Geburtstag: 31. Juli 1912
Todesdatum: 16. November 2006
Milton Friedman war ein US-amerikanischer Wirtschaftswissenschaftler, der fundamentale Arbeiten auf den Gebieten der Makroökonomie, der Mikroökonomie, der Wirtschaftsgeschichte und der Statistik verfasste. Er erhielt 1976 den Alfred-Nobel-Gedächtnispreis für Wirtschaftswissenschaften für seine Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der Analyse des Konsums, der Geschichte und der Theorie des Geldes und für seine Demonstration der Komplexität der Stabilitätspolitik. Friedman wird neben John Maynard Keynes als der einflussreichste Ökonom des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts angesehen.Friedman, der sich selbst als klassischen Liberalen betrachtete, hob besonders die Vorteile eines freien Marktes und die Nachteile staatlicher Eingriffe hervor. Seine Grundhaltung kommt in seinem Bestseller Kapitalismus und Freiheit zum Ausdruck. Darin forderte er die Minimierung der Rolle des Staates, um politische und gesellschaftliche Freiheit zu fördern. In seiner Fernsehserie Free to Choose, die PBS im Jahre 1980 sendete, erklärte Friedman die Funktionsweisen des freien Marktes und unterstrich besonders, dass andere wirtschaftliche Systeme die sozialen und politischen Probleme einer Gesellschaft nicht adäquat lösen könnten.Friedman war Professor an der University of Chicago. Er war Schüler von Frank Knight. Der Rechtswissenschaftler David D. Friedman ist sein Sohn, Patri Friedman sein Enkel.
— Milton Friedman
U.S. News and World Report, 7. März 1977
Original engl.: "We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork." - p.21 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=LkQvAAAAYAAJ&q=nonwork
— Milton Friedman
:(Interview Der Spiegel,30.03.1992 http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13682584.html)
— Milton Friedman
PBS Free to Those - The Tyranny of Control
Original engl.: "I'm not pro business, I am pro free enterprise, which is a very different thing."
— Milton Friedman
Rede zur Eröffnung des Cato-Institutes http://www.cato.org/speeches/sp-mf050693.html, 6. Mai 1993
Original engl.: "Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property."
— Milton Friedman
Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin ISBN 067080410X
Original engl.: "With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves."
— Milton Friedman
The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970
Original engl.: "The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits."
— Milton Friedman
Context: I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. I believe our government is too large and intrusive, that we do not get our money's worth for the roughly 40 percent of our income that is spent by government … How can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes.
As quoted in Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and other big government Republicans hijacked the conservative cause (2006) by Richard A Viguerie, p. 46 <!-- similar to statement previously dated (16 September 2003) — but linked page indicates "interview" by John Hawkins dated 25 February 2012 http://www.rightwingnews.com/interviews/friedman.php : I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes. -->
— Milton Friedman
Tyranny of the Status Quo, San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1980) p. 115
— Milton Friedman, buch Capitalism and Freedom
Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Context: Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like : the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions. So also did political freedom in the golden age of Greece and in the early days of the Roman era.
History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, page 10
— Milton Friedman
Context: The political principle that underlies the is unanimity. In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to such cooperation benefit or they need not participate. There are no values, no "social" responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form.
The political principle that underlies the political mechanism is conformity. The individual must serve a more general social interest — whether that be determined by a church or a dictator or a majority. The individual may have a vote and say in what is to be done, but if he is overruled, he must conform. It is appropriate for some to require others to contribute to a general whether they wish to or not.
Unfortunately, unanimity is not always feasible. There are some respects in which conformity appears unavoidable, so I do not see how one can avoid the use of the political mechanism altogether.
"The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits" in The New York Times Magazine (13 September 1970)
— Milton Friedman
Context: I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintenance of a free society is a very difficult and complicated thing and it requires a self-denying ordinance of the most extreme kind. It requires a willingness to put up with temporary evils on the basis of the subtle and sophisticated understanding that if you step in to do something about them you not only may make them worse, you will spread your tentacles and get bad results elsewhere.
Interview with on The Open Mind (7 December 1975)
— Milton Friedman
Context: Joan Robinson, a leading Keynesian and radical, produced a specimen for me to analyze. I said something like, "This is obviously the writing of a foreigner, so it's difficult for me to analyze. But I would say it is written by someone who had considerable artistic but not much intellectual talent." It turned out to be the handwriting of Lydia Lopokova, the world-famous Russian ballerina whom Keynes had married. That was surely my greatest triumph of the year at Cambridge!
Two Lucky People
— Milton Friedman, buch Capitalism and Freedom
Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Context: The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather "What can I and my compatriots do through government" to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: 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. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp.
Introduction
— Milton Friedman, buch Capitalism and Freedom
Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Context: There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.
Preface (1982 edition), p. ix
— Milton Friedman
Context: There's a sense in which all taxes are antagonistic to free enterprise … and yet we need taxes. We have to recognize that we must not hope for a Utopia that is unattainable. I would like to see a great deal less government activity than we have now, but I do not believe that we can have a situation in which we don't need government at all. We do need to provide for certain essential government functions — the national defense function, the police function, preserving law and order, maintaining a judiciary. So the question is, which are the least bad taxes? In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago.
As quoted in The Times Herald, Norristown, Pennsylvania (1 December 1978)
— Milton Friedman
Context: There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.
Fox News interview (May 2004)
— Milton Friedman
Context: The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years. And the thing that I will really be proud of is if some of the work I have done is still cited in the text books long after I am gone.
As quoted in The Power of Choice (January 2007)
— Milton Friedman
Context: I am a libertarian with a small "l" and a Republican with a capital "R". And I am a Republican with a capital "R" on grounds of expediency, not on principle.
Charlie Rose Show (November 2005) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-921891628093252478&q=tvshow%3ACharlie_Rose
— Milton Friedman
Context: It's nice to elect the right people, but that isn't the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.
About changing congress http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac9j15eig_w (c. 1977)
