Milton Friedman Word of the Day: Augury

Augury – an event that is experienced as indicating important things to come; “he hoped it was an augury”; “it was a sign from God.”

From Milton’s Capitalism and Freedom:

As Adam Smith once said, “There is much ruin in a nation.” Our basic structure of values and the interwoven network of free institutions will withstand much. I believe that we shall be able to preserve and extend freedom despite the size of the military programs and despite the economic powers already concentrated in Washington. But we shall be able to do so only if we awake to the threat that w face, only if we persuade our fellow men that free institutions offer a surer, if perhaps at times a slower, route to the ends they seek than the coercive power of the state. The glimmerings of change that are already apparent in the intellectual climate are a hopeful augury.

Friedman was an optimistic man who believe to have real freedom one needed to live in a trichotomy of economic freedom, civil freedom AND political freedom.