Quote

In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work.

Milton Friedman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Bureaucratic
Drives
Useless
Useful
System
Work

More quotes by Milton Friedman

Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
I am convinced that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books in its effect, not its intent.
Milton Friedman
Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. ... because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending.
Milton Friedman
Image
We had much freer trade in the 19th century. We have much less globalization now than we did then.
Milton Friedman
Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
The big problem for a democratic government - democrat with a small d - is how to hold down government spending.
Milton Friedman
Image
The Depression, which started in 1929 was rather mild from 1929 to 1930. And, indeed, in my opinion would have been over in 1931 at the latest had it not been that the Federal Reserve followed a policy which led to bank failures, widespread bank failures, and led to a reduction in the quantity of money.
Milton Friedman
Image
What central banks can control is a base and one way they can control the base is via manipulating a particular interest rate, such as a Federal Funds rate, the overnight rate at which banks lend to one another. But they use that control to control what happens to the quantity of money. There is no disagreement.
Milton Friedman
Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
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
Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
Whenever we depart from voluntary cooperation and try to do good by using force, the bad moral value of force triumphs over good intentions.
Milton Friedman
Image
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.
Milton Friedman
Image
Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.
Milton Friedman
Image
The invisible hand in politics operates in the opposite direction to the invisible hand in the market.
Milton Friedman
Image
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.
Milton Friedman