Thomas Sowell

That this nonagenarian hasn't won a Nobel prize is a travesty. (Friedman did.) The man is a national treasure. His writing is lucid, his arguments are cogent, his documentation is impeccable.

Sowell here builds on his previous works and extends it into a discourse against some of the arguments, if they can be called that, of the Social Justice Warriors who inhabit and inhibit academe, politics, and society in these wayward days. He takes on the fallacy that people are "equal" in any sense but legally/politically, i.e., the fallacy that there should be "equity" among groups. He takes on fallacies of racial disparities. He takes on what he calls the "chess pieces" fallacy, the idea that people don't change their behavior due to changes in stimuli. He takes on what he calls "knowledge fallacies," i.e., that some people have better knowledge and should tell you what to do. Or, that, in Reagan's words (Sowell doesn't quote him, but I will) that "a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

The book is slim, so I won't go into specific detail. The main text is in large font and only comprises 130 pages (the notes occupy pp. 131-188; the index pp. 189-201). Buy it, read it. It is amazing and his argumentation is thorough, his writing engaging, and his conclusions are bold and common-sensical.… (más)

Sowell takes the POV that one of the primary factor in economic and cultural advance is human capital: the knowledge and skills acquired by peoples either through their own efforts or through contact with other cultures. Cultures that are isolated by rough terrain, water or great distances are disadvantaged. Conquest can destroy human capital, as when barbarians invade and destroy both the humans and the artefacts of a higher culture but it can also bring advantages as when conquering nations impose peace on warring groups, improve transportation, bring new skills, etc.… (más)

This is a cogent and articulate expression of ideas by one of America's prominent thinkers. Intellectuals are dedicated to shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not those power holders accept the general vision or the particular policies favored by intellectuals. As a recovering academic, I understand at first-hand how the author shows that usually intellectuals have been proved not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society.… (más)