by Rick Lowe
Dr. Friedman released this essay in January 1976. Twenty one years later his points remain as relevant as the day he released them.
He deals quite effectively with “the myth of the robber baron, the myth of the Great Depression, the myth that there is an underlying demand for government services, the myth that government can spend money at nobody’s expense, and the myth that government has benefited the poor at the expense of the rich.the Robber Barron’s, the Great Depression, the Demand for Services, Helping the Poor at the Expense of the Rich.”
One of my favourites is the The Free Lunch Myth
He writes:
This leads to my next myth—the myth that government can spend money at nobody’s expense. What was really involved in that last story was that somehow the local people do not pay out the money coming down from Washington somebody else does. Of course, the truth is that the money makes a round trip between Florida and Washington, and there is a discount taken off for cash as it passes through Washington. Some of you may remember that wonderful description of government by the French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who said that government is that fiction whereby everybody believes that he can live at the expense of everybody else.
That is a widespread myth, that it is possible to spend money with nobody paying for it. You have everybody screaming that we ought to have new, bigger, more generous government programs. Where are we going to raise the money? Tax business. But business corporations can’t pay any taxes. A corporate executive may sign the check, but where does he get the money? From his stockholders or from his customers or from his employees. Unlike the federal government, he doesn’t have a printing press in his basement. So the only way he can pay money to the government is imposing a burden on somebody. Government cannot spend money at nobody’s expense, …
What a remarkable man he was.
Read the entire essay here…
Don’t miss the following links to Milton Friedman sites.
