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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

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

Law Rule Talk Understand Yourself
Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Freedom Greatness Mindset Ourselves Plant
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
The power to do good is also the power to do harm.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Choice Goodness Harm Power
You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Care Freedom Yourself
A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Employment Law Limitation Money Person Reality Skill
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
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

Hurt Law People Reality Support Tragedy
The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Achievement Civilization Government Greatness
When you start paying people to be poor, you wind up with an awful lot of poor people.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

People Poor Start Wind Yourself
Society doesn’t have values. People have values.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

People Society Value
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.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Difference Freedom Independence Word

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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