24 quotes
The basic problem of social organization is how to co-ordinate the economic activities of large numbers of people.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the Central Bankers.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
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.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Exchange is truly voluntary only when nearly equivalent alternatives exist. Monopoly implies the absence of alternatives and thereby inhibits effective freedom of exchange.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
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.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
With respect to teachers' salaries .... Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
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.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
The Great Depression in the United States, far from being a sign of the inherent instability of the private enterprise system, is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men when they wield vast power over the monetary system of a country.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
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.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
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.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
As liberals, we take freedom of the individual, or perhaps the family, as our ultimate goal in judging social arrangements. Freedom as a value in this sense has to do with the interrelations among people
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
The major disadvantage of the proposed negative income tax is its political implications. It establishes a system under which taxes are imposed on some to pay subsidies to others. And presumably, these others have a vote.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
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.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)