Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?

The difference between me and people like Murray Rothbard is that, though I want to know what my ideal is, I think I also have to be willing to discuss changes that are less than ideal so long as they point me in that direction.

Columbus did not seek a new route to the Indies in response to a majority directive.

Why is it that private insurance companies are not in trouble because people are getting older? Aren't they subject to the same demographics? The difference is that they've accumulated a fund, not a pay-in, pay-out system.

Economists may not know much. But we know one thing very well: how to produce surpluses and shortages. Do you want a surplus? Have the government legislate a minimum price that is above the price that would otherwise prevail. That is what we have done at one time or another to produce surpluses of wheat, of sugar, of butter, of many other commodities. Do you want a shortage? Have the government legislate a maximum price that is below the price that would otherwise prevail.

You know there are very few Marxists left in the world... they're all in American universities.

A free society releases the energies and abilities of people to pursue their own objectives. It prevents some people from arbitrarily suppressing others. It does not prevent some people from achieving positions of privilege, but so long as freedom is maintained, it prevents those positions of privilege from becoming institutionalized; they are subject to continued attack by other able, ambitious people.