So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free-enterprise system.
Interpretation
A free-enterprise system is the best way to improve the lives of ordinary people.
Milton Friedman's quote emphasizes the importance of a free-enterprise system in promoting the welfare of ordinary individuals. He posits that history reveals no other effective means of enhancing people's lives through productive activities that arise from personal freedom and entrepreneurship, positioning capitalism as the optimal approach for societal improvement.
In practice
In a speech about economic policy, one might use this quote to advocate for free-market principles.
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.
War can really cause no economic boom, at least not directly, since an increase in wealth never does result from destruction of goods.
It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It's your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.
One of the things that happens when you have austerity is that wages get lower, and some people think lower wages in the short run can increase corporate profits.
Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.
Why does a public discussion of economic policy so often show the abysmal ignorance of the participants?
Thirty years ago, many economists argued that inflation was a kind of minor inconvenience and that the cost of reducing inflation was too high a price to pay. No one would make those arguments today.
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