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Milton Friedman on The free society

What this demonstrates, fundamentally, is that no simple principle is really adequate. We do not have all the answers, and there is no simple formula that will give us all the answers. That’s why humility, tolerance, is so basic, so fundamental. Because the only way that we can get a little closer to those fundamental principles is by being tolerant, by considering and respecting the opinions of people who disagree with us.
Say 'No' to Intolerance
Speech, 1991, Liberty, vol. 4, no. 6 (July 1991), pp. 17-18
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  1. Our problems have arisen from good people who are trying to do good, but trying to do good in a fundamentally flawed way. The welfare state is in many ways a noble construct, a noble concept. It's the concept that we ought to help our fellow men. What flaws it is that it's one thing for you to help me out of your pocket. It's another thing for you to help me out of his pocket. And the fundamental flaw of the welfare state, in my opinion, is the idea that you should do good with somebody else's money.
    The Open Mind
    Interview, 1977, The Open Mind, hosted by Richard Heffner, Episode “A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy” (May 3, 1977)
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  2. The only way you could get the inflation down was by having monetary contraction. There was no way you could do that without having a temporary recession. The great error in the earlier period had been that whenever there was a little contraction there was a tendency to expand the money supply rapidly in order to avoid unemployment. That stop-and-go policy was really what bedeviled the Fed during the '60s and '70s.
    Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interview
    Interview, 2000, PBS, “On Ronald Reagan,” interview conducted October 1, 2000
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  3. The negative lesson is that we must beware of intolerance if we’re going to be really effective in persuading people. The writings of both Rand and Mises—and much libertarian literature—take for granted that hard questions have easy answers, that it’s possible to know something about the real world, to derive substantive conclusions, from purely a priori principles.
    Say 'No' to Intolerance
    Speech, 1991, Liberty, vol. 4, no. 6 (July 1991), p. 18
    Checked against the sourceRead the original

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