Milton Friedman on Fairness and life's unfairness
Life is unfair. There’s nothing fair about one man being born blind and another man being born with sight. There’s nothing fair about one man being born of a wealthy parent and one of an impecunious parent. There’s nothing fair about Muhammad Ali having been born with a skill that enables him to make millions of dollars one night. There’s nothing fair about Marlene Dietrich having great legs that we all want to watch. There’s nothing fair about any of that. But on the other hand, don’t you think a lot of people who like to look at Marlene Dietrich’s legs benefited from nature’s unfairness in producing a Marlene Dietrich?
Context. From the opening of “Created Equal,” the fifth film of his 1980 television series Free to Choose. Shortly before, he describes a favorite device of reformers: contrasting extremes of wealth and poverty, so that we conclude the rich are rich at the expense of the poor.
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Milton Friedman, “Free to Choose: Created Equal” (PBS, 1980), Vol. 5, at 1:46. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/whether-slums-new-delhi-affluence-las-vegas-1980
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He also said
The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights, subject only to the proviso that he not interfere with the freedom of other individuals to do the same. This implies a belief in the equality of men in one sense; in their inequality in another. Each man has an equal right to freedom. This is an important and fundamental right precisely because men are different, because one man will want to do different things with his freedom than another, and in the process can contribute more than another to the general culture of the society in which many men live. The liberal will therefore distinguish sharply between equality of rights and equality of opportunity, on the one hand, and material equality or equality of outcome on the other.
Capitalism and FreedomBook, 1962, Ch. 12 “The Alleviation of Poverty”, p. 195Checked against the sourceFind the bookThe oil problem offers a particularly clear illustration of how the price system promotes both freedom and efficiency, how it enables millions of us to cooperate voluntarily with one another in our common interest. It brings out equally why the only alternative to the price system is compulsion and the use of force.
Context. From a Newsweek column written about a month into the Arab oil embargo of 1973, while retail gasoline and fuel oil prices were still held down under the price controls President Nixon began on August 15, 1971.
Why Some Prices Should RiseColumn, 1973, Newsweek (November 19, 1973); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, November 29, 1973, p. 38775, introduced by Representative John H. Rousselot of California, who gives it as “an article which appeared in the November 19, 1973, issue of Newsweek”, Congressional Record, November 29, 1973, p. 38775Checked against the sourceRead the originalThe great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.
Context. Closing his answer to an audience question about the diversity of the American population, in the question-and-answer session printed with the essay.
Why Government Is the ProblemJournal article, 1993, Hoover Institution Press, Essays in Public Policy no. 39, p. 18Checked against the sourceRead the original
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