Milton Friedman on Business, profit, and social responsibility
Every businessman knows that he’s in favor of free trade and free markets except when it comes to himself and he’s a special case. He needs a tariff or he needs a special tax arrangement. Physicians have been no different. The medical profession, the healing professions in general, are in favor of private practice but only up to certain limits.
Context. From a talk to physicians, published in Private Practice in July 1981, on the trend toward government control of medicine and the prospects for reversing it. On what he calls “a kind of schizophrenia among businessmen and among physician professions.”
Where this comes from
Checked against the sourceThe wording was checked against the work itself.
Cite this passage
Milton Friedman, “The Market and Human Freedom” (Private Practice (July 1981); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, September 9, 1981, pp. 19996 to 19997, introduced by Representative Larry McDonald of Georgia as “Professor Friedman’s recent article on this subject” in “Private Practice magazine for July 1981”, 1981), Congressional Record, September 9, 1981, p. 19996. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/every-businessman-favor-free-trade-except-himself-1981
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
Well, the way in which many economists have implicitly reconciled it is by being in favor of the free market in general and opposed to the free market in particular. This area is a special case. It needs regulation. This area is a special case. You know, the same thing happens to businessmen. Every businessman is in favor of private enterprise. Except for himself.
Context. “It” is the conflict he has just described: the discipline of economics predisposes economists to favor markets, while the main growth in jobs for economists has come from government regulation. He adds that he is not accusing anyone of acting in a Machiavellian way.
The Open MindInterview, 1977, The Open Mind, hosted by Richard Heffner, Episode “A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy” (May 3, 1977)Not yet checkedWatch itI have examined the story in this area in the United States, in particular with the American Medical Association during the course of the 1920’s and 1930’s. It’s an extreme example of a very powerful trade union which succeeded in keeping down the number of physicians and in the process raising costs, which succeeded in retarding the development of efficient group medical practice and in the process reduced the quality. I mention this not to attack the American Medical Association or the members of it. They are noble, able people who wanted good things, but were misled. But only to suggest again a sense in which the developments in medicine are not special to medicine.
Context. From a talk to physicians, published in Private Practice in July 1981, on the trend toward government control of medicine and the prospects for reversing it. On the American Medical Association in the 1920s and 1930s, a history he says he had examined.
The Market and Human FreedomSpeech, 1981, Private Practice (July 1981); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, September 9, 1981, pp. 19996 to 19997, introduced by Representative Larry McDonald of Georgia as “Professor Friedman’s recent article on this subject” in “Private Practice magazine for July 1981”, Congressional Record, September 9, 1981, p. 19996Checked against the sourceRead the originalIn some cases there is market failure. But it has to be balanced against government failure. It does not follow that, for every market failure, there is a governmental answer. And it does not follow that, for every government failure, there is a market answer. You have to look at both sides. I am not an anarchist. I believe we do need a government. But I believe we need one that is far more limited than the one we have now.
Context. From an August 1998 interview in Barron’s, reprinted in the Hoover Digest as “Mr. Market.” Discussing environmental regulation: the interviewer has argued that because no one owns a river, a factory will pollute it unless a regulator steps in. Friedman has answered that such problems are usually better handled by pollution fees than by command-and-control regulation.
Mr. MarketInterview, 1998, Interview in Barron’s, August 24, 1998 (the questioner is identified only as Epstein); reprinted in Hoover Digest 1999 No. 1Checked against the sourceRead the transcript
Think this quote is wrong, misattributed, or missing context? Report it and it gets fixed, not argued with.