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Milton Friedman on Wages, unions, and the minimum wage

When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union — like public housing in the United States — look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.
Free to Choose
Book, 1980, Ch. 1 “The Power of the Market”, p. 24
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  1. Nixon was the most socialist of the presidents of the United States in the 20th century. ( … ) Well, his ideas were not socialist, quite the opposite, but if you look at what happened during his administration, first of all, the number of pages in the Federal Register, which is full of regulations about business, doubled during his regime.
    Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interview
    Interview, 2000, PBS, “On Richard Nixon,” interview conducted October 1, 2000
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  2. Joan Robinson, a leading Keynesian and radical, produced a specimen for me to analyze. I said something like, "This is obviously the writing of a foreigner, so it's difficult for me to analyze. But I would say it is written by someone who had considerable artistic but not much intellectual talent." It turned out to be the handwriting of Lydia Lopokova, the world-famous Russian ballerina whom Keynes had married. That was surely my greatest triumph of the year at Cambridge!
    Two Lucky People
    Book, 1998
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  3. The true cost of government to the public is not measured by explicit taxes but by government spending. … Essentially every current piece of wealth in the United States has a hidden tax imposed on it because of the future obligation to pay those extra taxes. In effect, what you have are two kinds of taxes: the open, explicit taxes and the hidden taxes. And what's called a deficit is a hidden tax.
    The Limitations of Tax Limitation
    Journal 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. 14070
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