Milton Friedman
Champion of free markets and monetary policy
Most quoted
"The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another."
— from Speech, 1979
"The long-range solution [to high unemployment] is to increase the incentive for ordinary people to save, invest, work, and employ others. We make it costly for employers to employ people, and we subsidize people not to go to work. We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork."
— from Book, 1980
"The government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government tries to do more than this, it creates problems."
— from Interview/Speech
All quotes by Milton Friedman (290)
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand.
The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievement of Western civilization, and especially of modern American capitalist society, is to convert the pursuit of individual interests into the pursuit of ends that enhance the welfare of everyone.
Every friend of freedom must be drawn to the end by which the advocates of liberty hope to attain it.
The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.
Higher income taxes are not needed to balance the budget. We should balance the budget by cutting spending.
The case for free trade is a clear-cut case of benefiting the consumer. The case against free trade is a clear-cut case of benefiting the producer.
We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
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.
The stock of money, prices, and output are all interrelated, and the central bank is continually acting by changing one or the other but can live only so long by avoiding the consequences of its earlier actions.
I am a libertarian with a small 'l' and that I regard my social and economic views as a form of classical liberalism.
The relevant question is not whether we shall have socialism or capitalism, but how much socialism we shall have.
The preservation of our free society has as much to do with the acceptance of equality of opportunity as with the rejection of equality of outcome.
Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this type of money or from a false view of the type of money function.
The use of the word 'voluntary' in this connection is purely rhetorical; the reality is far different.
History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
The long-range danger is inflation and a rising price level.
Positive economics is in principle independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgments.
The Great Depression was not produced by the operation of the free market but by extensive governmental mismanagement.
I must say that I am very pleased to have been able to contribute to the development of the subject [monetarism].
The society that aims for equality before liberty will get neither.
Contemporaries of Milton Friedman
Other Economicss born within 50 years of Milton Friedman (1912–2006).