Notable Quotes – Milton Friedman

There is no doubt that I am a limited government kind of guy; too often, people want government to do for them before doing for themselves.  And there are a lot of people out there that are too often too quick to say "hey, go down to the gummint office, they’ll help ya".  So often, I throw my hands up in disgust at the general attitude of "why bother – government will take care of it!".  And then I quote President John Kennedy:

"…ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country…"

Fine words; good words, as they seem to say to me "government is not a Nanny".  Or so I thought.

I’ve made a habit of going over to Greg Mankiw’s place fairly often – I’m thinking that I need to revise my thinking on the above quote and think about this one by Milton Friedman’s book Capitalism and Freedom instead (emphasis mine):

In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country." It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic "what your country can do for you" implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, "what you can do for your country" implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served. He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive.

The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather "What can I and my compatriots do through government" to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?