Milton Friedman on Politics, voting, and legislators
The undoubted difficulty of slowing the growth of government, let alone reducing the size of a massive government, manifests itself in what has come to be called the iron triangle. At one corner are the direct beneficiaries of a law; at a second, the legislative committees and their staffs; at a third, the bureaucracy administering a law. These three powerful tyrannies enforce the status quo. … Taken together, the three corners of the iron triangle guard against dismantling the functions of government. The tyranny of the status quo is strong and difficult to break.
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Milton Friedman, “Tyranny of the Status Quo” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), Ch. 3 “Causes and Cure: Government Spending, Taxes, and Deficits”, pp. 42, 51 (with Rose D. Friedman). https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/iron-triangle-beneficiaries-committees-bureaucracy-1984
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He also said
Prices perform three functions in organizing economic activity: first, they transmit information; second, they provide an incentive to adopt those methods of production that are least costly and thereby use available resources for the most highly valued purposes; third, they determine who gets how much of the product—the distribution of income. These three functions are closely interrelated.
Free to ChooseBook, 1980, Ch. 1 "The Power of the Market", p. 14Checked against the sourceFind the bookThe harm to us from the addiction of others arises primarily from the fact that drugs are illegal. It has been estimated that from one third to one half of all violent and property crime in the United States is committed either by drug addicts engaged in crime to finance their habit, or by conflicts among competing groups of drug pushers, or in the course of the importation and distribution of illegal drugs. Legalize drugs, and street crime would drop dramatically and immediately.
Context. From Tyranny of the Status Quo (1984), written with Rose D. Friedman, in the chapter on crime, after arguing that government may stop drug users from harming third parties but that prohibiting adults’ own drug use does more harm than good, and that addicts themselves would be better off if drugs were legal. Here they turn to the harm that others’ addiction does to non-users.
Tyranny of the Status QuoBook, 1984, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Ch. 7 “Crime”, p. 139 (with Rose D. Friedman)Checked against the sourceFind the bookThe strongest political influence on a legislative body is exercised by special-interest groups of citizens who favor a government program that confers substantial benefits on them, while imposing small costs on a large number of their fellow citizens. … A corollary is that we cannot correct this situation by electing the “right” people to Congress. Once elected, the “right” people will do the wrong things. And they will be pressured to do so by us, in our capacity as members of special-interest groups, even though we elect them in our capacity as members of a majority outraged by the growth in government’s spending and scope.
Context. From the book’s closing chapter, where the Friedmans set out a numbered list of lessons on how the public will can be translated more effectively into government policy; these are the first two. The ellipsis leaves out one sentence, which calls each such group a corner of an “iron triangle” of beneficiaries, politicians and bureaucrats. The next point says that only the presidency or a constitutional amendment can let the general interest prevail.
Tyranny of the Status QuoBook, 1984, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Ch. 9 “The Iron Triangle: How to Defeat It”, pp. 165–166 (with Rose D. Friedman)Checked against the sourceFind the book
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