See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.
Interpretation
Friedman suggests that government involvement in the drug war often inadvertently supports drug cartels instead of combating them.
Milton Friedman highlights a paradox in the government's role in the drug war, arguing that when viewed strictly from an economic perspective, government actions may unintentionally bolster drug cartels. This observation invites a deeper examination of how policies designed to eradicate illegal drugs can backfire, creating a cycle that protects and sustains the very organizations they aim to dismantle, raising questions about effectiveness and the true motivations behind such policies.
In practice
In a debate about drug policy legislation, this quote can serve as a critical perspective on government actions.
The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.
Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.
There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.
There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
The great danger to the consumer is the monopoly -whether private or governmental. His most effective protection is free competition at home and free trade throughout the world. The consumer is protected from being exploited by one seller by the existence of another seller from whom he can buy and who is eager to sell to him. Alternative sources of supply protect the consumer far more effectively than all the Ralph Naders of the world.
The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.
It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.
If a great country yields to a small country, it will conquer the small country. If a small country yields to a great country, it will be conquered by the great country.
Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
It may be thought justifiable to require tests on animals of potentially life-saving drugs, but the same kinds of tests are used for products like cosmetics, food coloring, and floor polishes. Should thousands of animals suffer so that a new kind of lipstick or floor wax can be put on the market? Don't we already have an excess of most of these products? Who benefits from their introduction, except the companies that hope to profit from them?
Are you searching for your soul? _x000D_ Then come out of your own prison.
I want an ending that's satisfying. I'm more of a classical writer than a modernist one in that I want the ending to be coherent and feel like an ending. I don't like when it just seems to putter out. I mean, life is chaotic enough.
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