Milton Friedman on Voluntary exchange
When you and I make a private deal, both of us benefit—otherwise we do not have to make it. We are partners, cooperating voluntarily with one another. The terms, so long as they are mutually agreeable, should be our business. But not any longer. Big Brother is looking over our shoulders.
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.
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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/private-deal-big-brother-1971
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He also said
The oil problem offers a particularly clear illustration of how the price system promotes both freedom and efficiency, how it enables millions of us to cooperate voluntarily with one another in our common interest. It brings out equally why the only alternative to the price system is compulsion and the use of force.
Context. From a Newsweek column written about a month into the Arab oil embargo of 1973, while retail gasoline and fuel oil prices were still held down under the price controls President Nixon began on August 15, 1971.
Why Some Prices Should RiseColumn, 1973, Newsweek (November 19, 1973); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, November 29, 1973, p. 38775, introduced by Representative John H. Rousselot of California, who gives it as “an article which appeared in the November 19, 1973, issue of Newsweek”, Congressional Record, November 29, 1973, p. 38775Checked against the sourceRead the originalThe vested interests are not some big bad people sitting on money bags; the vested interests are you and me. Each of us is strongly in favor of small measures that will benefit us and each of us is not too strongly opposed to any one small measure that will benefit someone else. We are not going to vote anybody out of office because he imposes a $3 a year burden on us. Consequently, when each measure is considered separately, there is considerable pressure to pass it.
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. 14070Checked against the sourceRead the originalLife is unfair. There’s nothing fair about one man being born blind and another man being born with sight. There’s nothing fair about one man being born of a wealthy parent and one of an impecunious parent. There’s nothing fair about Muhammad Ali having been born with a skill that enables him to make millions of dollars one night. There’s nothing fair about Marlene Dietrich having great legs that we all want to watch. There’s nothing fair about any of that. But on the other hand, don’t you think a lot of people who like to look at Marlene Dietrich’s legs benefited from nature’s unfairness in producing a Marlene Dietrich?
Context. From the opening of “Created Equal,” the fifth film of his 1980 television series Free to Choose. Shortly before, he describes a favorite device of reformers: contrasting extremes of wealth and poverty, so that we conclude the rich are rich at the expense of the poor.
Free to Choose: Created EqualTelevision, 1980, PBS, Vol. 5, at 1:46Checked against the sourceWatch it
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