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Milton Friedman on Wages, unions, and the minimum wage

In general, I have little sympathy with trade unions. They have done immense harm by restricting access to jobs, denying excluded workers the opportunity to make the most of their abilities, and forcing them to take less satisfactory jobs. Yet surely in the present instance they are right that it is inequitable for the Government retroactively to void contracts freely arrived at. The way to reduce the monopoly power of unions is to remove the special legal immunities they are now granted, not to replace one concentrated power by another.

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
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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/little-sympathy-with-trade-unions-1971

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He also said

  1. The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights, subject only to the proviso that he not interfere with the freedom of other individuals to do the same. This implies a belief in the equality of men in one sense; in their inequality in another. Each man has an equal right to freedom. This is an important and fundamental right precisely because men are different, because one man will want to do different things with his freedom than another, and in the process can contribute more than another to the general culture of the society in which many men live. The liberal will therefore distinguish sharply between equality of rights and equality of opportunity, on the one hand, and material equality or equality of outcome on the other.
    Capitalism and Freedom
    Book, 1962, Ch. 12 “The Alleviation of Poverty”, p. 195
    Checked against the sourceFind the book
  2. Am I not entitled to sell my goods or my labor for what I consider them worth as long as I do not coerce anyone to buy? Is it morally wrong for Chile to expropriate the property of Anaconda Copper—i.e., to force it to sell its copper mines for a price less than its value; but morally right for the U.S. Government to force the worker to sell his labor for less than its value to him and to his employer?

    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
  3. The two-step rate is better than a one-step rate. At least, it would reduce the harm done by raising the minimum. But a no-step rate would be better than either.

    Context. From a Newsweek column on the 1972 minimum-wage bill. The House version kept $1.60 an hour for youths under 18 and students under 21 and raised the rate for most other workers; that two-tier design is the “two-step rate.”

    Legislating Unemployment
    Column, 1972, Newsweek (1972; the Record gives no issue date, only “the current issue”); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 28, 1972, p. 23100, introduced by Representative Sherman P. Lloyd of Utah under the heading “Observations on the Compulsory Minimum Wage”, Congressional Record, June 28, 1972, p. 23100
    Checked against the sourceRead the original

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