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Milton Friedman on Spending other people's money

Equally important, you cannot spend somebody else's money unless you first get it. … So the concept of doing good with somebody else's money has force or coercion built into it as an essential feature.
The Open Mind
Interview, 1977, The Open Mind, hosted by Richard Heffner, Episode “A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy” (May 3, 1977)
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  1. Our problems have arisen from good people who are trying to do good, but trying to do good in a fundamentally flawed way. The welfare state is in many ways a noble construct, a noble concept. It's the concept that we ought to help our fellow men. What flaws it is that it's one thing for you to help me out of your pocket. It's another thing for you to help me out of his pocket. And the fundamental flaw of the welfare state, in my opinion, is the idea that you should do good with somebody else's money.
    The Open Mind
    Interview, 1977, The Open Mind, hosted by Richard Heffner, Episode “A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy” (May 3, 1977)
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  2. 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.
    Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interview
    Interview, 2000, PBS, “On Freedom and Free Markets,” interview conducted October 1, 2000
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  3. That illustrates a general rule: If a private enterprise is a failure, it closes down—unless it can get a government subsidy to keep it going; if a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. I challenge you to find exceptions.
    Why Government Is the Problem
    Journal article, 1993, Hoover Institution Press, Essays in Public Policy no. 39, p. 9
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