Milton Friedman on Politics, voting, and legislators
The President and the Vice President are the only federal officials elected by all the people. They are the only ones who have a political incentive, once elected, to put the general interest above sectional interests. One route to curbing government is therefore to elect a President committed to that task.
Context. The fourth of the numbered lessons in the book’s closing chapter. The points before it say that special-interest groups have the strongest influence on Congress, that electing the “right” people to Congress cannot correct this, and that only two routes exist for the general interest to prevail: the presidency and a constitutional amendment.
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Milton Friedman, “Tyranny of the Status Quo” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), Ch. 9 “The Iron Triangle: How to Defeat It”, p. 166 (with Rose D. Friedman). https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/president-vice-president-only-officials-elected-by-all-people-1984
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He also said
The 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 bookWell, 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.
Context. Asked by Heffner how he evaluates President Carter. This is a recorded statement of the idea behind the widely circulated line about making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things, whose own source this archive has not verified.
The Open MindInterview, 1977, The Open Mind, hosted by Richard Heffner, Episode “A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy” (May 3, 1977)Checked against the sourceWatch itIt is my view that it is desirable for the people to limit their government's budget, to decide how much in total they are willing to pay for their government. Having done this, it is desirable for them to delegate to their elected representatives the difficult task of dividing that budget among competing good proposals.
Context. From a 1978 Policy Review article on the tax-limitation movement, written the day after California voters approved Proposition 13 (the Jarvis-Gann amendment). Its opening reworks his April 1978 Newsweek column “A Progress Report”; the passages quoted from it here are from the later, new part of the argument.
The Limitations of Tax LimitationJournal article, 1978, Policy Review (The Heritage Foundation); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 7, 1979, pp. 14069 to 14071, introduced by Representative Hamilton Fish, Jr. of New York as “an article by Dr. Friedman published in Policy Review, the quarterly journal of The Heritage Foundation”, Congressional Record, June 7, 1979, p. 14069Checked against the sourceRead the original
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