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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A society that puts equality — in the sense of equality of outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.

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A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.

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A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.

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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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If you pay people not to work and tax them when they do, don't be surprised if you get unemployment.

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One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

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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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Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.

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

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