Skip to content

Milton Friedman on Politics, voting, and legislators

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 itCite this passage

Where this comes from

Not yet checkedThe wording comes from a secondary compilation and has not yet been checked against the work itself.

Topics

He also said

  1. 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 it
  2. You can only aim at equality by giving some people the right to take things from others. And what ultimately happens when you aim for equality is that A and B decide what C should do for D, except that they take a bit of commission off on the way.”
    Milton Friedman Speaks: The Role of Government in a Free Society
    Speech, 1978
    Not yet checkedWatch it
  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.