Skip to content
MiltonFriedman.org

Milton Friedman on Prices and what they do

Because these controls distort the use of resources, the evader benefits not only himself but society. The more rigorously the controls are enforced, the more harm they do. They render behavior which is immoral from one point of view socially beneficial. They thus introduce the kind of fundamental moral conflict that is utterly destructive of social cohesion.

Context. From the second of two New York Times op-ed essays on the wage and price controls, October 1971, on what enforcing the Phase II pay board and price board would do to ordinary people.

Morality and Controls: II
Column, 1971, The New York Times, October 29, 1971; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Senate, October 29, 1971, p. 38202, introduced by Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon, who dates the two essays to “the October 28 and 29 editions of the New York Times”. The reprint heads it only “Morality and Controls”; the date is the senator’s., Congressional Record, October 29, 1971, p. 38202
Checked against the sourceRead the original

Where this comes from

Checked against the sourceThe wording was checked against the work itself.

Cite this passage

Milton Friedman, “Morality and Controls: II” (The New York Times, October 29, 1971; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Senate, October 29, 1971, p. 38202, introduced by Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon, who dates the two essays to “the October 28 and 29 editions of the New York Times”. The reprint heads it only “Morality and Controls”; the date is the senator’s., 1971), Congressional Record, October 29, 1971, p. 38202. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/evader-benefits-society-1971

Quoted for commentary and research. Rights in the underlying work remain with its rights holder, so cite the work itself, not only this page.

Topics

He also said

  1. That is why, in my book “Capitalism and Freedom,” I have called it a “fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, and have said that in such a society, “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

    Context. The article's closing sentence. “It” is the doctrine of “social responsibility,” which the preceding sentences say would extend the political mechanism to every human activity. The inner quotation is his own, from Capitalism and Freedom (1962).

    A Friedman Doctrine—The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
    Column, 1970, The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970, Section SM, p. 17
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript
  2. What kind of society isn’t structured on greed? … So the problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm. It seems to me that the great virtue of capitalism is that it’s that kind of system. Because under capitalism, the power of any one individual over his fellow man is relatively small.
    Interview with Milton Friedman
    Interview, 1973, Playboy, February 1973; reprinted in There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (Open Court, 1975), p. 31
    Checked against the sourceFind the book
  3. You can rigidly enforce only those laws that most people believe to be good laws, that is, laws that proscribe actions that they would avoid even in the absence of laws. When laws render illegal actions that many or most people regard as moral and proper, they can be enforced only by brute force. Speed laws are an obvious example; alcohol prohibition, a more dramatic one.

    Context. From the section headed “Lawlessness and Crime.”

    Why Government Is the Problem
    Journal article, 1993, Hoover Institution Press, Essays in Public Policy no. 39, p. 2
    Checked against the sourceRead the original

Think this quote is wrong, misattributed, or missing context? Report it and it gets fixed, not argued with.