Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Having always observed that public works are much less advantageously managed than the same are by private hands, I have thought it better for the public to go to market for whatever it wants which is to be found there; for there competition brings it down to the minimum of value. I have no doubt we can buy brass cannon at market cheaper than we could make iron ones.

Outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or economically as the private sector.

We use competitive markets to arrange for delivery of our food supply.

Private companies should be building businesses.

Capitalism does millions of things better than the alternatives. It balances supply and demand in an elegant way that central planning has never come close to.

I'm a big believer in free enterprise. If people want to try it, then go for it.

The free market is the most efficient for utilizing resources and responding to needs, but there are many human needs which find no place on the market.

The best thing that governments can do is get out of business. When governments interfere less, managers can do their jobs better.

I'm not a big government guy. I believe in private industries taking care of people. I think they do a better job.

It’s amazing that people don’t understand that the more the market is involved and the smaller the government, the lower the price, the better the distribution, and the higher the quality.

Markets are the best way to allocate resources.

The left hates capitalism, not because of freedom and liberty - although they do. But the primary they hate capitalism is that it is the most efficient engine to create wealth for the greatest number of people in a society that has ever been devised. Nobody's ever claimed it's perfect. Nobody's ever said it's flawless. But it's better than anything else out there, particularly anything left has to offer.

In the West everybody recognizes the need for a private sector, pretty much, even the one Socialist group understands this now, and so there tends to be debate about how much public sector intervention you think is needed for a variety of reasons, and there are very important differences on party lines that should be fought out.

The market economy needs no apologists and propagandists. It can apply to itself the words of Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph in St. Paul's: 'If you seek his monument, look around.'

It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.

You must distinguish sharply between being pro free enterprise and being pro business.

The economic welfare of all our people must ultimately stem not from government programs, but from the wealth created by a vigorous private sector.

There are different ways to organise capitalism. Free-market capitalism is only one of them-and not a very good one at that.

...free enterprise, [is] a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich.

All systems are capitalist. It's just a matter of who owns and controls the capital -- ancient king, dictator, or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right and government control of the market system such as we find today in socialist nations.

It is a law of nature that everything run by the government will get more expensive and worse over time. Everything run by the private sector will get better and cheaper over time. The fact that [Obamacare] starts this badly does not bode well....We want healthcare run on the same system that gave us cell phones, flat screens, Jerry Garcia chia pets. Everything you submit to the free market...keeps getting better and better.

The government can supply no substitute for enterprise.

No private enterprise will ever fall prey to bureaucratic methods of management if it is operated with the sole aim of making profit.

I’m a capitalist, not a corporatist. I’m not someone who believes we should be bailing out corporations whether their auto industries, or banks.

The great dynamic success of capitalism had given us a powerful weapon in our battle against Communism-money.