When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union - like public housing in the United States - look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.

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Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised.

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The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits.

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Why have we had such a decline in moral climate? I submit to you that a major factor has been a change in the philosophy which has been dominant, a change from belief in individual responsibility to belief in social responsibility. If you adopt the view that a man is not responsible for his own behavior, that somehow society is responsible, why should he seek to make his behavior good?

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We economists don't know much, but we do know how to create a shortage. If you want to create a shortage of tomatoes, for example, just pass a law that retailers can't sell tomatoes for more than two cents per pound. Instantly you'll have a tomato shortage. It's the same with oil or gas.

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

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Inflation is taxation without legislation.

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Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.

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We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.

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If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.

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