Milton Friedman - Free Market is a Necessary but not a Sufficient Condition for a Free Society

"I think free societies are very rare things, and most societies in most times in human history have not been free. So I don’t know any simple formula to produce a free society. I only know that if you don’t have a market economy you won’t have a free society."  An excerpt from Milton Friedman Speaks video series, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1978.  Source: Common Sense Capitalism YouTube channel. Full transcript available here.

Transcript:

Question: In your book Capitalism and Freedom, which I’ve read cover to cover, you presented the thesis that a capitalist society was a prerequisite for a free and democratic society. But how does this fit with the example of South Africa, a nation which fits your  criteria for a capitalist society—it has relatively unregulated free enterprise, market diversification, and multinational participation─but in no way could be considered free with apartheid discrimination and forced labor by the … ?

Professor Friedman: I’m afraid you read the book from cover to cover but not line by line. Because you will find that the statement in question is that a free market economy is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a free society. I have never argued that it’s a sufficient condition, only that it’s a necessary condition. So I said in there, I gave in there examples of societies which predominantly relied on market economies, on market mechanisms for their economy, but yet were not by any stretch of the imagination free societies. So I don’t believe that’s a contradiction. I think free societies are very rare things, and most societies in most times in human history have not been free. So I don’t know any simple formula to produce a free society. I only know that if you don’t have a market economy you won’t have a free society.