An Interview With Thomas Sowell

Economist, social critic, political commentator and author, Thomas Sowell is one of today's leading libertarian voices. A reformed Marxist, Sowell is a strong believer in limited government. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and his columns appear on places such as Institutional Investor, and Townhall.

John Hawkins of RightWingNews was able to sit Sowell down for an interview about economic facts and fallacies. Below are some highlights:

Related question to what you just said there — If someone asked for a basic formula of what you need to do in life to avoid being poor, what would you tell him?

Finish high school and get married. The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits ever since 1994. You would never learn that from most of the media. Similarly you look at those blacks that have gone on to college or finished college, the incarceration rate is some tiny fraction of what it is among those blacks who have dropped out of high school. So it’s not being black; it’s a way of life. Unfortunately, the way of life is being celebrated not only in rap music, but among the intelligentsia, is a way of life that leads to a lot of very big problems for most people.

A lot of people say that income has stagnated for most Americans over the last 40 years. Talk about that a little bit; is that true?

No, it’s not true. It shows what you can do by playing games with statistics. It’s not true that income stagnated. People who argue that way almost invariably cite the household statistics or family income statistics when in fact the income per person, even in real terms eliminating inflation, has been rising very substantially over the years.

The problem is that households and families are getting smaller and smaller so that today if there is a family where, for example, there are two people working and in the past there were three people working, now the two people are making what the three people used to make. Then they say, “Well, you see, income has stagnated.” No, income has gone up by 50 percent.

To read the entire interview at Right Wing News click here.