How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant.
Interpretation
The quote questions how to prevent government power from undermining the freedoms it is meant to protect.
Milton Friedman raises a critical concern about the nature of government and its potential to overreach and threaten the very freedoms it was established to safeguard. He likens freedom to a fragile plant that requires careful cultivation and protection, suggesting that unchecked governmental power could transform into a harmful force, akin to the monster in the Frankenstein myth, that ultimately destroys the liberties of the people.
In practice
During a seminar on civil liberties, one might quote this to discuss the balance between government power and individual 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.
I'm fairly convinced that the Kingdom of God is for the broken-hearted. You write of 'powerlessness.' Join the club, we are not in control. God is.
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's." One would like to add: Give unto man things which are man's; give man his freedom and personality, his rights and religion.
Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see.
Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.
The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.
America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost.
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