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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

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Food Freedom
What makes it [economics] most fascinating is that its fundamental principles are so simple that they can be written on one page, that anyone can understand them, and yet very few do.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Fundamental Principle Simplicity Understand Writing
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Argument Belief Freedom Liberty
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.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Determination Difference Oppression Poor Respect Teaching
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Government Liberty Permenent
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.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Change Character Education Quality Unity
The problem in this world is to avoid concentration of power – we must have a dispersion of power.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Avoid Power Problem Rule World
The excuse for the destruction of liberty is always the plea of necessary ‘ that there is no alternative.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Choice Destruction Liberty Necessary
The power to do good is also the power to do harm.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Choice Goodness Harm Power
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
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
The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Business Freedom Important Place Profit
There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Goodness Harm Intention Liberty
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
The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Civilization Government Greatness Science
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

Freedom Government Greatness Hate Religious

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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