Milton Friedman Political Quotations

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.

And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.

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

My interest in political philosophy was rather casual until I met Hayek.

I cannot disagree with you that having something like 500 economists is extremely unhealthy. As you say, it is not conducive to independent, objective research. You and I know there has been censorship of the material published. Equally important, the location of the economists in the Federal Reserve has had a significant influence on the kind of research they do, biasing that research toward noncontroversial technical papers on method as opposed to substantive papers on policy and results

I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.

If you really want to engage in policy activity, don't make that your vocation. Make it your avocation. Get a job. Get a secure base of income. Otherwise, you're going to get corrupted and destroyed.

Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other

The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.

If you do not force political freedom, economic freedom will be stymied sooner or later.

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.

If China don't free up the political side, its economic growth will come to an end - while it is still at a very low level.

Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.

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.

Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men.