Skip to content

Milton Friedman on Politics, voting, and legislators

Well, I have always argued that you will not solve problems by electing the right man to the White House. Certainly not by electing the wrong man. … The only way you will ever solve problems, in my opinion, and move in the direction we want to move is by making it in the political interest of the wrong people to do the right thing.
The Open Mind
Interview, 1977, The Open Mind, hosted by Richard Heffner, Episode “A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy” (May 3, 1977)
Checked against the sourceWatch itCite this passage

Where this comes from

Checked against the sourceThe wording was checked against the work itself.

Topics

He also said

  1. It's nice to elect the right people, but that isn't the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.
    About changing congress
    Speech, 1977
    Not yet checkedWatch it
  2. Those of us who believe in freedom must believe also in the freedom of individuals to make their own mistakes. If a man knowingly prefers to live for today, to use his resources for current enjoyment, deliberately choosing a penurious old age, by what right do we prevent him from doing so? We may argue with him, seek to persuade him that he is wrong, but are we entitled to use coercion to prevent him from doing what he chooses to do? Is there not always the possibility that he is right and that we are wrong? Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.
    Capitalism and Freedom
    Book, 1962, Ch. 11, Social Welfare Measures, p. 187
    Not yet checked
  3. Keynes was a great economist. In every discipline, progress comes from people who make hypotheses, most of which turn out to be wrong, but all of which ultimately point to the right answer. Now Keynes, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, set forth a hypothesis that was a beautiful one, and it really altered the shape of economics. But it turned out that it was a wrong hypothesis. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a great man!
    The Romance of Economics
    Interview, 2006, Interview by Tunku Varadarajan, The Wall Street Journal; reprinted in Hoover Digest 2006 No. 4
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript

Think this quote is wrong, misattributed, or missing context?Report it and it gets fixed, not argued with.