Milton Friedman quotes

Milton Friedman was an American economist and a leading advocate of free-market capitalism. His theories on monetary policy and consumption deeply influenced modern economic thought and public policy. He became one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics. Here are 200 of his quotes:

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.

Milton Friedman

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

Milton Friedman

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

Milton Friedman

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

Milton Friedman

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.

Milton Friedman

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.

Milton Friedman

Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

Milton Friedman

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

Milton Friedman

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Milton Friedman

So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible And my answer to that is, no they do not.

Milton Friedman

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Milton Friedman

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

Milton Friedman

Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals the technique of the marketplace.

Milton Friedman

I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.

Milton Friedman

The Great Depression in the United States, far from being a sign of the inherent instability of the private enterprise system, is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men when they wield vast power over the monetary system of a country.

Milton Friedman

With respect to teachers' salaries .... Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.

Milton Friedman

I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock of money and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not accompanied by a severe depression.

Milton Friedman

There's a smokestack on the back of every government program.

Milton Friedman

I am convinced that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books-in its effect, not its intent.

Milton Friedman

Keynes was a great economist. In every discipline, progress comes from people who make hypotheses, most of which turn out to be wrong, but all of which ultimately point to the right answer. Now Keynes, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, set forth a hypothesis which was a beautiful one, and it really altered the shape of economics. But it turned out that it was a wrong hypothesis. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a great man!

Milton Friedman

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

In a free society, it is hard for "good” people to do "good,” but that is a small price to pay for making it hard for "evil” people to do "evil,” especially since one man's good is anther's evil.

Milton Friedman