Why Government Is the Problem

Essays in Public Policy, Volume 39

By: Milton Friedman

Narrated by: George Adams

Length: 38 mins

Publisher's Summary

The major social problems of the United States - deteriorating education, lawlessness and crime, homelessness, the collapse of family values, the crisis in medical care - have been produced by well-intended actions of government. That is easy to document. The difficult task is understanding why government is the problem. The power of special interests arising from the concentrated benefits of most government actions and their dispersed costs is only part of the answer. A more fundamental part is the difference between the self-interest of individuals when they are engaged in the private sector and the self-interest of the same individuals when they are engaged in the government sector. The result is a government system that is no longer controlled by "we, the people". Instead of Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people, and for the people", we now have a government "of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats", including the elected representatives who have become bureaucrats. 

©1993 Milton Friedman (P)2021 Stefan Curry

Boring reader

Excellent content but the reader takes a break once when something seems to fall in the background and does not edit it out. He’s also monotone and boring to an extreme.

The man is right, the narrator is awful.

I could have gone out and hired anyone to read this 30 minute pamphlet for $5 and they would have done it better. Better still, I probably could have made something comparable by plugging the whole text into an online translator and recording the audio. The narrator spoke in a flat tone with no emphasis on key words and phrases.