Business corporations in general are not defenders of free enterprise. On the contrary, they are one of the_x000D_ chief sources of danger....Every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that's a different question. We have to have that tariff to protect us against competition from abroad. We have to have that special provision in the tax code. We have to have that subsidy.
Interpretation
This quote critiques businessmen's contradictory support for free enterprise, highlighting their tendency to seek protectionist measures for their own benefit.
Milton Friedman emphasizes the paradox of business leaders who champion the ideals of free enterprise while simultaneously advocating for policies that protect their individual interests. He suggests that while they promote freedom for others, they quickly shift to seeking government intervention and support when it threatens their competitive edge, revealing a deep inconsistency in their principles regarding true market freedom.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about capitalism and market regulations during a business ethics seminar.
The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.
Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.
There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.
There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
The great danger to the consumer is the monopoly -whether private or governmental. His most effective protection is free competition at home and free trade throughout the world. The consumer is protected from being exploited by one seller by the existence of another seller from whom he can buy and who is eager to sell to him. Alternative sources of supply protect the consumer far more effectively than all the Ralph Naders of the world.
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. If 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.
I am hopeful, though not full of hope, and the only reason I don't believe in happy endings is because I don't believe in endings.
His eyes are wild, psychotic slits that bat-dance in your soul looking for good things to crush or bad elements to identify with.
The brotherhood of man is evoked by particular men according to their circumstances. But it seldom extends to all men. In the name of our freedom and our brotherhood we are prepared to blow up the other half of mankind and to be blown up in our turn.
National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.
Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away.
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that-and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison-you do not know God at all.
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