Milton Friedman Quotes About Virtue
-
Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.
→ -
The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can't do that.
→ -
The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.
→ -
And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?
→ -
The great virtue of free enterprise is that it forces existing businesses to meet the test of the market continuously, to produce products that meet consumer demands at lowest cost, or else be driven from the market. It is a profit-and-loss system. Naturally, existing businesses generally prefer to keep out competitors in other ways. That is why the business community, despite its rhetoric, has so often been a major enemy of truly free enterprise.
→ -
Italy may well be the main problem. It has benefited most from the euro by having been able to get the euro interest rate instead of what otherwise would have been its own. That would be much higher because Italy has been accumulating so much debt. In the past, Italy has inflated away its debt. The virtue of the euro is that Italy can't do it alone. A tight ECB policy wouldn't permit that to happen again.
→
Related Authors
-
Paul Samuelson Economist -
David D. Friedman Economist -
Adam Smith Philosopher -
George Stigler Economist -
Thomas Friedman Journalist -
Murray Rothbard Economist -
Karl Marx Philosopher -
Friedrich August von Hayek Economist -
Alan Greenspan Economist -
Gary Becker Economist -
John Kenneth Galbraith Economist -
John Maynard Keynes Economist -
Thomas Sowell Economist -
Margaret Thatcher Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom -
Irving Fisher Economist -
Ludwig von Mises Philosopher -
Paul Krugman Economist -
Frederic Bastiat Economist -
Ayn Rand Novelist