I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individualโs natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that theyโre responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of.
Milton FriedmanThe 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 FriedmanI think in some ways it would make more sense to have as a poverty level a relative concept and say, the level of poverty is that level of income or that level of consumption below which 10 percent of the people now are.
Milton FriedmanIf the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies.
Milton FriedmanThe power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank.
Milton Friedman