Common Mistake: Judging Policies and Programs by their Intentions, Rather than Results

One of the common misconceptions of conservatism is that it does not care about the poor and down-trodden in society. Quite the opposite is true.

For example, most conservatives would agree with the intention of most social programs, such as the minimum wage, or social security. However, the question that a conservative might ask would be, a) does the particular social program achieve its stated goals, and b) does it do this by trampling upon another individual’s liberty?

Milton Friedman discusses many of these misconceptions (still totally relevant today) about capitalism, greed, social security, minimum wage, the free market, etc in the video below: