Milton Friedman on What government is for
What you have has been a broad movement ever since the end of the 19th century away from a society in which government serves primarily as an umpire, as a policeman, and toward a society in which government serves as the all-powerful—supposedly and hopefully—all-benevolent father.
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. Placing the growth of government financing of medical care within a general trend toward government control. The sentence before it, comparing that growth to “the nationalization of steel industries in the United States”, is left out because the transcript may have garbled it.
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/great-trend-government-umpire-benevolent-father-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
In my opinion, a society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty. And a society that aims first for liberty will not end up with equality, but it will end up with a closer approach to equality than any other kind of system that has ever been developed.
Context. His answer, in the question period after the lecture, to an audience member who asked whether a system could be built on equality rather than liberty.
Milton Friedman Speaks: The Role of Government in a Free SocietySpeech, 1978, at 1:13:21Checked against the sourceWatch itThe draft is inequitable because irrelevant considerations play so large a role in determining who serves. It is wasteful because deferment of students, fathers and married men jams colleges, raises the birth rate and fuels divorce courts. It is inconsistent with a free society because it exacts compulsory service from some and limits the freedom of others to travel abroad, emigrate or even to talk and act freely. So long as compulsion is retained, these defects are inevitable.
Context. From a Newsweek column of December 1966 arguing that the United States should end conscription and man its armed forces with volunteers.
A Volunteer ArmyColumn, 1966, Newsweek (December 19, 1966); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Senate, January 22, 1969, p. 1438, under the heading “From Newsweek magazine, Dec. 19, 1966”. Later collected in An Economist’s Protest (1972)., Congressional Record, January 22, 1969, p. 1438Checked against the sourceRead the originalTo the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.
Think this quote is wrong, misattributed, or missing context? Report it and it gets fixed, not argued with.