It’s pointless to try to predict the availability of adequate sources of energy. What we need is an adjustable mechanism to enable us to adapt to whatever happens. We already have such a mechanism. The market helps us make transitions to the future—just as it has done in the past— if it is allowed to operate freely. Our prospects will be much improved if we can devise means to abolish —or at least work around—the government controls that interfere with the production and distribution and use of energy.

It’s not a problem unique to energy, as Milton says, “The problem in energy and in the approach to energy is part of a much broader problem and a problem which we will be faced with and have been faced with in a variety of other areas and not merely in the energy area. It is what you might call the difference between the economic way of thinking and the engineering way of thinking.”

So why don’t we just leave markets to function on their own? Take a listen and find out in the podcast Milton Friedman Speaks – The Energy Crisis.