I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.
Interpretation
Political freedom and a free market are intertwined in society's success.
Milton Friedman asserts that there has never been a society that enjoyed significant political freedom without also embracing principles of a free market. The quote highlights the idea that economic organization through free market systems is essential for fostering political liberties and overall societal prosperity.
In practice
In a speech about economic policies, this quote can emphasize the importance of free markets in ensuring political rights.
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.
China adopted a capitalist system in the 1980s, and they went from a 60% poverty rate to 10%.
I know firsthand that many employers who comply with other labor standards still hire the undocumented. Many businesses pay the minimum wage and have barely tolerable working conditions because there are sufficient undocumented workers willing to accept those terms. If we care about low-income workers in this country, we need to create pressure to improve their economic condition by reducing the supply of unauthorized workers.
Does inequality in the distribution of income increase or decrease in the course of a country's economic growth?
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Today we have a temporary aberration called "industrial capitalism" which is inadvertently liquidating its two most important sources of capital, the natural world and properly functioning societies._x000D_ _x000D_ No sensible capitalist would do that.
Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people's savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments.
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