Milton Friedman: Quotes about freedom (page 2)

Milton Friedman was American economist, statistician, and writer. Explore interesting quotes on freedom.
Milton Friedman: 316   quotes 9   likes

“Those of us who believe in freedom must believe also in the freedom of individuals to make their own mistakes. If a man knowingly prefers to live for today, to use his resources for current enjoyment, deliberately choosing a penurious old age, by what right do we prevent him from doing so? We may argue with him, seek to persuade him that he is wrong, but are we entitled to use coercion to prevent him from doing what he chooses to do? Is there not always the possibility that he is right and that we are wrong? Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 11, Social Welfare Measures, p. 187

Making love , Age , Freedom

“Exchange is truly voluntary only when nearly equivalent alternatives exist. Monopoly implies the absence of alternatives and thereby inhibits effective freedom of exchange.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 2, The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 28

Freedom

“Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 15

Freedom , Men

“The nineteenth-century liberal regarded an extension of freedom as the most effective way to promote welfare and equality; the twentieth-century liberal regards welfare and equality as either prerequisites of or alternatives to freedom.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, p. 5
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

Way , Freedom

“As it developed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the intellectual movement that went under the name of liberalism emphasized freedom as the ultimate goal and the individual as the ultimate entity in the society. It supported laissez faire at home as a means of reducing the role of the state in economic affairs and thereby enlarging the role of the individual; it supported free trade abroad as a means of linking the nations of the world together peacefully and democratically. In political matters, it supported the development of representative government and of parliamentary institutions, reduction in the arbitrary power of the state, and protection of the civil freedoms of individuals.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, p. 5
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

World , Home , Support , Freedom

“By relying primarily on voluntary co-operation and private enterprise, in both economic and other activities, we can insure that the private sector is a check on the powers of the governmental sector and an effective protection of freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, p. 3
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

Religion , Freedom

“The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power. But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. … Government can never duplicate the variety and diversity of individual action.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, pp. 2-3
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

Science , Literature , Painting , Freedom

“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

PBS “Interview: On freedom and free markets” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/int_miltonfriedman.html Commanding Heights series (Oct. 1, 2000)

Way , People , Freedom

“The most unresolved problem of the day is precisely the problem that concerned the founders of this nation: how to limit the scope and power of government. Tyranny, restrictions on human freedom, come primarily from governmental restrictions that we ourselves have set up.”

Milton Friedman

” “Interview with Milton Friedman” https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/interview-with-milton-friedman, David Levy, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (June 1, 1992)

Problem , Freedom