Ronald Reagan on business

You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.

Some of your countrymen were unable to distinguish between their native dislike for war and the stainless patriotism of those who suffered its scars. But there has been a rethinking and now we can say to you, and say as a nation, thank you for your courage.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

The business of America is business.

Calvin Coolidge1872–1933Speech to the Society of American Newspaper Editors (1925).

• America

We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.

Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Appendix A

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

Milton Friedman1912–2006Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, page 15

• Economics
• Freedom