The Soviet experience was much worse than experts in the West had thought. That discovery had a tremendous impact both on the intellectual community and on the public at large.
Milton FriedmanOnly government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
Milton FriedmanSo 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 FriedmanThe proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in "On Liberty." The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.
Milton Friedman