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Milton Friedman on Concentrated power and tyranny

The phenomenon of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs is a valid explanation for many governmental programs. However, I believe it does not go far enough to explain the kind of situation in which we now are.

Context. From an essay adapted from his Wriston Lecture of November 19, 1991, where he sets aside the standard public-choice account before giving his own. He returns to it later in the essay to say it is “not the key problem.”

Why Government Is the Problem
Journal article, 1993, Hoover Institution Press, Essays in Public Policy no. 39, p. 8
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Milton Friedman, “Why Government Is the Problem” (Hoover Institution Press, Essays in Public Policy no. 39, 1993), p. 8. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/concentrated-benefits-dispersed-costs-does-not-go-far-enough-1993

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He also said

  1. We want the kind of world in which greedy people can do the least harm to their fellow men. That’s the kind of world in which power is widely dispersed and each of us has as many alternatives as possible.
    Interview with Milton Friedman
    Interview, 1973, Playboy, February 1973; reprinted in There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (Open Court, 1975), p. 32
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  2. The strongest political influence on a legislative body is exercised by special-interest groups of citizens who favor a government program that confers substantial benefits on them, while imposing small costs on a large number of their fellow citizens. … A corollary is that we cannot correct this situation by electing the “right” people to Congress. Once elected, the “right” people will do the wrong things. And they will be pressured to do so by us, in our capacity as members of special-interest groups, even though we elect them in our capacity as members of a majority outraged by the growth in government’s spending and scope.

    Context. From the book’s closing chapter, where the Friedmans set out a numbered list of lessons on how the public will can be translated more effectively into government policy; these are the first two. The ellipsis leaves out one sentence, which calls each such group a corner of an “iron triangle” of beneficiaries, politicians and bureaucrats. The next point says that only the presidency or a constitutional amendment can let the general interest prevail.

    Tyranny of the Status Quo
    Book, 1984, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Ch. 9 “The Iron Triangle: How to Defeat It”, pp. 165–166 (with Rose D. Friedman)
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  3. You cannot explain those activities of government, and there are hundreds more, as reflecting the will of "we the people." They reflect a system in which concentrated vested interests have been able to obtain great power and impose costs on a diffused consumer interest.

    Context. Following examples of import quotas on Japanese cars, sugar prices, and subsidized water for farmers.

    Interview with Milton Friedman
    Interview, 1992, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, The Region, Interview by David Levy, June 1, 1992
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript

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