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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.

Milton Friedman

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.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Education Government Money Play Poor Role Waste
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.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Government Harm Limitation
Anything that government can do, private enterprise can do for half the cost.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Government Price
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.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Forget Freedom Limitation Live Man Misery Politics Time
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.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Government Oneself Profit
You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Argument Opponents Right Understand View Yourself
The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Achievement Civilization Government Greatness
You never can cure poverty. Poverty is in the eye of the beholder.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Deep Eyes Perspective Yourself
Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Government People Philosophy Problem Protection
Society doesn’t have values. People have values.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

People Society Value
Every economist knows that minimum wages either do nothing or cause inflation and unemployment. That’s not a statement, it’s a definition.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Employment Government Limitation Money
Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Change Politics Reality
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Greatness Judgement Mistake Oneself Politics Result
You must distinguish sharply between being pro free enterprise and being pro business.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Business Difference Freedom Yourself
Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Noble Politics Profit True
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Devotion Energy Government Management Politics

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Milton Friedman Quotes