Free Markets = A Free Society
While you go about your activities this glorious weekend, you may want to ponder these quotes from Milton Friedman (from Wikiquotes.com). A free society is a precious heritage. The free market is in jeopardy.
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There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.- Fox News interview (May 2004)
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A liberal (libertarian) is fundamentally fearful of concentrated power. His objective is to preserve the maximum degree of freedom for each individual separately that is compatible with one man's freedom not interfering with other men's freedom. He believes that this objective requires that power be dispersed. He is suspicious of assigning to government any functions that can be performed through the market, both because this substitutes coercion for voluntary co-operation in the area in question and because, by giving government an increased role, it threatens freedom in other areas.
- Capitalism and Freedom (1962) Ch. 3 The Control of Money
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I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. I believe our government is too large and intrusive, that we do not get our money's worth for the roughly 40 percent of our income that is spent by government … How can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes.
- As quoted in Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and other big government Republicans hijacked the conservative cause (2006) by Richard A Viguerie, p. 46
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One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
- Interview with Richard Heffner on The Open Mind (7 December 1975)
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With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.
- Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin ISBN 067080410X
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You must distinguish sharply between being pro free enterprise and being pro business.
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I think it is only because capitalism has proved so enormously more efficient than alternative methods that is has survived at all. (...) I'm not sure capitalism is the right word. There is a sense in which every society is capitalist. The Soviet Union was capitalist, but it was state capitalism. Latin American societies in the past have been capitalist, but it has been oligarchic capitalism. So what we really need to talk about is not capitalism but free market or competitive capitalism which is the system that we would like to have adopted, not just capitalism.
- Interview with Parker in Randall E. Parker(ed.), Reflection on the Great Depression (2002)
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