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

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

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The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.

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The essential notion of a capitalist society ... is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.

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Society doesn't have values. People have values.

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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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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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If capitalism worked as the socialists think an economic system ought to work, and provided a constant equality of living conditions for all, regardless of whether a man was able or not, resourceful or not, diligent or not, thrifty or not, if capitalism put no premiums on resourcefulness and effort and not penalty on idleness or vice, it would produce only an equality of destitution.

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You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.

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