Do livro 'Free to Choose'

Milton Friedman, Prémio Nobel da Economia de 1976 (200 anos após a Declaração de Independência dos EUA)

"It seems to us simply an example of the widespread tendency to take the will for the deed. Which is more inhumane? To tax the working class of [a coutry] in order to subsidize university education for the children of the middle and upper classes - all in the name of equality; or to proclaim the inequality of such an inegalitarian transfer and urge that persons who benefit directly from higher education should bear their own costs.Which is more inhumane? To condemn thousands of patientes to wait for years for life-saving or life-benefiting medical operations as is done under the British Health Service; or to urge reducing the tax burden now imposed to support the health service in order to enable individuals to buy their own health care. There are no such waiting periods for poor or rich in the United States mixed system and there would be none in a United Kingdom voluntary system.

We could go on and on. Is it really more humane to preach 'equality' while endorsing for measures that promote inequality than to proclaim openly that the spirit may be willing but the flesh has proven weak? A major theme of our book is that welfare states are in deep trouble not because of the announced objectives of the programs that they have adopted but because of the failure of those programs to serve the annouced objectives. As Samuel Johnson puts it, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'."