If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand. — Milton Friedman
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand. — Milton Friedman
I could be reasonably argued that much the same thing could be said of corporations.
Friedman’s comment only sounds reasonable to those failing to appreciate that, from small town governing boards all the way up to Congress, legislative bodies in the United States is virtually owned by business interests.
Government is to business what Satan is to religion. It is a convenient boogieman on which to heap blame in order to divert attention away from the real causes for problems.
Much like communism, corporate capitalism will soon be discarded a viable economic system. Already several undesirable byproducts of its dominate position in American society are becoming evident. Among them are unsustainable levels of unemployment coupled with social anomie, unstable concentrations of wealth, corruption of government, an excessively punitive criminal justice system, mountains of discarded manufacturing waste and obsolete products, and unhealthy levels of pollution.
In fact, according to public opinion polling, the only institution Americans trust is a military that hasn’t won a war in almost three quarters of a century!
If you put a businessman in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years he’d have sold it to the Federal Government at a loss to investors, but only after paying himself a nice bonus.”