Milton Friedman on economics

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.

If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That’s literally true.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

Alexander Hamilton1757–1804Letter to Robert Morris (30 April 1781)

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages.

Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter II, p. 19.In context

Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.

G. K. Chesterton1874–1936The Uses of Diversity