962) Frases apropriadas de um iconoclasta liberal

Milton Friedman (1912-2006) não tinha muita complacência com certos mitos, como a suposta crise do capitalismo, os supostos efeitos benéficos da intervenção governamental após a crise de 29 e seu rebento mais relevante, o keynesianismo:

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand.”

“The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.”

“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”

“Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”

“Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.”

“The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom. History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom.”

“Columbus did not seek a new route to the Indies in response to a majority directive.”