English
MaternjiMilton Friedman: Producers' Role in Increased Regulation
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Milton Friedman explains how big business, while publicly coming out in support of the free market capitalism, are also often the instigators of government regulation and control for their own benefit. Source: Common Sense Capitalism YouTube channel.
Translated by: Jadranko Brkic
(see video below transcript)
transcript:
In industry after industry, producers who protest most strongly their belief in free markets have fostered and helped produce government takeover, government regulation, government control. Oldest historical case of this was in the railroad industry. Where the railroad entrepreneurs helped to foster upon us the interstate commerce commission and all that followed.
The same thing has been true in every other area. Most recently the steel industry which talks so loudly of its belief in free enterprise has been strongly in favor of government restrictions on imports, in favor of tariffs and the like.
In medicine, the same process has been at work. Indeed, I would say that it is particularly true in medicine. A large part of the pressure for socialized medicine in the United States in my opinion, and I may say this is not merely opinion, it is based on a considerable examination of the evidence, a large part of the pressure has derived from the policies which have been followed over the decades by the American Medical Association. Policies which were adopted in the name of improving medical care. Policies which I have no doubt that the leaders of medicine regarded as desirable for improving medical care. But policies which have in practice had the effect of restricting entry into medicine, holding down both the quantity and the quality of medical care and inhibiting the most efficient modes of providing and distributing medical care.
There has been great progress in the provision of medical care in the United States. It has been a great achievement, but it's been an achievement despite many of the best efforts of the American medical Association, not because of it.
