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"We now know, as a few knew then, that the depression was not produced by a failure of private enterprise, but rather by a failure of government in an area in which the government had from the first been assigned responsibility — -"To coin money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin," in the words of Section 8, Article 1, of the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, as we shall see in Chapter 9, government failure in managing money is not merely a historical curiosity but continues to be a present-day reality."
Milton Friedman (31 July 1912 – 16 November 2006) was an American economist noted for his support for free markets and a reduction in the size of government. In 1976 he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics.
Biography information from Wikiquote
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People forget the fundamental distinction between Adam Smith's version of The Invisible Hand and what I suppose you could regard as Bastiat's version. The French idea was that there is somehow a harmony in nature so that by natural forces if people were left free to pursue their own interests they would benefit everybody. Adam Smith's was a much more subtle and sophisticated argument, that it is possible to set up institutions under which people pursuing their own interests will benefit everybody. His invisible hand required the right set of institutions and I think that's the case. After all, the distinction between a collectivist society and a market or individualist society is not whether people pursue their own interests. If I take Russia, for example, the people in Russia are all pursuing their own interests but the institutions set up in Russia make what is in each person's own interest different from what it would be in the United States or in Britain.
John Stuart Mill, The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self protection.... [T]he only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.... The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.2