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Milton Friedman citations
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Milton Friedman est un économiste américain né le 31 juillet 1912 à Brooklyn et mort le 16 novembre 2006 à San Francisco, considéré comme l'un des économistes les plus influents du XXe siècle. Il obtient le prix Nobel d'économie en 1976 pour ses travaux sur « l'analyse de la consommation, l'histoire monétaire et la démonstration de la complexité des politiques de stabilisation », il a été un ardent défenseur du libéralisme. Il a travaillé sur des domaines de recherche aussi bien théorique qu'appliquée, il fut à l'origine du courant monétariste ainsi que le fondateur de l'École de Chicago. Il est également un commentateur politique et essayiste à succès,.

Deux de ses œuvres ont particulièrement touché le grand public : d'abord son livre Capitalisme et liberté publié en 1962 puis sa série d'interventions télévisées réalisées en 1980 intitulée Free to Choose . Dans Capitalisme et liberté, il explique sa théorie selon laquelle la réduction du rôle de l'État dans une économie de marché est le seul moyen d'atteindre la liberté politique et économique. Plus tard, dans La Liberté du choix, Friedman cherche à démontrer la supériorité du libéralisme économique sur les autres systèmes économiques.

Milton Friedman a inauguré une pensée économique d'inspiration libérale dont les prescriptions s'opposent de front à celle du keynésianisme. En réponse à la fonction de consommation keynésienne, il développa la théorie du revenu permanent. Avec cette théorie et l'introduction du taux de chômage naturel, Friedman remet en cause le bien-fondé des politiques de relance qui, pour lui, ne peuvent que provoquer de l'inflation contre laquelle il faut lutter. À cette fin, il proposa l'instauration d'un taux constant de croissance de la masse monétaire. Enfin, il réalise un apport important au droit de la concurrence moderne, « chaque décision de l'Autorité de la concurrence, des Cours d'appel ou de la Commission européenne mettant indirectement en balance ses idées ».

Ses idées se diffusèrent progressivement et furent prises en compte par les milieux politiques dans les années 1980, influençant profondément les mouvements conservateurs et libertariens américains. Ses idées sur le monétarisme, la fiscalité, les privatisations et la dérèglementation ont directement ou indirectement inspiré les politiques économiques de nombreux gouvernements à travers le monde, notamment ceux de Ronald Reagan aux États-Unis, de Margaret Thatcher au Royaume-Uni, d'Augusto Pinochet au Chili, de Mart Laar en Estonie, de Davíð Oddsson en Islande et de Brian Mulroney au Canada. Wikipedia  

✵ 31. juillet 1912 – 16. novembre 2006
Milton Friedman photo
Milton Friedman: 171   citations 0   J'aime

Milton Friedman citations célèbres

“L'existence d'un marché libre n'élimine évidemment pas le besoin de gouvernement. Au contraire, le gouvernement est essentiel, à la fois comme forum pour déterminer les « règles du jeu » et comme arbitre pour interpréter et faire respecter les règles qui ont été adoptées.”

Milton Friedman livre Capitalisme et liberté

The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rule of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.
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Capitalisme et liberté, 1962

“Le fond du problème posé par la plupart des critiques de la publicité n'est pas le fait que la publicité manipule les goûts mais le fait que le grand public a des goûts détestables — c'est-à-dire différents des goûts des critiques.”

Milton Friedman

La Liberté du choix, 1980

“L'inflation est une maladie dangereuse et parfois fatale”

Milton Friedman

La Liberté du choix, 1980

“La concurrence du marché, quand on la laisse fonctionner, protège le consommateur mieux que tous les mécanismes gouvernementaux venus successivement se superposer au marché”

Milton Friedman

La Liberté du choix, 1980

“La Réserve Féderale a sans aucun doute causé la Grande Dépression en contractant le volume de l'argent en circulation d'un tiers entre 1929 et 1933.”

Milton Friedman

The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of money in circulation by one-third from 1929 to 1933
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Émissions, Interview radio

“Une des plus grandes erreurs est de juger une politique sur ses intentions et non sur ses résultats.”

Milton Friedman

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results
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Émissions, The Open Mind

“Les grandes avancées de la civilisation, que ce soit dans l'architecture ou dans la peinture, la science ou la littérature, l'industrie ou l'agriculture, ne sont jamais nées de l'intervention d'un gouvernement centralisé.”

Milton Friedman livre Capitalisme et liberté

The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or in literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.
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Capitalisme et liberté, 1962

“Aucune raison ne peut justifier les monopoles d'État sur la poste et l'interdiction faite à n'importe qui d'autre de porter le courrier.”

Milton Friedman

Citations sur la liberté de Milton Friedman

“L'histoire suggère uniquement que le capitalisme est une condition nécessaire à la liberté politique. Clairement ce n'est pas une condition suffisante.”

Milton Friedman livre Capitalisme et liberté

History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
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Capitalisme et liberté, 1962

“Une société qui met l'égalité au dessus de la liberté n'aura ni l'un, ni l'autre. Une société qui met la liberté au dessus de l'égalité aura beaucoup des deux.”

Milton Friedman

A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both
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Émissions, Free to choose (émission télévisée)

“Une société qui place l'égalité avant la liberté finira par n'avoir ni égalité ni liberté. [.. ] Une société qui place la liberté avant toutes choses finira par obtenir, sans l'avoir cherché, davantage d'égalité en même temps que davantage de liberté”

Milton Friedman

La Liberté du choix, 1980

“Il existe une contradiction fondamentale entre l’idéal des « parts équitables » (ou l'idéal dont il dérive : « A chacun selon ses besoins ») et l’idéal de la liberté personnelle. Et cette contradiction a été la plaie de toute tentative de placer l'égalité des résultats comme principe de base de l'organisation sociale. Cela a abouti invariablement à un état de terreur : la Russieur, la Chine et plus récemment le Cambodge en offrent des preuves évidentes et convaincantes”

Milton Friedman

La Liberté du choix, 1980

“La crainte des contrôles fiscaux, l'étouffement bureaucratique et le harcèlement de l'État constituent des armes puissantes contre la liberté de parole.”

Milton Friedman

La Liberté du choix, 1980

Milton Friedman: Citations en anglais

“I have no right to coerce someone else, because I cannot be sure that I'm right and he is wrong.”

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Milton Friedman

"Say 'No' to Intolerance", Liberty magazine, vol. 4, no. 6, (July 1991) pp. 17-20.

“The broader and more influential organisations of businessmen have acted to undermine the basic foundation of the free market system they purport to represent and defend.”

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Milton Friedman

Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin

“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.”

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Milton Friedman

"An Open Letter to Bill Bennett" in The Wall Street Journal (7 September 1989)

“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.”

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Milton Friedman

Interview "Milton Friedman Responds" in Chemtech (February 1974) p. 72.

“Prices perform three functions in organizing economic activity: first, they transmit information; second, they provide an incentive to adopt those methods of production that are least costly and thereby use available resources for the most highly valued pur poses; third, they determine who gets how much of the product—the distribution of income. These three functions are closely in terrelated.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 1 "The Power of the Market", p. 14

“Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U. S. is now 45 percent socialist.”

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Milton Friedman

Article "We Have Socialism, Q.E.D." http://www.sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/11-25_Friedman_MGR.php?uid=2075 in The New York Times (31 December 1989)

“I think it is only because capitalism has proved so enormously more efficient than alternative methods that it 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.”

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Milton Friedman

Interview with Parker in Randall E. Parker(ed.), Reflection on the Great Depression (2002)

“There's no such thing as a free lunch.”

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Milton Friedman

Also often misattributed to Robert A. Heinlein because both helped popularize the expression – Friedman with a book with that title. The phrase actually dates to at least the 1930s.
Misattributed

“The price system transmits only the important information and only to the people who need to know.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 1 "The Power of the Market", 15

“The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights, subject only to the proviso that he not interfere with the freedom of other individuals to do the same.”

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Milton Friedman livre Capitalisme et liberté

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 12 The Alleviation of Poverty

“Over short periods, the relation between growth in money and growth in nominal income is often hard to see, partly because the relation is less close for short than for long periods, but mostly because it takes time for changes in monetary growth to affect income. And how long a time is itself variable. Today's income growth is not closely related to today's monetary growth; it depends on what has been happening to money in the past. What happens to money today affects what is going to happen to income in the future”

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Milton Friedman

Source: Money Mischief (1992), Ch. 2 The Mystery of Money

“The need for government in these respects arises because absolute freedom is impossible. However attractive anarchy may be as a philosophy, it is not feasible in a world of imperfect men.”

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Milton Friedman

Source: (1962), Ch. 2 The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 25

“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!”

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Milton Friedman

As quoted in Opinion Journal (22 July 2006) http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008690

“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.”

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Milton Friedman

Interview with Brian Lamb, In Depth Book TV (2000)

“[A] society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual freedom.”

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Milton Friedman

As quoted in "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: A Symposium" https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/capitalism-socialism-and-democracy/ (1 April 1978), edited by William Barrett, Commentary

“Is there some society you know 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? Of course, none of us are greedy, it's only the other fellow who's greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. 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 the free-enterprise system.”

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Milton Friedman

from an interview with Phil Donahue (1979): partial transcript http://www.slobodaiprosperitet.tv/en/node/847 from SiP TV ; or find link to full interview in the External links Section

“The liberal conceives of men as imperfect beings. He regards the problem of social organization to be as much a negative problem of preventing 'bad' people from doing harm as of enabling 'good' people to do good; and, of course, 'bad' and 'good' people may be the same people, depending on who is judging them.”

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Milton Friedman livre Capitalisme et liberté

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 12

“If a tax cut increases government revenues, you haven't cut taxes enough.”

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Milton Friedman

As quoted in "Milton Friedman's Last Lunch" at Forbes.com (11 December 2006)

“Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.”

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Milton Friedman

Frequently misattributed to Milton Friedman based on a monologue from the 2005 movie Syriana
Misattributed

“To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the Central Bankers.”

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Milton Friedman

Source: (1962), Ch. 3 The Control of Money, p. 50-51

“The smaller the unit of government and the more restricted the functions assigned government, the less likely it is that its actions will reflect special interests rather than the general interest.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 10 “The Tide Is Turning”, p. 314

“A worker is protected from his employer by the existence of other employers for who he can go to work. An employer is protected from exploitation by his employees by the existence of other workers whom he can hire. The consumer is protected from exploitation by a given seller by the existence of other sellers from whom he can buy.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 8 "Who Protects the Workers?", p. 246

“The threat to public schools arises from their defects, not their accomplishments. In small, closely knit communities where public schools, particularly elementary schools, are now reasonably satisfactory, not even the most comprehensive voucher plan would have much effect. The public schools would remain dominant, perhaps somewhat improved by the threat of potential competition. But elsewhere, and particularly in the urban slums where the public schools are doing such a poor job, most parents would undoubtedly try to send their children to nonpublic schools.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 6 “What’s Wrong with Our Schools”, p. 170

“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests. On the other hand, a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 5 “Created Equal”, p. 148

“In the past century a myth has grown up that free market capitalism—equality of opportunity as we have interpreted that term—increases such inequalities, that it is a system under which the rich exploit the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, wherever anything approaching equality of opportunity has existed, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before. Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor wider, nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer, than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 5 “Created Equal”, p. 146

“As these remarks indicate, the Social Security program involves a transfer from the young to the old. To some extent such a transfer has occurred throughout history—the young supporting their parents, or other relatives, in old age. Indeed, in many poor countries with high infant death rates, like India, the desire to assure oneself of progeny who can provide support in old age is a major reason for high birth rates and large families. The difference between Social Security and earlier arrangements is that Social Security is compulsory and impersonal—earlier arrangements were voluntary and personal. Moral responsibility is an individual matter, not a social matter. Children helped their parents out of love or duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else’s parents out of compulsion and fear. The earlier transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken them.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 4 “Cradle to Grave”, p. 106

“The supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number—for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs—jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 2 “The Tyranny of Controls”, pp. 40-41

“When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union — like public housing in the United States — look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 1 “The Power of the Market”, p. 24

“The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.”

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Milton Friedman livre Free to Choose

“Introduction”, p. 3
Free to Choose (1980)

“What country in the world today engages in the most extreme anti-Semitic persecution? The Soviet Union. It’s not an accident, because if you have a society with concentrated power, if you have a collectivist society, it’s going to be in a position to exercise the preferences and prejudices of its rulers. Moreover, it’s going to have an incentive to do so, because it’s going to need a scapegoat and it will choose some group like the Jews or the blacks to be the scapegoat.”

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Milton Friedman

“Interview with Milton Friedman”, Playboy magazine (Feb. 1973)

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