The essential notion of a capitalist society … is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.
MILTON FRIEDMANPolitical freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men.
More Milton Friedman Quotes
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I would say that in this world, the greatest source of inequality has been special privileges granted by government.
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There’s no doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan was by far the greatest. Because he had real principles and he stuck by them. He made clear what he was going to do, and he did it. He didn’t back down.
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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.
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Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
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Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
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Society doesn’t have values. People have values.
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Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
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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.
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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’s no such thing as a free lunch.
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The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.
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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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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.
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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.
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The real tragedy of minimum wage laws is that they are supported by well-meaning groups who want to reduce poverty. But the people who are hurt most by higher minimums are the most poverty stricken.
MILTON FRIEDMAN