If we’re going to talk about our freedom to choose and to live our lives the way we want, there’s no better person to listen to than Milton Friedman. A proponent of classical liberalism and the free market, Friedman’s Free to Choose: A Personal Statement is a testament to his profound wisdom and time-tested theories. In this collection, we’ve curated the best Milton Friedman quotes from the classic book.
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Nobel prize winner and a champion for a free market, Milton Friedman is among the most prominent economists and thinkers of the 20th century. Even long after he passed away at a ripe, full age of 94 years old in 2006 because of heart failure, his ideas continued to be influential in America and the world over.
Milton Friedman was born on July 31, 1912, in Brooklyn, New York. He was married to Rose Friedman, also his co-author for Free to Choose. In 1976, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his theories in monetary economics, analysis in consumption function and stabilization policy. His ideas were significantly impactful, it’s studied and debated by policymakers and fellow economists to this day.
Influenced by the likes of Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek and the “father of macroeconomics,” John Maynard Keynes, Friedman’s viewpoints are aligned with laissez-faire capitalism and limited government. Thomas Sowell, George Stigler and Anna Schwartz were among the most noteworthy economists Friedman inspired and influenced.
The theory argues that businesses have no social responsibility to the public or society but only to their shareholders. In other words, shareholders hold supremacy, which means companies’ primary goal is to maximize profitability for shareholders. It’s up to shareholders to decide if they want to take part in social initiatives or not.
While this doctrine was influential to corporations, even considered “the biggest idea in business,” it has also attracted fierce criticism. Major firms like Apple and General Motors have switched gears. Corporations are no longer about maximizing shareholders’ profits but also about benefiting other stakeholders including employees, customers, and the public.
Free to Choose Book Summary
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement was published in 1980, co-written with Rose Friedman, and later turned into a 10-part television series. A landmark, trailblazing work, it may be one if not the most popular Milton Friedman books. The book contends that economic freedom is vital to political and individual freedom. That when the government gets bigger with more laws, regulations and spending then our freedom erodes with it.
There are ten chapters all in all tackling a wide span of economic concepts from government to taxation, education, welfare and more. It examines the relationship between economic freedom and individual liberty persuasively and powerfully for the general audience to easily understand.
Groundbreaking in many ways, Free to Choose is not just packed with the best Milton Friedman quotes but it continues to be relevant in economic discussions even today. Not only is it a thorough analysis of economics but it offers solutions for economic wrongs done in the past and practical remedies to protect our freedom and promote prosperity.
Best Milton Friedman Quotes
If you value economic freedom and individual liberty, here are the best Milton Friedman quotes from Free to Choose that are sure to stir emotions and provoke thought:
“The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.”
-Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (1980)
“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.”
-best Milton Friedman quotes on equality
“Believers in aristocracy and socialism share a faith in centralized rule, in rule by command rather than by voluntary cooperation.”
“The smaller the unit of government and the more restricted the functions assigned government, the less likely it is that its actions will reflect special interests rather than the general interest.”
“Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, wherever anything approaching equality of opportunity has existed, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before.”
“Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor wider, nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer, than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate.”
“The family, rather than the individual, has always been and remains today the basic building block of our society, though its hold has clearly been weakening—one of the most unfortunate consequences of the growth of government paternalism.”
“Freedom is one whole, that anything that reduces freedom in one part of our lives is likely to affect freedom in the other parts.”
“Children are responsible individuals in embryo. They have ultimate rights of their own and are not simply the playthings of their parents.”
“We now know, as a few knew then, that the depression was not produced by a failure of private enterprise, but rather by a failure of government in an area in which the government had from the first been assigned responsibility—-“To coin money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin.”
– best Milton Friedman quotes on government
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
“What kind of society isn’t structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm.”
“Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.”
“The free market system makes it possible to have a wide variety of goods at different prices, catering to the different choices and incomes of millions of people.”
– best Milton Friedman quotes on free market
“The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.”
We can all benefit from the enormous increase in productivity brought about by the free market system.
“The unfettered market is not perfect. It is just the best available way of coordinating the activities of millions of people.”
“The possibility of cooperation without coercion makes it possible to avoid many of the human misery that was necessary in the past.”
“Governments never learn. Only people learn.”
“If there is a way to do something, there should be a market way of doing it.”
“The only way to have full employment, rising real wages, increasing benefits, and full job security is to permit and encourage a free market.”
“The best hope that we can have to cope with the increasingly complex problems of modern society is to rely on the dispersed knowledge, experiment, and competition of the market.”
“The failure of the socialist countries to provide a decent standard of living for their citizens is one of the great human tragedies of our time.”
“Collectivist ideas about economic planning inevitably raise the question of who is to do the planning.”
“The individual is the ultimate resource.”
“If men can collaborate successfully to build skyscrapers without planning committees by working for private profit, why cannot they collaborate to create a more prosperous and humane world still?”
“Government is a necessary evil, but as such, it should be kept to the minimum necessary to carry out its essential services.”
“Choice in exchange can take place only when individual alternatives exist to choose between.”
“There is no conflict between liberty and equality.”
“Education is not like a drug that the government can control without being seen. The only way for government to control it is through censorship.”
“Centralization of power and socialism are all the same thing.”
“A society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality.”
“The preservation and enhancement of freedom has been the vital condition for economic progress.”
“When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced.”
“The essence of economic freedom is self-determination.”
“The primary role of government is to provide a framework within which the market can operate freely and effectively.”
“Exchange is the key to economic progress.”
“The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. It forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.”
– best Milton Friedman quotes on free enterprise
“The strength of a market economy is that it permits millions of people to cooperate on the basis of a division of labor.”
“There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.”
“Believers in aristocracy and socialism share a faith in centralized rule, in rule by command rather than by voluntary cooperation.”
Recommended Milton Friedman Books
Milton Friedman is not just an award-winning economist, he’s also a prolific writer. If you want an in-depth dive into his ideas, here are some of the best Milton Friedman books and essays you should read:
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Free to Choose (1980) co-written with Rose Friedman
Price Theory (1962)
Money Mischief (1992)
A Theory of the Consumption Function (1957)
The Tyranny of the Status Quo (1984) co-written with Rose Friedman
There’s No Such Thing As a Free Lunch (1977)
The Optimum Quantity of Money (1969)
Why Government Is the Problem – Essays in Public Policy (1993)
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