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
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
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
:(Interview Der Spiegel,30.03.1992 http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13682584.html)
— 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, 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, 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: 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, 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, Capitalism and Freedom
Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Context: The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rule of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.
Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, page 15
— Milton Friedman, 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
America's Drug Forum interview (1991), Context: The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.
The case for is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it's in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they'll do you harm, why isn't it all right to say you must not eat too much because you'll do harm? Why isn't it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you're likely to die? Why isn't it all right to say, "Oh, skiing, that's no good, that's a very dangerous sport, you'll hurt yourself"? Where do you draw the line?
