Topics
What he addressed, in his own words, with a source on every passage.
- Monetary policy and the Federal Reserve53 passagesWhat Friedman said about central banking, the money supply, and rules over discretion in monetary policy.43 checked
- Concentrated power and tyranny43 passagesFriedman's warning that combining economic and political power in the same hands is a recipe for tyranny.29 checked
- Free markets and the price system32 passagesWhat Friedman said about how prices coordinate the plans of millions of strangers without anyone directing them.19 checked
- The draft and the volunteer army32 passagesFriedman's case against conscription and for an all-volunteer force, which he helped bring about.29 checked
- The free society32 passagesFriedman on the individual as the unit that matters, what a free society asks of the people in it, and why society itself has no values apart from theirs.20 checked
- Politics, voting, and legislators31 passagesWhat Friedman said about political incentives, and about making it profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.24 checked
- Inflation29 passagesFriedman's claim that inflation is a monetary phenomenon, produced by money growing faster than output, in his own words.23 checked
- Prices and what they do26 passagesWhat Friedman said about prices as signals, and about what breaks when government fixes them.20 checked
- Wages, unions, and the minimum wage26 passagesWhat Friedman said about who a minimum wage prices out of work, and about what unions can and cannot deliver.14 checked
- Government spending and deficits22 passagesWhat Friedman said about watching total government spending rather than the deficit, because spending is the real tax.19 checked
- Taxes22 passagesWhat Friedman said about who actually bears a tax, which taxes are least bad, and why business cannot pay them.14 checked
- Capitalism and socialism21 passagesFriedman on why he held that a socialist society cannot also guarantee individual freedom.14 checked
- Intellectuals, the press, and public opinion21 passagesFriedman on how support for expanding government was manufactured, and on arguing against caricatures.15 checked
- Regulation, licensing, and bureaucracy21 passagesWhat Friedman said about occupational licensing, regulatory agencies, and why bureaucracies outlive their purpose.21 checked
- Energy and oil20 passagesFriedman on oil price controls, gasoline lines, and why shortages follow when prices are not allowed to clear.20 checked
- Money, banking, and the gold standard20 passagesFriedman on what money is, how banks create it, and why he did not think a gold standard was the answer.18 checked
- Business, profit, and social responsibility17 passagesFriedman on the responsibility of corporate executives to their stockholders, and on businessmen who oppose competition for themselves.10 checked
- How economics should be done15 passagesFriedman on prediction as the test of a theory, and on assumptions that need not be realistic to be useful.13 checked
- What government is for15 passagesFriedman on the functions government must perform, the ones it should not attempt, and why its solutions so often cost more than the problem.7 checked
- Incentives and self-interest13 passagesFriedman on self-interest as the engine of every system, and on judging policies by results rather than intentions.9 checked
- Voluntary exchange12 passagesFriedman's bedrock claim that a trade both sides enter freely leaves both better off, and what has to be true for a trade to count as free.4 checked
- Freedom and equality11 passagesFriedman's claim that a society putting equality before freedom gets neither, and that one putting freedom first gets a large measure of both.2 checked
- The Great Depression9 passagesFriedman's argument that the Depression was deepened by government and Federal Reserve failure, not by the failure of private enterprise.5 checked
- Schools and vouchers8 passagesFriedman's case for funding students rather than schools, the origin of the modern school voucher argument.6 checked
- Keynes and the economics profession6 passagesFriedman on what he was taught at Chicago, why Keynes never persuaded him, and how economists argue with each other.4 checked
- Welfare and the negative income tax6 passagesFriedman on why welfare programs fail the people they aim to help, and the negative income tax he proposed instead.2 checked
- Competition and monopoly5 passagesFriedman on monopoly as the absence of alternatives, and why competition is what keeps an exchange genuinely voluntary.2 checked
- Drugs and prohibition5 passagesFriedman's argument that prohibition creates crime and that legalization would reduce it, in his own words.2 checked
- Trade and tariffs5 passagesFriedman's case for free trade and his answer to the argument that imports cost a country its jobs.3 checked
- Crime and the law4 passagesFriedman on the crime that prohibition creates and on what law enforcement can reasonably accomplish.2 checked
- Paternalism and consumer protection4 passagesFriedman on whether government may stop adults doing things that harm only themselves, and who protects the consumer from the protector.1 checked
- Rent control and housing4 passagesWhat Friedman said about rent control and the shortages a price ceiling on housing produces.3 checked
- Charity and giving3 passagesWhat Friedman said about private charity and about giving away other people's money in its name.1 checked
- Fairness and life's unfairness3 passagesWhat Friedman said about fairness, inherited advantage, and the limits of trying to equalize outcomes.
- Poverty and development3 passagesWhat Friedman said about which societies have actually lifted ordinary people out of grinding poverty.2 checked
- Spending other people's money3 passagesFriedman's point that nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as their own, and what follows from it.3 checked
- Medicine and health care2 passagesWhat Friedman said about third-party payment, licensing of doctors, and the cost of medical care.2 checked
- Pollution and the environment2 passagesFriedman on pollution as a cost that lands on people who did not agree to bear it, and why nobody actually wants it reduced to zero.1 checked
Topics still being filled
He addressed these at length, and the archive does not hold a passage on them yet. They get pages when there is a cited passage to put on them, not before.
Social Security