Free To Choose

By Milton and Rose Friedman

A case for free markets and limited government. Our freedom to choose is greatest when we can buy and sell in a free market through voluntary exchange. When we give our earnings away to a government, it will spend them less efficiently, not on what we want, and will cater to special interests to our disadvantage. (They are spending other people's money on someone else, so what do you expect, kid?) And government coming up with rules and regulations on who can do and buy and sell what that interfere with the free market hurts in similar ways.

The book explains how prices as distribute information and income and lure people to provide what is wanted. Is shows how inflation comes solely from government printing more money than goods and services available. And it gives details on US-specific policies that distort the market and how to change them: about the school system, the federal reserve, workers unions, trade barriers and so on.

He's a smart guy to understands that one has to deal with special interests not ad hoc, because the problem is that they are hugely gaining and are going to fight, while everyone else is losing only a little, and will not care enough. So one has to solve the problem on general terms. I love the proposed constitutional amendment: "The right of the people to buy and sell legitimate goods and services at mutually acceptable terms shall not be infringed by Congress or any of the States."