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The government doesn’t have any money. The only power it has is to take from some and give to others.

Milton Friedman

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

Noble Politics Profit True
Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Creation Harm Intention Liberty Power
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
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
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
You know there are very few Marxists left in the world they’re all in American universities.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Education World Yourself
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
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
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
The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.
MILTON FRIEDMAN

Destruction Hands Politics Power
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 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
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 government doesn’t have any money. The only power it has is to take from some and give to others.

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The government doesn’t have any money. The only power it has is to take from some and give to others.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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