Quote

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.

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
Numbers
Encouraging
Public
Reports
Interest
Illegal
Making
Actions
Evade
Individual
Morality
Undermine
Action
Private
Spy
Another
Large
Controls
Men
Citizens
Report

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Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.
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The government doesn't have any money. The only power it has is to take from some and give to others.
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Education spending will be most effective if it relies on parental choice & private initiative -- the building blocks of success throughout our society.
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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.
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The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.
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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.
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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.
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The argument for collectivism is simple free market is not.
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If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies.
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One man's opportunism is another man's statesmanship.
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On aging societies, there is no reason why a country that has a lot of old people can't be prosperous if, during their working lives, individuals provide for their retirement.
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Every economist knows that minimum wages either do nothing or cause inflation and unemployment. That's not a statement, it's a definition.
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Central bankers always try to avoid their last big mistake. So every time there's the threat of a contraction in the economy, they'll over stimulate the economy, by printing too much money. The result will be a rising roller coaster of inflation, with each high and low being higher than the preceding one.
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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.
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There is only one social responsibility of business
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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.
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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.
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Saying it is one thing. Doing it is very different.
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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.
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Rapid increases in the quantity of money produce inflation. Sharp decreases produce depression.
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