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Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.

Milton Friedman

When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union – like public housing in the United States – look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Direction Government Improvement Philosophy
Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Government Money Save
I am a libertarian with a small “l” and a Republican with a capital “R”. And I am a Republican with a capital “R” on grounds of expediency, not on principle.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Freedom Government Liberty Myself Principle
The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Depression Employment Government Greatness Management
There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Goodness Harm Intention Liberty
The power to do good is also the power to do harm.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Choice Goodness Harm Power
I would say that in this world, the greatest source of inequality has been special privileges granted by government.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Equality Government Greatness Myself Privilege World
There’s no point in comparing an actual, operating system with an ideal system that doesn’t exist.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Existence Government Ideal Rule
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Government Liberty Permenent
I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Myself Possible Reason Support
If you cannot state a proposition clearly and unambiguously, you do not understand it.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Law Rule Talk Understand Yourself
The essential notion of a capitalist society … is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Force Liberty People Rule Society
Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Business Government Law Politics
I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Drugs Illegal Kill Myself People Right Support
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Funny Government Politics Rule Yourself
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Food Freedom
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
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
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

Exercise Freedom Liberty People Politics Power
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
One role of prohibition is in making the drug market more lucrative.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Drug Market Oneself Role
Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Absence Freedom Men Politics
The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn’t do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn’t do a thing for them.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Employment Goodness Job People
Society doesn’t have values. People have values.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

People Society Value
Since the 1930s the technique of buying votes with the voters’ own money has been expanded to an extent undreamed of by earlier politicians.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Dream Money Politics Technique Vote
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
Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Business Government Rule

Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.

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Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.

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