Tyranny of the Status Quo

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Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984 - Business & Economics - 182 pages
Free to Choose was an international best-seller in 1980. Its forceful message influenced a number of world leaders -- among them Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The Friedmans explained how free markets enable people to make the best use of their talents.
In Tyranny of the Status Quo, Milton and Rose Friedman describe a remarkable political phenomenon: the uniform tendency in government to reverse the declared policies of leaders whether left or right. In the first six to nine months following their election, Reagan, Thatcher, and Mitterand, too, initiated big changes. Soon, each was frustrated by the Iron Triangle which preserves the status quo. In the triangle's corners are the direct beneficiaries of laws, the bureaucrats who thrive on them, the politicians who seek votes.

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Contents

Promise and Performance
1
Government Spending Taxes and Deficits
11
Government Spending Taxes and Deficits
35
Copyright

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About the author (1984)

An influential leader in the field of economics, Milton Friedman had his humble beginnings in New York City, where he was born in 1912 to poor immigrants. Friedman was educated at Rutgers University. He went on to the University of Chicago to earn his A.M., and to Columbia University, where in 1946 he received his Ph.D. That same year he became professor of economics at the University of Chicago and remained there for 30 years. He was also on the research staff at the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937-1981. Friedman's greatest work is considered to be A Theory of the Consumption Function, published in 1957. Other books include A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, and The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays. Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976.

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