Milton Friedman recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”

Government is notorious for not being productive.  That’s not its job.  It is the job of the private sector, business people and capitalism.  When firms compete against each other, they find ways gain short term advantages though lower costs, higher quality, innovation and productivity.  This in turn frees up capital to be used for other purposes.  Capitalism is a fluxating dynamic growth engine.  Government is not.  When it comes to businesses, Government is a static wealth redistribution monopoly.

Milton Friedman knew how to create real wealth-producing jobs. Once, when he visited India in the early 1960s, John Kenneth Galbraith, the U.S. ambassador, welcomed him by only half-joking, “I can think of no place where your free-market ideas can do less harm than in India.” Talk about irony. India has adopted much of the Friedman free-market model and has moved nearly 200 million people out of destitution and despair.

Recently Rose Friedman (Milton’s wife and co-author) was asked what she thought about the attacks on her husband and capitalism. She was mostly dismayed at how far off-course our country has veered under President Obama. “Is this the death of Milton’s ideas?”. “Oh no,” she replied, “But it is the death of common sense.”