Skip to content

Milton Friedman on Free markets and the price system

I think it is only because capitalism has proved so enormously more efficient than alternative methods that it has survived at all. ( … ) I'm not sure capitalism is the right word. There is a sense in which every society is capitalist. The Soviet Union was capitalist, but it was state capitalism. Latin American societies in the past have been capitalist, but it has been oligarchic capitalism. So what we really need to talk about is not capitalism but free market or competitive capitalism which is the system that we would like to have adopted, not just capitalism.
Reflections on the Great Depression
Interview, 2002
Not yet checkedCite 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. Fundamentally, the Soviet Union is a market economy, but it’s a distorted market economy, because the extraordinarily great role of government forces the market into channels which are not efficient and not effective, and so much of its power is wasted in simply overcoming the bureaucratic mess of the government. That’s why the Soviet Union has such a low standard of life.
    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. But as a matter of practical experience, no complicated society can be run solely on the command principle. It’s just impossible. And therefore, in one sense, the market is essential. There’s no way of avoiding it.
    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
  3. After the fall of communism, everybody in the world agreed that socialism was a failure. Everybody in the world, more or less, agreed that capitalism was a success. And every capitalist country in the world apparently deduced from that what the West needed was more socialism.
    Milton Friedman: The Rise of Socialism is Absurd and There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
    Speech, 1993
    Not yet checkedWatch it

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