We measure poverty by what I believe is a very, very crude concept. We actually measure poverty by trying to get some kind of an estimate of the minimum expenditures on food that are required to maintain health, multiplying that number by three, and saying that's the level of poverty. And it's a very crude, inaccurate arrangement.

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

I think almost every economist would agree that government gets itself in trouble when it tries to interfere with voluntary behavior.

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

If you really want to engage in policy activity, don't make that your vocation. Make it your avocation. Get a job. Get a secure base of income. Otherwise, you're going to get corrupted and destroyed.

There's no point in comparing an actual, operating system with an ideal system that doesn't exist.

The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.