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Milton Friedman on Politics, voting, and legislators

This talk will never be given. Yet, is it only a daydream that the policy it outlines would not only be good for the country but might also prove a political triumph for President Carter? He might ask Margaret Thatcher.

Context. From a 1979 Newsweek column. The column is framed as a daydream: he imagines President Carter giving a televised talk, and everything inside the talk is his own recommendation voiced through that imagined Carter, not anything Carter said. The column’s close, in his own voice after the imagined talk ends. Margaret Thatcher had become Prime Minister of Britain the month before, in May 1979.

What Carter Should Do
Column, 1979, Newsweek, June 18, 1979; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 13, 1979, p. 14740, introduced by Representative G. William Whitehurst of Virginia, who cites “the June 18, 1979, issue of Newsweek”, Congressional Record, June 13, 1979, p. 14740
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Milton Friedman, “What Carter Should Do” (Newsweek, June 18, 1979; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 13, 1979, p. 14740, introduced by Representative G. William Whitehurst of Virginia, who cites “the June 18, 1979, issue of Newsweek”, 1979), Congressional Record, June 13, 1979, p. 14740. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/this-talk-will-never-be-given-1979

Quoted for commentary and research. Rights in the underlying work remain with its rights holder, so cite the work itself, not only this page.

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He also said

  1. I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile under the title "The Fragility of Freedom." The essence of the talk was that freedom was a very fragile thing and that what destroyed it more than anything else was central control; that in order to maintain freedom, you had to have free markets, and that free markets would work best if you had political freedom. So it was essentially an anti-totalitarian talk.

    Context. Describing the lecture he gave in Santiago during his 1975 visit to Chile.

    Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interview
    Interview, 2000, PBS, “On His Role in Chile Under Pinochet,” interview conducted October 1, 2000
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript
  2. In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic “what your country can do for you” implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, “what you can do for your country” implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary.
    Capitalism and Freedom
    Book, 1962, Introduction, p. 1
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  3. The society doesn’t have concerns. It has governments, it has laws, it has parliaments. Only people have concerns. People do certain things through government. And I’m not going to talk about society having values. Society doesn’t have values. People have values.

    Context. In the panel discussion, asked whether he holds that any concern with inequality of outcome is illegitimate. He asks, “Concerned with whom? By whom?”, and the questioner answers, “Concerned by the society.”

    Created Equal
    Television, 1980, PBS, vol. 5, at 33:42
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