REMEMBERING THE GREAT ECONOMIST AND CHAMPION OF LIBERTY, MILTON FRIEDMAN:
Today marks the 110th birthday of economist Milton Friedman, one of history’s most consequential free-market advocates. Heeding the work of Friedman this year reminds us how much more sound and sustainable the nation’s policies could be.
Born July 31, 1912 to working class immigrants from Hungary in New York City, what made Milton Friedman unique not only was his grasp of economics, but also his ability to simply explain complex ideas.
He opined, for example, that “the most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.”
What Milton Friedman understood better than most was that individuals, with private interests and expertise, were best able to advance society.
“Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own,” he said. “Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.”
While others of his time advocated for redistribution and central planning of sorts, Friedman argued competition would be the catalyst for success. He understood that merely having good intentions is an inadequate basis for sound public policy.
“When government — in pursuit of good intentions — tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom,” he said. “Government should be a referee, not an active player.”
“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people,” Friedman once said. “The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.”
Not coincidentally: The ghost of Milton Friedman is haunting President Biden.