Government Intervention Quotes:

Nationalization of private debts undermines prudential lender behavior and is a government intervention in the market.

- Joseph Stiglitz

source: Source: www.progressive.org

topic: Government Intervention, Debt, Behavior, Lenders

The Second World War ended with a radicalization of the population in the United States and everywhere else, and called for all kinds of things like popular takeovers, government intervention, and worker takeovers of factories. Business propagated a tremendous propaganda offensive. The scale surprised me when I read the scholarship - it's enormous, and it's been very effective. There were two major targets: one is unions, the other is democracy.

- Noam Chomsky

source: Source: www.iww.org

topic: War, Two, Government Intervention, Takeovers

There is no way to stabilize the markets other than through government intervention.

- Henry Paulson

topic: Government, Way, Conspiracy, Government Intervention

Every government intervention [in the marketplace] creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions.

- Ludwig von Mises

topic: Government, Unintended Consequences, Marketplace, Government Intervention

The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.

- Milton Friedman

source: "Why Government Is the Problem". Book by Milton Friedman, February 1, 1993.

topic: Hate, Color, People, Ethnic Background, Free Market Capitalism

We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the Government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.

- Calvin Coolidge

topic: Government, People, Firsts, Government Intervention

When government takes away options, it is bound to make some people worse off, even with intrinsicallly good intentions behind that government intervention.

- Thomas Sowell

topic: Government, People, Liberty, Government Intervention

What I object to the current government intervention in so-called 'solving the crisis', they haven't solved anything. They've just postponed it.

- Marc Faber

topic: Government, Currents, Crisis, Intervention, Government Intervention

Government planning not only fails; it tends to produce outcomes that are the opposite of what its proponents say that they favor. The only stable and productive social system is one that embraces human liberty in its totality, and defends the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive.

- Llewellyn Rockwell

topic: Government, Opposites, Peaceful, Market Economy, Government Intervention

Nothing rectifies out-of-control market failures like a healthy dose of government intervention and mountains of bureaucracy.

- George Carlin

topic: Government, Healthy, Mountain, Government Intervention, Market Failure

All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy.

- Ayn Rand

source: Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.45, Penguin

topic: Government, Evil, Abuse, Iniquity, Government Intervention

People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.

- Margaret Thatcher

topic: Men, People, Looks, Individuals And Society, Iron Lady

A Day never passes without some ardent reformer or group of reformers suggesting some new government intervention, some new statist scheme to fill some alleged 'need' or relieve some alleged distress.

- Henry Hazlitt

source: Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.204, Ludwig von Mises Institute

topic: Government, Groups, Needs, Government Intervention

Government intervention in the economy - through taxes, regulation and, most importantly, currency inflation - causes distortions and misallocations of capital that must eventually be unwound. The distortions degrade the general standard of living, and the economy goes into a recession (call that an incomplete cleansing). Or it goes into a depression - wherein the entire sickly structure comes unglued.

- Doug Casey

topic: Government, Regulation, Cleansing, Government Intervention

Contrary to the vision of the left, it was the free market which produced affordable housing - before government intervention made housing unaffordable.

- Thomas Sowell

source: Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.92, Hoover Press

topic: Government, Vision, Affordable Housing, Government Intervention

The nature of the economic system should be a matter for public choice, and free market capitalism should not be accepted without any discussion of the rich variety of alternatives ... Unlike civil laws, economic laws are imposed on people with all the authority of immutable laws of nature. But the economy is created by people, supported by government intervention, regulation, statute and subsidy, and implemented in such a way that it gives substantial wealth and power to a privileged few, while the majority face a life of relentless work, stress and periodic financial insecurity.

- Tony Benn

topic: Stress, Government, Law, Privileged, Work Stress

The gap between what one knows and what one thinks one knows may be higher in the ranks of the elite. The result is supposedly-clever government interventions, introduced with excessive confidence, leading to disastrous results.

- Arnold Kling

topic: Clever, Thinking, Government, Government Intervention

Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.

- Howard Zinn

source: "From empire to democracy" by Howard Zinn, www.theguardian.com. October 2, 2008.

topic: Atheist, Government, Historical, Government Intervention, Historical Truth

I'm a little embarrassed about how long it took me to see the folly of most government intervention. It was probably 15 years before I really woke up to the fact that almost everything government attempts to do, it makes worse.

- John Stossel

source: "John Stossel: Not Afraid to Tell the Truth". Ed Sigall, NewsMax, June 3, 2006.

topic: Government, Years, Long, Government Intervention

In a world dependent on international trade and commerce, and staggering under a heavy load of international debt, no policy is more destructive than protectionism. It cuts off markets, eliminates trade, causes unemployment in the export industries all over the world, depresses the prices of export commodities, especially farm products of the United States. It is the crowning folly of government intervention.

- Hans F. Sennholz

topic: Depressing, Cutting, Government, International Trade, Protectionism

The FHA's success provides strong evidence that government can and should play a role in the nation's mortgage finance system. It also demonstrates that although government intervention in the economy during the Great Recession was messy, things would have been a lot messier without it.

- Mark Zandi

topic: Strong, Government, Play, Government Intervention, Great Recession

...free enterprise, [is] a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich.

- Noam Chomsky

source: Noam Chomsky (2011). “How the World Works”, p.64, Soft Skull Press

topic: Government, Practice, Political, Free Enterprise, Government Intervention

Government intervention is not solving the problems, and in fact the governments around the world that are intervening the most in their economies are struggling more.

- Oliver DeMille

topic: Struggle, Government, World, Intervening, Government Intervention

We know that government intervention in the free market, and Argentine history has shown this, absolutely ends in a boomerang.

- Daniel Morgan

topic: Government, Boomerang, Ends, Government Intervention

Both history and contemporary data show that countries prosper more when there are stable and dependable rules, under which people can make investments without having to fear unpredictable new government interventions before these investments can pay off.

- Thomas Sowell

source: "An Economic 'Plan'?". www.creators.com. September 09, 2012.

topic: Country, Government, Data, Dependable, Government Intervention

We are watching industries crumble, Wall Street firms disappear, unemployment spike, and unprecedented government intervention. And our designated opinion leaders want to know: Is Obama up this week? Is he down? And is his leadership style more like Bill Clinton's, or Abraham Lincoln's?

- Thomas Frank

topic: Wall, Government, Leader, Opinion Leaders, Leadership Style

This is not about abortion or the antics. This is about pro choice versus anti-choice and government intervention in a woman's personal decisions about her life.

- Kathleen Turner

topic: Government, Choices, Abortion, Personal Decisions, Intervention

Global overcapacity in steel production can no longer be ignored. Foreign governments' intervention in steel markets has had a devastating impact on the U.S. industry.

- Max Baucus

topic: Impact, Government, Steel, Intervention, Government Intervention

Whether we like it or not, government intervention in the face of surplus is here to stay.

- Benjamin Graham

source: "Storage and Stability". Book by Benjamin Graham. Part I, Chapter II, Government and Surplus Stocks, p. 26, 1937.

topic: Government, Faces, Surplus, Government Intervention

If, for example, existing government intervention is minor, we shall attach a smaller weight to the negative effect of additional government intervention. This is an important reason why many earlier liberals, like Henry Simons, writing at a time when government was small by today's standards, were willing to have government undertake activities that today's liberals would not accept now that government has become so overgrown.

- Milton Friedman

source: Milton Friedman (2017). “Milton Friedman on Freedom: Selections from The Collected Works of Milton Friedman”, p.45, Hoover Press

topic: Writing, Government, Important, Government Intervention

We are moving rapidly from an era of an oligopoly of content providers to an oligopoly of content controllers: new choke points. This is not media consolidation in the traditional sense, where a few huge conglomerates used economies of scale to dominate journalism by dominating the local and national agendas. This consolidation, to a very few companies plus increasing government intervention, is even more dangerous - and information providers of all kinds are finally starting to grasp what’s happening.

- Dan Gillmor

source: "Dan Gillmor: 2012 will be the year of the content-controller oligopoly". www.niemanlab.org. December 20, 2011.

topic: Moving, Government, Media, Controllers, Consolidation

Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.

- Ayn Rand

source: "The Voice of Reason" by Ayn Rand, 1989.

topic: Government, Special, Liberty, Government Intervention

Its often difficult for conservatives to separate overall government intervention from a question as simple as the census.

- Patrick McHenry

topic: Simple, Government, Census, Government Intervention

What would annoy the most people most often? That is the true left-wing test of government intervention.

- P. J. O'Rourke

topic: Government, Wings, People, Government Intervention

There is still a tendency to regard any existing government intervention as desirable, to attribute all evils to the market, and to evaluate new proposals for government control in their ideal form, as they might work if run by able, disinterested men free from the pressure of special interest groups.

- Milton Friedman

source: Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.197, University of Chicago Press

topic: Running, Men, Evil, Special Interest Groups, Special Interests

After the risky mortgage-lending practices fostered by government intervention led to massive defaults and foreclosures that caused financial institutions to collapse or be bailed out, Congressman Frank changed his tune completely.

- Thomas Sowell

source: Thomas Sowell (2011). “Dismantling America and Other Controversial Essays (Large Print 16pt)”, p.21, ReadHowYouWant.com

topic: Government, Practice, Tunes, Foreclosure, Government Intervention

The Libertarian position on the freedom of speech is a strong support of freedom of speech, and we oppose government intervention in controlling what is or is not moral.

- Michael Badnarik

topic: Strong, Government, Support, Government Intervention

In practice, without appropriate government intervention, Smith's "invisible hand" dons brass knuckles and conducts gang warfare, creating fierce battles between competitors who would be more than happy to define and enforce their own private property interests according to their own subjective rules.

- Denise Caruso

topic: Creating, Government, Hands, Government Intervention, Invisible Hand

It has become fashionable to rail against government intervention in the economy, and the FHA is a favorite example by those trying to show the government's overreach. In reality, the FHA shows how government action during the Great Recession forestalled a much worse economic fate.

- Mark Zandi

topic: Fate, Reality, Government, Government Intervention, Great Recession