of The Ama. The Boards, Or The State Legislatures...give The Ama The Power To Influence The Number Of Persons Admitted To Practice (by) Lengthy Training,...(and) The List Of 'approved' Schools And Hospitals (which) Is Generally Identical With The List Issued By The Council On Medical Education And Hospitals Of The Ama.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Congress Can Raise Taxes Because It Can Persuade A Sizable Fraction Of The Populace That Somebody Else Will Pay

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.

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.

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 The Country.

The Future Of Private Enterprise Capitalism Is Also The Future Of A Free Society. There Is No Possibility Of Having A Politically Free Society Unless The Major Part Of Its Economic Resources Are Operated Under A Capitalistic Private Enterprise System.

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.

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.

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.

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

Cutting Government Spending And Government Intrusion In The Economy Will Almost Surely Involve Immediate Gain For The Many, Short-term Pain For The Few, And Long-term Gain For All.

We Have A System That Increasingly Taxes Work And Subsidizes Nonwork.

What Kind Of Society Isn't Structured On Greed?

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

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.

For Example, The Supporters Of Tariffs Treat It As Self-evident That The Creation Of Jobs Is A Desirable End, In And Of Itself, Regardless Of What The Persons Employed Do. That Is Clearly Wrong. If All We Want Are Jobs, We Can Create Any Number--for Example, Have People Dig Holes And Then Fill Them Up Again, Or Perform Other Useless Tasks. Work Is Sometimes Its Own Reward. Mostly, However, It Is The Price We Pay To Get The Things We Want. Our Real Objective Is Not Just Jobs But Productive Jobs--jobs That Will Mean More Goods And Services To Consume.

There Are Severe Limits To The Good That The Government Can Do For The Economy, But There Are Almost No Limits To The Harm It Can Do.

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

You Cannot Simultaneously Have Free Immigration And A Welfare State.

You Never Have Real Changes Unless You Have A Time Of Crisis.

Times Of Crisis

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

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.

Consider Social Security. The Young Have Always Contributed To The Support Of The Old. Earlier, The Young Helped Their Own Parents Out Of A Sense Of Love And Duty. They Now Contribute To The Support Of Someone Else's Parents Out Of Compulsion And Fear. The Voluntary Transfers Strengthened The Bonds Of The Family; The Compulsory Transfers Weaken Those Bonds.

The Evidence Of History Speaks With A Single Voice. I Do Not Know Any Exception To The Proposition That If You Compare Like With Like, The Freer The System, The Better Off The Ordinary Poor People Have Been.

I'm Not In Favor Of No Government. You Do Need A Government. But By Doing So Many Things That The Government Has No Business Doing, It Cannot Do Those Things Which It Alone Can Do Well. There's No Other Institution In My Opinion That Can Provide Us With Protection Of Our Life And Liberty. However, The Government Performs That Basic Function Poorly Today, Precisely Because It Is Devoting Too Much Of Its Efforts And Spending Too Much Of Our Income On Things Which Are Harmful. So I Have No Doubt That That's The Major Single Problem We Face.

There Is One And Only One 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.

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.

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.

...theories Should Be Judged By Their Ability To Predict Events Rather Than By The Realism Of Their Assumptions.

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.

Government Is A Way By Which Every Individual Believes He Can Live At The Expense Of Everybody Else.

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.

Reality Ensures That The End Of History Will Never Come.

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

In The 1960s, The National Education Association Changed Its Character. The Nea Changed Into A Union. And From That Point On You Can See Deterioration In The Quality Of Schooling In The United States.

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

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.

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.

In The Us, The Problem Is Primary And Secondary Education. We've Had Such An Increase In Inequality Because A Quarter Of American Kids Don't Finish High School!

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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 Percent Of Our National Income.

There's A Smokestack On The Back Of Every Government Program.

Government Programs

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.

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

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

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.

What Would The People Who Sold Us Goods Do With The Money? They'd Get Dollars. What Would They Do With The Dollars? Eat Them?!

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.

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

I Think A Major Reason Why Intellectuals Tend To Move Towards Collectivism Is That The Collectivist Answer Is A Simple One. If There's Something Wrong, Pass A Law And Do Something About It.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

When Something Goes Wrong, The Natural Tendency Is To Say, "by God, We Need To Pass A Law And Do Something."

Richard Nixon Was A Very Intelligent And Able Man. And He Had The Right Ideas. But He Did Not Have The Adherence To Principles That [ronald] Reagan Had. He Did Some Very Good Things. We Owe To Richard Nixon The Volunteer Army - He Got Rid Of The Draft. And That Was A Major Increase In Freedom.

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.

So Long As Large Sums Of Money Are Involved - And They Are Bound To Be If Drugs Are Illegal - It Is Literally Impossible To Stop The Traffic, Or Even To Make A Serious Reduction In Its Scope.

The Great Depression, Like Most Other Periods Of Severe Unemployment, Was Produced By Government Mismanagement Rather Than By Any Inherent Instability Of The Private Economy.

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.

China Has Seen A Great Deal Of Economic Progress. It's Certainly Rather Of A Miracle. The Growing Role Of The Market In The Economy Will Force China To Open Up Its Political System Over Time And To Move Toward A More Democratic Society. So Taken As A Whole, The One Real Failure In This Whole Business Has Been Russia.

People Who Intend Only To Seek Their Own Benefit Are “led By An Invisible Hand To Serve A Public Interest Which Was No Part Of” Their Intention. I Say That There Is A Reverse Invisible Hand: People Who Intend To Serve Only The Public Interest Are Led By An Invisible Hand To Serve Private Interests Which Was No Part Of Their Intention.

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.

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

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.

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.

Theories Can Be Based On Any Assumptions, However Bizarre.

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

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.

You Know There Are Very Few Marxists Left In The World... They're All In American Universities.

World Trade Depends On Differences Among Countries, Not Similarities. Different Countries Are In Different Stages Of Development. It Is Appropriate For Them To Have Different Patterns, Different Policies For Ecology, Labor Standards, And So Forth.

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.

Underlying Most Arguments Against The Free Market Is A Lack Of Belief In Freedom Itself.

With Some Notable Exceptions, Businessmen Favor Free Enterprise In General But Are Opposed To It When It Comes To Themselves.

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

He Moves Fastest Who Moves Alone.

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

Anything That Government Can Do, Private Enterprise Can Do For Half The Cost.

The Fall Of The Berlin Wall Really Demonstrated Beyond The Shadow Of A Doubt That There Was A Bad System, And What Subsequently Happened In The Soviet Union, That That System Was A Failure.

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.

The Free Market Is Not Only A More Efficient Decision Maker Than Even The Wisest Central Planning Body, But Even More Important, The Free Market Keeps Economic Power Widely Dispersed.

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.

The Central Banks Cannot Control Interest Rates. That's A Mistake. They Can Control A Particular Rate, Such As The Federal Funds Rate, If They Want To, But They Can't Control Interest Rates.

. . I Think The Adam Smith Role Was Played In This Cycle I.e. The Late Twentieth Century Collapse Of Socialism In Which The Idea Of Free-markets Succeeded First, And Then Special Events Catalyzed A Complete Change Of Socio-political Policy In Countries Around The World By Friedrich Hayek's The Road To Serfdom.

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.

It Is Taken For Granted That Workers Should Receive Their Pay Partly In Kind, In The Form Of Medical Care Provided By The Employer. How Come? Why Single Out Medical Care? Surely Food Is No Less Essential To Life Than Medical Care. Why Is It Not At Least As Logical For Workers To Be Required To Buy Their Food At The Company Store As To Be Required To Buy Their Medical Care At The Company Store?

If You Pay People Not To Work And Tax Them When They Do, Don't Be Surprised If You Get Unemployment.

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.

A Private Enterprise System Needs Some Measuring Rod, It Needs Something, It Needs Money To Make Its Transactions. You Can't Run A Big Complicated System Through Barter, Through Converting One Commodity Into Another. You Need A Monetary System To Operate. And The Instability In That Monetary System Is Devastating To The Performance Of The Economy.

Government Has Three Primary Functions. It Should Provide For Military Defense Of The Nation. It Should Enforce Contracts Between Individuals. It Should Protect Citizens From Crimes Against Themselves Or Their Property. When Government-- In Pursuit Of Good Intentions Tries To Rearrange The Economy, Legislate Morality, Or Help Special Interests, The Cost Come In Inefficiency, Lack Of Motivation, And Loss Of Freedom. Government Should Be A Referee, Not An Active Player.

There Is No Person, No Theorist So Reckless As He Who Says That The Facts Speak For Themselves.

I Believe That The Monetary Stability Is An Absolutely Critical Element In The Satisfactory Operation Of A System.

One Of The Reasons That I Am In Favor Of Less Government Is Because When You Have More Government, Industrialists Take It Over.

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