Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on July 31, 2019
… is from Milton Friedman’s April 30th, 1962, essay in the Wall Street Journal, which is titled “An Alternative to Aid: An Economist Urges U.S. to Free Trade, End of Grants of Money”:
But more important than this, I think, is the extent to which trade is a carrier of culture. What is it that knit the world together in the 19th Century, that produced a greater degree of movement? More than anything else, it was unquestionably the British free trade policy. If you go abroad in country after country and ask: “Where does the United States influence come from?”, the answer is that it does not come from the United States Information Service; it does not come from the missions of VIPs who go abroad to see what foreign aid projects can be used. The American influence abroad comes from Coca-Cola, from Singer Sewing Machines, and the other great American industries which spread their goods and services abroad.
DBx: Milton Friedman was born, in Brooklyn, 107 years ago today. Happy Birthday, Professor Friedman!
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