552 Quotes by Milton Friedman

Well first of all, tell me, is there some society you know of that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed?

You mustn’t judge a politician by talk. You have to judge them by performance.

I have long been a critic of Social Security, basically because I believe that it is not the business of government to tell people what fraction of their incomes they should devote to providing for their own or someone else’s old age.

Government spends somebody else’s money on somebody else.

Highway Congestion We all complain about highway congestion. That is interesting for a different reason. The private automobile industry is able to produce all the automobiles anybody wants to drive, but the government is apparently not able to produce a comparably adequate highway system, a clear contrast.

There have been unions based on gold or silver, but not on fiat money – money tempted to inflate – put out by politically independent entities.

The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power.

The Great Depression in the United States was caused – I won’t say caused, was enormously intensified and made far worse than it would have been by bad monetary policy.

Although these examples only scratch the surface, they illustrate the fundamental proposition that freedom is one whole, that anything that reduces freedom in one part of our lives is likely to affect freedom in the other parts.