Milton Friedman, renowned economist and statistician and 1976 Nobel Laureate, was born in Brooklyn, New York on 31 July 1912, 108 years ago.

Friedman, economic advisor to Reagan and Thatcher, extolled the virtues of  a free market economy. He advocated very limited state intervention and called Keynesian economics “naive”.

His memorable quotable quotes reflect a well documented political and economic philosophy, an enduring legacy that in 2020 remains as relevant as ever, especially in South Africa

“There is no such thing as a free lunch”.

“Nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program”.

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem”.

“Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned”.

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself”.

“A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither”.

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who created it”.

“If you pay people not to work and tax them when they do, don’t be surprised if you get unemployment”.

“You can never cure poverty. Poverty is in the eye of the beholder”.

“Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own”.

“There are severe limits to the good that government can do for the economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can do”.

“Since the 1930s the technique of buying votes with the voters’ own money has been expanded to an extent undreamed of by earlier politicians”.

“The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-union-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline”.

All level headed South Africans will recognize the wisdom of Friedman and the profound relevance of his views to our precarious economic plight and the Greater Economic Depression of 2020.

UIF / TERS (temporary employer/employee relief scheme), temporary food parcel scheme and the ongoing misguided BEE scheme (graft by another name) offer no long term solutions, but present juicy opportunity for massive, grand scale corruption.

South Africa is on a rapid economic and existential downward spiral unless we protect current jobs and create many more quality jobs, employment that delivers dignity, financial security and a way out of ANC perpetuated poverty.

Individual employers, entrepreneurs, risk takers and resilient South African movers and shakers, not the bumbling command and control ANC state, will deliver the good jobs and rescue the SA economy.

How do you assist the entrepreneurs and employers?

Milton Friedman offered a solution.

“I am in favour of cutting (reducing) taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it is possible”.

Pearls before swine.

Of course, lower taxes will leave less room for unsound, imprudent and profligate government spending, waste and looting of the fiscus.

And the ANC cannot permit that.