Best Milton Friedman Quotes

Milton Friedman Quotes About Inflation, Money, Capitalism, Government, Business & Education! American economist and University of Chicago professor Milton Friedman is widely regarded as a leading figure in statistical economics. On July 31, 1912, Milton Friedman was born in Brooklyn, New York. At Rahway High School in 1928, Friedman received his graduation. Milton graduated from Rutgers University with a B.A. in mathematics and economics In 1932.

In 1935, Friedman relocated to Washington, DC, and began working for the National Resources Committee after failing to find work in the academic sector. After that, he joined the National Bureau of Economic Research in the fall of 1937. When other economists and academics discovered his work, he became well-known for his theoretical and empirical studies in consumer analysis, the history of money, and the theory behind stabilization policies. He served as Ronald Reagan’s chief economic adviser. He advocated for a free market financial system with minimum government intervention, which many governments now practice.

His work had a great effect on the direction of research. He was also in charge of the University of Chicago’s Chicago School of Economics. Milton Friedman has written monographs, books, academic articles, papers, magazine columns, TV shows, videos, lectures, etc. He wrote about many different things related to microeconomic theory, macroeconomics, economic history, and policymaking.

He was a Keynesian and a proponent of the New Deal at the beginning of his career, and he advocated that the government should intervene in the economy. Following that, he established what is now known as the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. According to The Economist, he was “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century. He Died On November 16, 2006.

Best Milton Friedman Quotes

1. “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” – Milton Friedman

2. “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” – Milton Friedman

3. “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.” – Milton Friedman

4. “Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.” – Milton Friedman

5. “Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink, and make the combination worthless.” – Milton Friedman

6. “Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.” – Milton Friedman

7. “I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.” – Milton Friedman

8. “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” – Milton Friedman

9. “Inflation is taxation without legislation.” – Milton Friedman

10. “I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.” – Milton Friedman

11. “We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes non-work.” – Milton Friedman

12. “Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.” – Milton Friedman

13. “History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly, it is not a sufficient condition.” – Milton Friedman

14. “The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.” – Milton Friedman

15. “The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make it more difficult for government to collect taxes.” – Milton Friedman

16. “The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.” – Milton Friedman

17. “Indeed, 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

18. “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

19. “So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.” – Milton Friedman

20. “The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people.” – Milton Friedman

21. “Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” – Milton Friedman

22. “The power to do good is also the power to do harm.” – Milton Friedman

23. “The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.” – Milton Friedman

24. “Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students, not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.” – Milton Friedman

25. “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?” – Milton Friedman

26. “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?” – Milton Friedman

27. “Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” – Milton Friedman

28. “The power to do good is also the power to do harm.” – Milton Friedman

29. “The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.” – Milton Friedman

30. “Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students, not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.” – Milton Friedman