Thomas Sowell Quotes

Contrary to the vision of the left, it was the free market which produced affordable housing - before government intervention made housing unaffordable.

Rent control has in certain Western countries constituted, maybe, the worst example of poor planning by Governments lacking courage and vision.

Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

While admirers of capitalism, we also to a certain extent believe it has limitations that require government intervention in markets to make them work.

It is impossible to objectively define how free a market is. This is a political definition. Government is always involved, and those free marketers are as politically motivated as anyone.

It has become fashionable to rail against government intervention in the economy, and the FHA is a favorite example by those trying to show the government's overreach. In reality, the FHA shows how government action during the Great Recession forestalled a much worse economic fate.

Markets are smart and governments are dumb.

Less Government in Business and More Business in Government

I've made it very clear that the government should get out of the business of trying to affect the markets, of trying to pick winners and losers.

Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.

Politically, sometimes you get situations where rent control will go through. It is especially true in an emergency, where there is a sudden, sharp increase in demand for housing or a cut back in supply. People will simply not allow the marketplace to allocate housing resources and so you get pressures for rent control. Once you have it, it is hard to eliminate.

No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil.

All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure is always offered to take more of the poison that caused the disaster. Depressions are not the result of a free economy.

When you have a perfect free market, it's difficult to predict the future. But when you have a market that is disturbed by government manipulations and money-printing, it's impossible to make any predictions.

It should not be the government running the economy.

We no longer have a free market in the United States, we have a government controlled free market.

Whenever I tour my district and I ask small businesspeople 'what can I do to help?,' they tell me to just get government out of the way and they'll create the jobs and grow on their own.

It is time that we dispensed with the myth that the market is a force of nature that should not be meddled with. Markets are social creations that can be, and have been, modified for social purposes.

I do not believe that the government is in any position to say exactly how every single business and every single activity shall reach those performances.

Just as the left has to be more willing to question 'Government knows best,' the right has to rethink its laissez-faire attitude toward government.

There's not a single country that actually approaches economics in a pure, free market, capitalist way. I like the free market - but it very much exists only in textbooks. If I had a choice, and we could live in a very pure world, I would be a supporter of the free markets.

When the government gets involved in pricing, I don't think it's the right way to look at a business.

While I am a fervent believer in free markets and limited government, there are rare instances in which government involvement is necessary.

President Obama has basically avoided or not done any attempt to intervene in any positive way in the housing market. I think in the financial crisis that's been a shame.

There's something about China and its rush to capitalism that I find confusing. At the same time, we live in an America where capitalists oppose any government interference with free markets, while in China you have a very controlled, state-planned market where economic growth is better than ours.