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Milton Friedman on Welfare and the negative income tax

The average income of blacks here is far higher than the average income of all the people in the Soviet Union. The official government definition of the poverty line in the U.S. is higher than the average income in the Soviet Union; it’s higher than the income received by 90 percent of the people on the world’s surface. Now, that doesn’t mean blacks aren’t subject to injustice; of course they are.
Interview with Milton Friedman
Interview, 1973, Playboy
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  1. Europeans have a much higher average income than Africans in the market sector—perhaps in the ratio of as much as 10 to 1. But Africans in the market sector have a much higher average income than their fellows in the traditional sector—in about the same ratio. Both Europeans and Africans have benefited from their cooperation.
    Rhodesia
    Column, 1976, Newsweek, May 3, 1976; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, April 29, 1976, pp. 11979 to 11980, introduced by Representative John Ashbrook of Ohio, who gives it as “an excellent article on Rhodesia by Milton Friedman, which appeared in the May 3 edition of Newsweek”, Congressional Record, April 29, 1976, p. 11979
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  2. Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist.
    We Have Socialism, Q.E.D.
    Column, 1989, The New York Times, December 31, 1989, Section 4, p. 11
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  3. There is no doubt who won the intellectual argument. There is no doubt that the received intellectual opinion of the world today is much less favorable towards central planning and controls than it was in 1947. What's much more dubious is who won the practical argument. The world is more socialist today than it was in 1947. Government spending in almost every Western country is higher today than it was in 1947, as a fraction of income, not simply in dollars.
    Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interview
    Interview, 2000, PBS, “Where We Stand Today,” interview conducted October 1, 2000
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