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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.

Milton Friedman

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Milton Friedman
Age: 94 †
Born: 1912
Born: July 31
Died: 2006
Died: November 16
Economist
Essayist
Statistician
University Teacher
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Milton Fridman
People
Areas
Libertarianism
Liberty
Libertarian
Economic
Area
Requisite
Freedom
Central
Reduces
Political
Economics
Cooperate
Another
Essential
Exercised
Power
Direction
Enabling
Without
Essentials
Coercion

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I do not believe there is a natural resource economics. I believe there is good economics and bad economics.
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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.
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The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
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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?
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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.
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Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
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We have a freer world because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the changes in China. Those two have been the main contributors to freedom in our time.
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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.
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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.
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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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There is only one social responsibility of business
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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.
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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.
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Government is a way by which every individual believes he can live at the expense of everybody else.
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In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work.
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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.
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There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.
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A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.
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It doesn't worry me a bit that China and Japan hold so much US debt. In a way, it seems foolish for them to do it because they get lower returns than they might elsewhere. But that is their business.
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Anybody who was easily converted was not worth converting.
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