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Milton Friedman on Concentrated power and tyranny

Guerrilla warfare from outside and inside the country has produced a reaction by the government that can properly be described as repressive. But the provocation has clearly been great and it is important to maintain a sense of proportion.
Rhodesia
Column, 1976, Newsweek, May 3, 1976; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, April 29, 1976, pp. 11979 to 11980, introduced by Representative John Ashbrook of Ohio, who gives it as “an excellent article on Rhodesia by Milton Friedman, which appeared in the May 3 edition of Newsweek”, Congressional Record, April 29, 1976, p. 11979
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  1. The elementary truth is that the Great Depression was produced by government mismanagement. It was not produced by the failure of private enterprise, it was produced by the failure of government to perform a function which had been assigned to it.
    Economic Myths and Public Opinion
    Column, 1976, The Alternative: An American Spectator, vol. 9
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  2. It is ironic that the Great Depression was produced by government but was blamed on the private enterprise system.
    Why Government Is the Problem
    Journal article, 1993, Hoover Institution Press, Essays in Public Policy no. 39, p. 15
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  3. The Federal Reserve system had been established to prevent what actually happened. It was set up to avoid a situation in which you would have to close down banks, in which you would have a banking crisis. And yet, under the Federal Reserve system, you had the worst banking crisis in the history of the United States. There's no other example I can think of, of a government measure which produced so clearly the opposite of the results that were intended.
    Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interview
    Interview, 2000, PBS, “The Great Depression,” interview conducted October 1, 2000
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript

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