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Buy the Book
Can’t Live With Them…
Is Thomas Sowell too disdainful of intellectuals?
Intellectuals and
Society
By Thomas Sowell
(Basic Books, 398 pages, $29.95)
IRVING KRISTOL ONCE DEFINED an intellectual as someone who “knows a little bit about everything.” And, as he was quick to add, he did not mean that disparagingly.
Thomas Sowell, who knows quite a lot about many things, is much more disdainful of intellectuals. He’s now written a whole volume trying to explain why they are so troublesome. The illustrations of his argument are quite compelling. But at the risk of sounding like a special pleader, I’d register some skepticism about his explanation of why intellectuals are that way.
But first the fun part. If you like Sowell’s columns, you will enjoy most of the material in this book. Sowell takes aim at the fatuousness so often displayed by professorial pundits and public intellectuals. He doesn’t just offer a string of contemptuous snorts at their delusions. He offers clear, patient expositions, demonstrating why the only reasonable response is… a contemptuous snort.
As Sowell was trained as an economist, the chapter on intellectuals and the economy is, naturally, among the most illuminating. So, for example, commentators have repeatedly told us in recent years that the gap between rich and poor has been widening. It is true, if you compare the income of those in the top fifth of earners with the income of those in the bottom fifth, that the spread between them increased between 1996 and 2005. But, as Sowell points out, this frequently cited figure is not counting the same people. If you look at individual taxpayers, Sowell notes, those who happened to be in the bottom fifth in 1996 saw their incomes nearly double over the decade, while those who happened to be in the top fifth in 1995 saw gains of only 10 percent on average and those in the top 5 percent actually experienced decline in their incomes. Similar distortions are perpetrated by those bewailing “stagnation” in average household incomes — without taking into account that households have been getting smaller, as rising wealth allows people to move out of large family homes.
Sometimes the distortion seems to be deliberate. Sowell gives the example of an ABC news report in the 1980s focusing on five states where “unemployment is most severe” — without mentioning that unemployment was actually declining in all the other 45 states. Sometimes there seems to be willful incomprehension. Journalists have earnestly reported that “prisons are ineffective” because two-thirds of prisoners are rearrested within three years of their release. As Sowell comments: “By this kind of reasoning, food is ineffective as a response to hunger because it is only a matter of time after eating before you get hungry again. Like many other things, incarceration only works when it is done.”
So why do intellectuals often seem so lacking in common sense? Sowell thinks it goes with the job-literally: He defines “intellectuals” as “an occupational category [Sowell’s emphasis], people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas — writers, academics and the like.” Medical researchers or engineers or even “financial wizards” may apply specialized knowledge in ways that require great intellectual skill, but that does not make them “intellectuals,” in Sowell’s view: “An intellectual’s work begins and ends with ideas [Sowell’s emphasis].” So an engineer “is ruined” if his bridges or buildings collapse and so with a financier who “goes broke… the proof of the pudding is ultimately in the eating…. but the ultimate test of a [literary] deconstructionist’s ideas is whether other deconstructionists find those ideas interesting, original, persuasive, elegant or ingenious. There is no external test.” The ideas dispensed by intellectuals aren’t subject to “external” checks or exposed to the test of “verifiability” (apart from what “like-minded individuals” find “plausible”) and so intellectuals are not really “accountable” in the same way as people in other occupations.
I’m happy to stipulate that many practitioners of literary deconstruction are fools (if I can generalize from the ones I’ve known). But I’m skeptical that the world is divided between professors of comparative literature talking only to themselves and real people, facing the test of the market.
We have a whole lot of middle managers in large corporations (as in nonprofit organizations and government agencies) who spend most of their time reading and writing memos. Is it true that these people are accountable for the opinions that guide their decisions? How many of them actually make decisions — as opposed to murmuring concerns, admonitions, considerations, and covering their own backsides in their endless stream of e-mail traffic? Corporations may face market discipline, but that doesn’t mean every manager (let alone every employee) has to focus on how to improve sales.
On the other hand, it is not quite true, even among tenured professors in the humanities, that idea-mongers can entirely ignore “external” checks. Even academics want to be respectable, which means they can’t entirely ignore the realities that others notice. There were lots of academics talking about the achievements of socialism in the 1970s (I can remember them) but very few talking that way after China and Russia repudiated these fantasies.
Sowell offers two chapters on the prattling of intellectuals about foreign policy — first in the 1930s, when they undermined the will to resist Fascist aggression, and then in the 1960s, when they undermined the will to win the war in Vietnam. He shows that many of the same arguments reappeared in the 1960s as if they were new insights. But the fact is that people who spouted antiwar rhetoric in 1935 were either much more hesitant by 1940 or much less heeded. More than two decades had to pass, after the end of the Second World War, before their arguments could regain respectability.
THE MOST DISTORTING ASPECT of Sowell’s account is that, in focusing so much on the delusions of intellectuals, he leaves us more confused about what motivates the rest of society. In a characteristic passage, Sowell protests that “intellectuals…have sought to replace the groups into which people have sorted themselves with groupings created and imposed by the intelligentsia. Ties of family, religion, and patriotism, for example, have long been rated as suspect or detrimental by the intelligentsia, and new ties that intellectuals have created, such as class — and more recently ‘gender’ — have been projected as either more real or more important.”
There’s no disputing the claim that most “intellectuals” — surely most professors in the humanities-are down on “patriotism” and “religion” and probably even “family.” But how did people get to be patriotic and religious in the first place? In Sowell’s account, they just “sorted themselves” — as if by the invisible hand of the market.
Let’s put aside all the violence and intimidation that went into building so many nations and so many faiths in the past. What is it, even today, that makes people revere this country (or some other); what makes people adhere to a particular faith or church? Don’t inspiring words often move people? And those who arrange these words — aren’t they doing something similar to what Sowell says intellectuals do? Is it really true, when it comes to embracing national or religious loyalties, that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”?
Even when it comes to commercial products, people don’t always want to be guided by mundane considerations of reliable performance. People like glamour, prestige, associations between the product and things they otherwise admire. That’s why companies spend so much on advertising. And that’s part of the reason people are willing to pay more for brand names — to enjoy the associations generated by advertising. Even advertising plays on assumptions about what is admirable and enticing-assumptions that may change from decade to decade, as background opinions change. How many products now flaunt themselves as “green” — and how many did so 20 years ago?
If we could somehow prohibit advertising, would people not care about glamour or style or intangible associations? If we closed down universities and stopped subsidizing intellectual publications, would people really judge every proposed policy by external results? Intellectuals tend to see what they expect to see, as Sowell’s examples show — but that’s true of almost everyone. We have background notions about how the world works that help us make sense of what we experience. We might have distorted and confused notions, but we don’t just perceive isolated facts. People can improve in their understanding, developing background understandings that are more defined or more reliable. That’s part of what makes people interested in the ideas of intellectuals — the hope of improving their own understanding.
On Sowell’s account, we wouldn’t need the contributions of a Friedrich Hayek — or a Thomas Sowell — if we didn’t have so many intellectuals peddling so many wrong-headed ideas. But the wealthier the society, the more it liberates individuals to make different choices and the more it can afford to indulge even wasteful or foolish choices. I’d say that means not that we have less need of intellectuals, but more need of better ones.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (112) | Leave a comment
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Stuart Koehl| 9.28.10 @ 7:00AM
"There were lots of academics talking about the achievements of socialism in the 1970s (I can remember them) but very few talking that way after China and Russia repudiated these fantasies."
Oh? I can provide you with a lot of names and addresses. The secret is being socialist without mentioning socialism.
Ted| 9.28.10 @ 7:21AM
Yeah, the trick is being socialist without mentioning socialism. Just ask the Current Occupant of the White House and the current majority party in Congress.
capitalist| 9.29.10 @ 8:07AM
Also, ask every Republican in America. Every government program is a socialist program, of course, as money is collected from taxpayers and "spread around" to the military, social security, Medicare, infrastructure projects etc. etc. etc. It would be interesting to see how Republicans would react if their socialist military program was dismantled. Worse yet, Republicans and Democrats are almost universally protectionists rather than capitalists, at least in this respect. The fact is, Republicans and Democrats are reactionaries and few espouse consistent belief systems. Ron Paul is the only politician I know of who even makes an effort to not be a hypocrite...
John| 10.28.10 @ 1:37PM
I am a Conservative/Libertarian, and I would be more than happy to see many of these SOCIAL programs disappear. For instance, give me all the money that I have donated/had taken from me in the name of retirement benefits, all my SSI in a lump sum, like a corporate buyout so to speak and I will take that money and invest and disperse it as I please, and before you get to excited I will also sign a agreement never to want or need anything from this government (other than the state disability I pay into, and notice that is to the state I live in, not the Fed) and they will promise to never take any more of my money for any federally run Ponzi scheme again.
Jeremy| 9.29.10 @ 4:04PM
ted is retard.
pjp| 9.29.10 @ 10:48PM
To even begin to compare socialism practiced in China and the USSR to the so-called "socialism" putatively advocated by the pres is comically lame. Go ahead, pls. compare them and prove their similarities - I challenge you! "Socialism" as understood by Americans in today's discourse is so remote from its true definition. Indeed, if right-wingers think that's what socilaism is, then every president from FDR to Carter was a socialist. Hogwash!
ENOUGH ROPE| 9.28.10 @ 11:11AM
Lefty intellectuals in the humanities and social sciences hate capitalism because free markets reward non-intellectuals far more compensation. The lefties spend years in undergraduate and graduate school where they are assured by their professors and peers that their work is superior. Then comes game time. Then comes their resentment toward the free market that pays the MBA or engineer far more for bringing a new product to market. Lefties' remedy for their envy is to restore Marxism in the belief that they will become the distributors of wealth away from those who make the wealth.
John Grinder| 9.29.10 @ 5:18AM
You have expressed in one paragraph the root cause of all the Lefty Intellectuals un happiness. Well written!
JG (Engineer)
pjp| 9.29.10 @ 10:41PM
Root cause being their supposed envy due to being underpaid and under-appreciated?? One thing you don't understand is that the overwhelming majority of academics enter the profession due to passion, not for profits. Esteem is not wrought by net worth, but by well-received scholarship. You guys seem to think everything is reducible to $; not in this case, as most left-wing intellectuals are driven by a deep sense of morality (however flawed they sometimes are....)
Dale Alexander| 9.30.10 @ 12:29AM
Then the useful idiot academic left will have no trouble halving their salaries in order to bring about more affordable education for the children if their true motivation is passion as you insist.
pjp| 9.30.10 @ 11:45PM
what a weak, contentless rebuttal, Dale...tsk tsk
benjamin| 9.29.10 @ 7:31AM
then comes you with your good old folk wisdom. then comes everyone finally seeing how things really are. then comes you going to the local bar. then comes you drinking some beer and giving the free market a high five after a slam dunk.
Tim| 9.29.10 @ 11:57AM
I don't know what world you live in where engineers are paid "far more." If anything we value too much the work of pundits, commentators, and even executives and people in finance and do not value enough the work of engineers who actually create tangible things.
JPL| 9.29.10 @ 12:40PM
Very cliched response. Maybe they do have pension envy, but maybe they don't hate capitalism as much as capitalists who rig the system to the exclusion of others and create false economies that lead to recessions/depressions like the one in full force.
dave12| 9.30.10 @ 8:11AM
We don't have a capitalistic system where the producer and purchaser exchange money (a value) for a product. We have a huge and ever growing third party, government, that takes an ever growing value amount from this exchange. This government makes then changes the "rules" of the exchange having little understanding or thought of their impact so the Carter's, Franks and Bernanke's altered the exchange rules leading to our current economic disaster.
Exactly as intellectuals like Hoover and FDR felt they had to do something about the 1929-30 recession, which was recovering, against all the advice of economists stating just leave the recession alone and the market will correct itself. So these "intellectuals" brought in trade tariffs and other controls which of course lead to the great depression and its solution, WW2.
The same "intellectuals" or cloud dwellers now foster global warming/environmentalism, which is where the leftists went when their utopia, the USSR, collapsed.
pjp| 10.1.10 @ 12:10AM
Wow, Dave, would you have the balls to implement your vision of a panacea to capitalism's structural deficiencies, knowing that you'd be accountable if it just might not work? I'd love to know...
jeremy| 9.29.10 @ 4:05PM
that makes sense. for a retard. are you trig palin?
Nancy in NC| 9.29.10 @ 5:33PM
What's that old rhubarb: those who can, do...those who can't...teach.
jpal| 9.30.10 @ 11:52PM
...and that attitude, Nancy in NC, is why the US ranks 23rd in education internationally. Guess who's #1? Finland, a so-called "socialist" country like those other pesky Scandinavian states who "tax too much". Teachers are paid much more than here, and accorded much more respect, rather than seen as "those who can't"...
cityzen| 9.30.10 @ 9:13AM
The free market lately has been paying financial types to play Casino on Wall St., to send any good jobs overseas, and to de-industrialize the U.S.
Where's "creative destruction" when we need it? If they wanted to minimize damage to the U.S., the Pentagon would be bombing Wall St.
HLMencken1980| 10.3.10 @ 9:31PM
I'm not sure income disparity alone fuels academics' resentment and disdain of businessmen. In some cases, in which many college professors' salaries approach six figures, I don't think economic envy is relevant at all. I think it's merely a question of differing values and worldview.
Joseph Epstein, in his excellent "Snobbery: The American Version," described the parking garage at Northwestern University as a collection of clunkers tantamount to a wrecking yard. The ethnic garage attendant referred to it as "academic motors." Many intellectuals, even well remunerated ones who work in prestigious institutions, simply don't care about money and material concerns, or at least they don't care to the extent that bankers and stockbrokers do. Whatever resentment they have towards said bankers and stockbrokers is primarily cultural, not economic.
Alan Brooks| 9.28.10 @ 2:22PM
Best of all he is black, it makes us feel good about ourselves.
"A black guy we can really like-- how good of us!"
Tim*| 9.28.10 @ 5:47PM
Brooks Tries To Play The Race Card Again.
JJ| 9.28.10 @ 5:58PM
Yes, "best of all he is black." Considering 90-95 percent of blacks who voted in the last presidential election cast their vote to hussein. Sowell and his ilk give me hope for all of America. He warms the cockles of my conservative heart.
Jerk. You sound like a racist to me. :) You know, because we disagree.
H Smith| 9.28.10 @ 7:53PM
A racist is one who injects race into a conversation where no racism was present before.
Alan Brooks| 9.28.10 @ 8:34PM
But you treated caucasian Clinton better than you are treating Obama-- you're making it sound like Obama is the Antichrist.
Tim*| 9.28.10 @ 9:38PM
Brooks tries to play the Race Card again.
Alan Brooks| 9.28.10 @ 10:54PM
What do you know, Timmie? you are too young to avoid being sucked in-- you actually think these people mean what they say. They just want power; look at Tyrrell, he wants to run for mayor of Chicago even though the odds of winning are nil. Delusions of grandeur!
Tim, you are the sucker.
jeremy| 9.29.10 @ 4:05PM
ummmmm. no.
HLMencken1980| 10.3.10 @ 9:36PM
"A racist is one who injects race into a conversation where no racism was present before." No, that would be a RACIALIST, not (necessarily) a racist. I think precise defintions are extremely important here, as charges of racism should never be made liberally.
Ret. Marine| 9.28.10 @ 7:57AM
"Yeah shall know them by their works", they are called deceivers of humanity, otherwise known as intellectuals.
Sheila| 9.28.10 @ 11:08AM
Spot on. Methinks "Professor Rabkin" doth protest too much.
Alan Brooks| 9.28.10 @ 2:24PM
"Then comes their resentment toward the free market that pays the MBA or engineer far more for bringing a new product to market."
Mr. Rope, an engineer is an intellectual.
Tim*| 9.28.10 @ 5:51PM
Mr.Rope , Brooks is not .
Alan Brooks| 9.28.10 @ 8:35PM
That makes two of us, Timmie-boy*
Tim*| 9.28.10 @ 9:42PM
I ain't your boy Brooks & there ain't no two of us .
Unlike you , I ain't a pseudo-Intellect .
Go feed the pigeons in the park .
Alan Brooks| 9.28.10 @ 10:56PM
Well then, whose buttboy are you? you are gay, right, Timmie?
Dave M. (now in S. Korea| 9.29.10 @ 8:39AM
Brooks tries to play the gay card again.
Dave12| 9.30.10 @ 8:30AM
If you read Sowell's book or Rabkin's critique you will see that Sowell only considers those who deal with "ideas" as intellectuals. Those who are accountable like doctors or engineers are not intellectuals. So you can have an Obama and his ilk that can impose, against all proven facts and historical criteria showing stimulus money does nothing, a massive debt on the US which may bankrupt it yet are never personally affected by their acts and they move on to the next cloud.
Chris| 11.1.10 @ 3:23PM
Fact check:
Who proposed the stimulus? When was the total 700B number proposed? Wasn't it proposed (and administered as well) by an appointee of the Bush administration?
Heartless| 9.28.10 @ 7:58AM
True Story. When I was having my triple bypass I was placed in a "step down Unit" The Orderly who checked my "Vitals" told me he was a communist. Of course I asked how he could be so after China and Russia had proved it doesn't work. "I have faith he said We'll be back." and so they are.
Petronius| 9.28.10 @ 8:22AM
One need never experience the pain of reality if shielded from it and having license to refuse delivery.
Dr. Sowell should be appointed temporary Secretary of Education in charge of shutting that agency down permanently.
Bob K.| 9.28.10 @ 8:23AM
I haven't read the book yet, but I'll bet it is rather gentle compared to Paul Johnson's scathing biographical sketches in his book "Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky."
Why don't you give us your opinion of that book Mr. Rabkin?
Paul| 9.28.10 @ 8:56AM
The whining of wounded intelligentsia after being intellectually eviscerated by the brilliance of Sowell.
Sheila| 9.28.10 @ 11:10AM
But is it as "pretty" as the Muslim call to prayer at sunset? You display cognitive dissonance, Mr. Rabkin, in more than one sense.
pjp| 9.30.10 @ 11:57PM
well...nothing in Sowell's article that "eviscerated" the intelligentsia (who's category Sowell himself belongs to, ironically). One measly article in the American Standard eviscerates a tradition going back to ancient Greece (or in our country, the Founding Fathers, the intelligentsia of their day)? ? I don't think so.....
C.Moreing| 9.28.10 @ 9:59AM
The problem with most of these people is they do not have a smoke alarm , Someone to tell them that what they say is not correct and no self evaluation
North East| 9.28.10 @ 10:00AM
The only thing is, Sowell is himself a self-righteous, blowhard "intellectual" who is not above cherry-picking facts to support his own biased arguments.
Tom| 9.28.10 @ 10:20AM
Examples please.
Bob K.| 9.28.10 @ 11:44AM
Forget it. There won't be any.
I'll bet Northeast is a classic liberal racist. Sowell is "off the academic plantation." Get out the Bloodhounds!
Tom| 9.28.10 @ 12:53PM
Bob,
I never expected any.
Tom
jd| 9.28.10 @ 10:09AM
I agree with Sowell's analysis of intellectuals. I would actually give him the honor and distinction of being an HONEST intellectual in that he works in the realm of ideas but can recognize those ideas that do not work in reality and discards them. He's intellectual AND logical.
George True| 9.28.10 @ 10:10AM
I have to chuckle at some of the leftist responses I have seen in the past disparaging Thomas Sowell as some kind of a simpleton and lightweight. (It must be projection.)
Sowell drills down DEEP into the human psyche in his books. Even though I am a fast reader, I find myself having to slow down, sometimes even stop completely, and just THINK about what I just read. He is a superb writer, but the profundity of the concepts he expounds upon require some though in order to fully appreciate the ramifications.
Of his previous books, at least two of them should be required reading for every college student. "The Vision of the Anointed" and "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" lay bare the faulty thought processes that lead to all forms of leftism.
emory| 10.1.10 @ 12:00AM
And I chuckle at your post, George True, with it's "faulty thought processes". Wow, Mr. Sowell makes you slow down and actually think??? Then you are missing out in a lot out there in the world of ideas, if that's the case!
Mid West| 9.28.10 @ 10:25AM
"The only thing is," that people who say "the only thing is," are morons. Liberty, experience and the transmission of what is then discerned as true are several of the other things that disprove the only thing. As for Jeremy Rabkin, he takes offense at Thomas Sowell's book because it hits too close to home. I am disgusted that this review is appearing in the American Spectator. Mr. Sowell is telling the truth and Mr. Rabkin is defending the disaster that goes by the name of higher education which is nothing but a leftist "borg."
Center South| 9.28.10 @ 10:59AM
Don't be such a prig, Mid West. "The only things is" is just an idiomatic expression, commonly used to introduce an objection. It doesn't literally mean that there is nothing else to consider. North East is not a moron.
skip| 9.28.10 @ 11:54AM
The only thing is you are defending someone who accused Sowell of being a blowhard who cherry picks facts and is biased. Prove it North East or Center South. Provide a shred of evidence of this. You will not be able to. This will support the notion you are both blowhards who are biased and are morons.
skip| 9.28.10 @ 12:02PM
The only other thing is I owe an apology to North East who has not accused Sowell of being anything other than what he is. The only other other thing is Rabkin's review does provide some food for thought.
Al Adab| 9.28.10 @ 11:37AM
Dr. Sowell, who is one of the Conservative's great intellectuals and should be President, rightly dismissis those who "self annointed" believe that their thinking must be imposed on an ill informed public. The entire concept of government by "the best and brightest" is deeply flawed. Government by the People is the founding Constitutional concept. Over two centuries we have enlarged the meaning of "People" but the principle remains. Either we trust in the ability of citizens to govern themselves or we must continue to grant more arbitrary power to unelected elites through the functioning of the mandarin bureaucracy. The subsequent loss of Liberty surely follows.
Bob K.| 9.28.10 @ 11:48AM
Exactly!
Sowell identifies the "the annointed and the appointed" and calls them out!
Paul| 9.28.10 @ 11:59AM
Dr. Sowell is one of the greatest "true" intellectuals in the history of mankind. Most are posers with high IQs, broad vocabularies, and no original thought. Sowell takes the complex and reduces it down to the most basic bare-bones issue, without patronizing those of us who were not blessed with his IQ. I regret that I didn't get the opportunity to study under Dr. Sowell.
Dr. Steve| 9.28.10 @ 11:59AM
One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputation.
Eric Hoffer in "The True Believer" (1951)
Al Adab| 9.28.10 @ 3:19PM
As you note Eric Hoffer identified the phenomena correctly. As Reagan said, "It's not that the Left is ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't true." Unfortunately, we put them in charge of all those regulatory agencies.
Cisi| 9.28.10 @ 4:11PM
You just exposed an important difference between conservative thinking and liberal thinking. You say: We admit that we put them in charge of all those regulatory agencies.
1. WE take responsibility for the failure of our nation even if we didn't actively vote for the ones who are destroying it
2. WE identify ourselves as part of America.
Al Adab| 9.28.10 @ 4:20PM
Collective guilt instead of "It's *****'* fault."
Ray| 9.28.10 @ 12:21PM
"Is it true that these people are accountable for the opinions that guide their decisions?"
You've never worked in the private sector, have you? Managers ARE held accountable, by the executives above them and the employees below them. In most businesses, those managers face yearly, or semi-yearly performance reviews, reviews that include informal surveys of the employees who work "under" a particular manager. Those that fail two or more reviews are usually fired. Managers also have to justify their individual policy decisions and budget expenditures. Those who fail to do so are fired. Managers are also held accountable to civil and criminal "accountability" like "labor laws." Those who violate the laws that regulate business, personnel disputes, and the like, are fired, and then, in serious cases, arrested. Some are even sued in Civil Court, the outcomes of which usually based upon the "opinions" of a Manager who's been accused of things like Racism or Sexism.
These are just a few of the examples of how managers, unlike tenured "intellectuals" are actually held accountable for their actions. Since a manager's actions are "guided" by the "opinions" they use to make managerial "decisions," what is commonly referred to as their "management style," the answer to your question is a resounding YES.
Publius| 9.29.10 @ 8:58PM
"You've never worked in the private sector, have you? "
Well, I have. All my life.
"Managers ARE held accountable, by the executives above them and the employees below them. "
Sure they are, the thing is, though, that the mechanisms that insure this accountability are imperfect. These mechanisms are easily gamed by charming people, who speak empty words of encouragement to their underlings, and who suck up to the people above them
I mean, you aren't honestly saying that suck-ups don't exist in the world, are you?
" In most businesses, those managers face yearly, or semi-yearly performance reviews, reviews that include informal surveys of the employees who work "under" a particular manager. "
And yet in an entire life of working in the private sector, I have never once worked anyplace that did this. They always talk about doing it, but it never quite works the way it is supposed to.
"Managers also have to justify their individual policy decisions and budget expenditures. Those who fail to do so are fired."
Unless, of course, they are the owner's son; or their wife; or their brother. Or unless they are sleeping with the boss, or are the boss' favorite drinking buddy. I have worked in many places where nepotism and favoritism pretty much destroyed the company. That didn't stop the favoritism.
I mean, seriously, you don't really think that the world is that simple, do you?
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 6:59AM
Exactly right. There is this fantasy of the "real world" of business as a place of pure merit (defined of course only as contributing to profit). All real world business people are competent or they are gone. Sorry, I've worked in many venues in that real world and they do not resemble this at all. The vast majority of businesses fail anyway, so the notion that business = competence is false on even the most obvious testing ground. We'd say the market sorts them out, sure, but this is usually a long, slow, process with all kinds of random variability in it. Over the years or decades or centuries that this is happening, the internal causes are rolling along in their bootlicking, incompetence, excuses, whining, nepotism, and all the rest of it. That's the real real world. The fantasy of this world as a place where competence is rewarded and incompetence eliminated is just that, pure fantasy.
dave12| 9.30.10 @ 8:50AM
Publious and Dagwood, I too have worked as a Senior Director in companies and our companies all had yearly reviews of managers with the appropriate guidelines. You are also correct in that companies ignore or circumvent these reviews for many reasons. As companies grow there are more and more fluff jobs and managerial levels that weaken the organization and unless there is constant monitoring it dies. Bloated GM and Chrysler would have died in a few years except for the government bailout.
The difference between the private sector and the public is the public grows the same way but it never dies just gets bigger, more cumbersome, more interfering and consumes more private sector wealth as we see across the Western world today. Eventually the country collapses under this unsustainable weight.
Publius| 9.30.10 @ 9:46AM
"The difference between the private sector and the public is the public grows the same way but it never dies..... "
True. This is the thing I always try to point out to my liberal friends. It never seems to convince them, though.
Sigh.
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 9:48AM
I certainly agree with all you've said about the size of the government, dave. (Although one might muse that viewed from a certain distance, the entity called "corporate capitalism" has also grown exponentially, and while one can point to much good that has come of this (as one can point to much good that governments have done), one can also point to ways in which corporate capitalism's growth has also crushed the world. I'm coming to feel that anyone who debates in current left vs right terms, as these are used today, has been duped terribly. For starters, if anything, that big government and 'our representatives' who run it, seems like it's owned and run by corporate interests. If anything, the threat of "one world government" that "patriots" fear so much, comes from the corporate sector (see IMF, NAFTA, etc). The screaming about big government that most people do, as far as I can tell, is the result of those people being hoodwinked by corporate interests, who resent that government does ANYTHING that doesn't benefit their profit motive. They have working people screaming about unions, folks who are dependent on social security screaming to end it. Duped, through and through. That's the Reagan victory and legacy in a nutshell.
MarkR| 9.28.10 @ 12:59PM
"What is it, even today, that makes people revere this country (or some other); what makes people adhere to a particular faith or church? Don't inspiring words often move people? And those who arrange these words -- aren't they doing something similar to what Sowell says intellectuals do? Is it really true, when it comes to embracing national or religious loyalties, that "the proof of the pudding is in the eating"?---This is a false statement if there ever was one in my view. Obama had and has soaring rhetoric up the wazoo and yea in 08 it was effective and now it is a national joke. Ideas without meat attached to the bones always is exposed, sometimes later than sooner but always exposed eventually. Take for instance Christian or Jewish belief systems- pretty soaring words can be utilized in favor of these ideals- but ultimately they have PROVEN to work and be true. Its the reason no economically successful communist-marxist state can be found after nearly 100 years of attempting to do so. Hell, even Castro has doubts now. Look at a night map of the Korean peninsula. No, Mr. Rabin can rail all he wants against Sowell's thesis but ultimately all ideas come down to results except in the academy where results are stopped at the steps of the university. The only result that matters there is the social heirarchy and ivory tower superiority over the yokels out there who toil for these intellectual morons right to castigate their supposed inferiors.
Seek| 9.28.10 @ 2:41PM
Jeremy Rabkin is a critic of Sowell, but a decidedly friendly one. He's not "railing" against Sowell any more than I am. I have at least a dozen books by Sowell in my personal library and have read (and enjoyed) them all. That said, Rabkin is right to question Sowell's often one-dimensional worldview, sound as that dimension is.
Seek| 9.28.10 @ 2:41PM
Jeremy Rabkin is a critic of Sowell, but a decidedly friendly one. He's not "railing" against Sowell any more than I am. I have at least a dozen books by Sowell in my personal library and have read (and enjoyed) them all. That said, Rabkin is right to question Sowell's often one-dimensional worldview, sound as that dimension is.
Thom| 9.28.10 @ 3:22PM
“There's no disputing the claim that most "intellectuals" -- surely most professors in the humanities-are down on "patriotism" and "religion" and probably even "family." But how did people get to be patriotic and religious in the first place? In Sowell's account, they just "sorted themselves" -- as if by the invisible hand of the market.”
Mr. Rabkin, how many intellectuals have you found on America’s battlefields on in our cemeteries with a Veterans flag attached in your study of “intellectuals”? I think I can make the case that most of today’s “intellectuals” “sorted” themselves out of any connection with founding principles and consequences decades ago. I think I can also make the case that the overwhelming bulk of those that came to this country “sorted” themselves away from something that did not provide for their needs. If you ignore the liberal/progressive definition of Patriotism being simply “love of country” which would include all those who supported every known form of tyranny known to mankind, what the “invisible hand of the (free) market” provides is the basis of why American Patriots went to war in the 1775 and this was not an uprising by serfs looking to take something from someone else.
People who will not apply themselves in productive ways will often fight to take something form someone else if they have meaningful advantages over them but much more often and with resolute purpose people will fight to keep what they have built and against overwhelming odds. Where else in the world has a system of government provided the means to pursue the latter? This Nation is the result of “sorting” it out from somewhere else. Where else in the world are so many “intellectuals” completely out of touch with that and grossly underrepresented in the cost of providing that?
Any competent economists will tell you economic freedom is the root of liberty itself. Those that claim to be economists and spout “control” of same are something else entirely. Unelected politicians pushing an agenda comes to mind. I’m sure from Sowell’s perspective, the greatest threat to economic as well as political freedom has routinely sprung from the “intellectual” sewers of academia and most of the last century’s worst forms of tyranny were born to the “intellectual” pursuits of what some of us might say were way too many people with way too much free time on their hands and nothing constructive to constrain a rambling mind. Needless to say our better “intellectuals” came from a time where there was a better understanding of and respect for what the “invisible hand of the (free) market” provides than what I suspect Sowell sees today as just a continuous pool of self destructive narcissistic feces masquerading as intelligence.
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 10:03AM
Ahh, the fantasy rears its head again. "People who will not apply themselves in productive ways will often fight to take something form someone else if they have meaningful advantages over them" Are people who work in advertising, insurance, real estate, the law, the tobacco industry, casinos, etc applying themselves in productive ways? What does the word "productive" mean, my friend? "Doing or making things that someone else is willing to pay for?" Pass the bong, please.
In California, marijuana may become legal soon. Millions of dollars have been shunted to legislators and for advertising to stop this from happening, those dollars coming from eg, the alcohol corporations. According to conservative reasoning, it's the beer companies that are the 'socialists', trying to use the government to inhibit the free market. There are countless examples of this scenario. The 'free market' is a fantasy that you've been hypnotized into believing so that the unfortunate fact of your having some power in a democracy can be used for the benefit of corporate gain. The corporations that lobby our legislatures have no interest in the "free market", only in maximizing profits in any way possible. They spend billions of our (consumer) money for the sole purpose of blocking competitors via the government. Is this part of your free market fantasy of innocent, hard-working, productive business people simply allowing the market/consumer decide freely who gains and loses? Call me a cynic but it all looks much more corrupt and cutthroat to me.
Frank Natoli| 9.28.10 @ 3:55PM
"I'd say that means not that we have less need of intellectuals, but more need of better ones."
If you were to substitute "whiskey" for "intellectuals", I might agree. But that's because a good Islay single malt is a wonderful thing.
But exactly how does any intellectual, "good" or "bad", become a wonderful thing, like a good Islay single malt?
I believe Sowell's point is that it can't, it will always be a creature whose whole purpose of existence is issuing baseless and more often than not malignant opinions, and we really would be better off without them. If Sowell accepts those words put in his mouth, then I agree with Sowell.
Petronius| 9.28.10 @ 7:56PM
I beg to differ; slightly. On a purely intellectual plain, contemplate solitude of a cold winters evening, with a good book and a dram of Highland Park.
Albert| 9.28.10 @ 4:27PM
"...a good Islay single malt is a wonderful thing." Truer words indeed were never spoken or written.
Al Adab| 9.28.10 @ 5:11PM
Lagavulin. Solves a multitude of issues.
thom| 9.28.10 @ 5:36PM
What are the chances we can exchange all the self anointed “intellectuals” for a single stein of our preferred Ale for each of us? It has to be cheaper than what they are costing us now and more useful to boot. There has to be single country we can send them all to in order to apply their theories? I was thinking Haiti as it so desperately needs their guidance….in reaching the promised land.
Frank Natoli| 9.29.10 @ 8:19AM
Lagavulin is good, but my first choice is Bruichladdich 15 years. 10 years is too immature, and my taste cannot appreciate the 20.
Also am good friends with Dalwhinnie 15, though they're Central Highlands.
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 10:05AM
I could not agree more.
Bill A | 9.28.10 @ 7:36PM
"What is it, even today, that makes people revere this country" In a word, it is Freedom. The freedom to persue ones goals throught the sweat of their own labor for their own profit. Intellectuals today see this as abhorent behavior.
When people complain to me about our country I ask this simple question. How many people do you see leaving. Of all the folks I have met who tell me how evil our country is, I have yet to see even one leave. Conversely, I have met many who have given everything they had just to get here, even if it left them broke. This is called the land of opportunity for a reason. I do not see anybody trading all of their worldly possesions to get to Europe, Russia or any other place I can think of.
The proof is truly in the pudding.
Of course, intellectuals and politicians will pretend not to know this.
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 6:41PM
Two comments, Bill A. (1) Just because our nation is attractive to many people who see this as a place to be more free, it does not follow that this nation is above criticism or improvement. If, say, doing what we did to Iraq in 2003 was evil, this has little to do with someone (from, say, Mexico) seeing us as a place where he might find honest work. (2) There are, believe it or not, quite a few nations that are at least equally attractive to people wanting to find a way to escape poverty and find freedom through honest toil. The US has for some time lost its place as THE most likely nation wherein one can rise out of poverty, i.e., we no longer even lead the world in offering the American Dream. Several of those countries are in Europe and yes, people ARE trading their possessions to get there. This is the 21st Century.
PCP Smoker| 9.28.10 @ 10:13PM
I'm not sure Sowell is anti-intellectual as much as "anti -supporting and elevating wrong ideas".
Let's face it. Liberalism, as practiced at the university and governmental levels, is one where the ideas have no consequences.
One can come up with the idea of paying people not to work, have that idea implemented at the state and federal levels, and never be held responsible for the results.
Case in point: Ted Kennedy. Despite years of advocating for federally controlled medicine, at the end of his life, he paid or had paid for him, the most expensive medical care in the world.
Tony in Central PA| 9.28.10 @ 10:15PM
Having actually read this book, I would disagree with Mr. Rabkin that Sowell is " disdainful " of intellectuals. I think he paints an accurate portrait of intellectuals in western society as they are now and probably have been for the last couple of centuries. Looking at the overall record of achievement, disdain is the most natural conclusion.
Our society is descended from a Medieval European society that was partitioned into three basic spheres ; those who labored, those who fought and those who prayed. It is from this last group that modern western intellectuals have derived. Those who prayed in Medieval society told people how they should live. This is also the business of intellectuals today, although their prescriptions for living would chiefly be found among the heretics of the Medieval world.
Don Carlson| 9.29.10 @ 6:45AM
Tony is right in Central Park. And nowhere does Sowell suggest the elimination of universities, or of intellectuals, or censorship of their product. What Sowell is on about is the pervasive purveying of false views and mostly arrogant propaganda by the denizens of academia. Sowell suggests by juxtaposition the similarity between leftists and deconstructionists, and this is a likeness none of us is likely to deny. I would even say the latter grew out of the former. But the truth is that they both grew out of the urge of some segments of modern societies everywhere to insist on and to make manifest what they take to be their superiority to regular people. To a French literary critic of the deconstructionist sort nothing is more damning, nothing more in need of remediation than Western hoi poloi's love of Shakespeare or Beethoven. Who are hoi poloi? They are anyone who loves Beethoven or Shakespeare.
These same grandees take the view that those of us who love our liberty and revere the principles on which America was founded are in need of re-education. For them, for Bill Ayers, and for Noam Chomsky and their ilk, no one in America who opposes the agenda of Mr. Obama and his leftist cadre can be regarded as other than an uncultured ass.
How so many supposedly reflective and informed people came to be in the throes of hatred for the country and culture that has preserved before all other things freedom of thought and expression needs to be answered. It is the one question that seems beyond the noble Mr. Sowell. The answer may simply be too small and too base. Envy of the self-respect enjoyed by productive people; resentment of their faith in life and their hope for their children's joy; fear of being found empty of the courage necessary to make life meaningful; these are the motives of the left and of the intellectuals who reason for them. We may think they are nice people, they may claim to be caring people, but they are angry and empty people bereft of kinship for anyone different from their pitiable selves.
Frank Natoli| 9.29.10 @ 6:22PM
Tone, that is a brilliant analysis. I am constantly amused at how "modern" individuals are so disdainful of their parents or grandparents who were "stupidly" religious, yet these same "modern" individuals display the same blind faith in such "science" as global warming a/k/a global climate change a/k/a global climate disruption. Talking to them about the "science" is no different than talking to my truly sainted Sicilian grandmother about the Church.
Nature abhors a vacuum. And the vacuum created by the welfare state's atheism has been promptly and predictably filled by the "intellectuals" that Sowell writes about.
Julio| 9.29.10 @ 11:33AM
Poor Mr. Rabkin! He's pitching a reasonable idea to an audience of black 'n white (in ideas and thought, ha) overgrown Boy Scouts who are likely wholly unfamiliar with, say, regulatory capture.
Folks, Mr. Sowell serves a valuable purpose through his columns, but remember that he's more of a role-player than a brilliant independent thinker.
Alas, the world has some gray patches. They're not all black and white. Be thankful, all of you, that you've never worked in a Fortune ### company the size of an aircraft carrier with entrenched fiefdoms and nothing resembling accountability.
Kent Allard| 9.29.10 @ 12:42PM
To summarize any Sowell column or book:
Liberals bad, conservatives good.
Deep thinkers bad, except for me.
It's all so simple, in a deep sort of way.
basil| 9.29.10 @ 10:36PM
C'mon Kent. You can do better than this. Reductio ad absurdum response is lazy, tedious, and best left to Liberal Intellectuals.
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 7:07AM
I don't know, basil. It sure does look like in this discussion, "intellectual" is a code for "leftist". If you take Sowell's definition, then it includes armies of conservative intellectuals in academia as much as the liberals. I know, "most faculty are liberal". That's true. The word is "most". Look at what's published by the tenured faculty at the nation's Colleges of Business and law schools: you will find many, many conservative intellectuals. They are, somehow, left out of this discussion because this discussion is not about intellectuals at all: it is about (as Kent says) liberals, as usual. Yawn.
David| 9.29.10 @ 12:51PM
"If you look at individual taxpayers, Sowell notes, those who happened to be in the bottom fifth in 1996 saw their incomes nearly double over the decade, while those who happened to be in the top fifth in 1995 saw gains of only 10 percent on average and those in the top 5 percent actually experienced decline in their incomes. "
Without actual incomes and dollar signs mentioned, this statement becomes almost plausible. HOWEVER: in 2007, the bottom 20% of American incomes was BELOW $20,000. So in 1996, if you made $10,000 a year, well then by working three jobs at minimum wage for a decade, you could almost be up to $20,000. And that looks good statistically because suddenly you're no longer living in "poverty." Doesn't change the fact that the bottom 20% is still outrageously poor, even after doubling income for a decade. Whereas if you make $1m, and your income goes up only 10% over the decade, your new income is $1.1m. Ten percent of $1 million is $100,000, which is 10 times the income gain of the bottom 20% in dollar amounts.
Percentages mean nothing when you're poor.
Vince| 9.29.10 @ 3:28PM
Did Gordon Gecko ghost write this? A bit more humility from one ( BA Econ) who boostered the people who caused the crisis would have been welcome.
rich| 9.29.10 @ 4:29PM
"there's no disputing the claim that most intellectuals...are down on 'patriotism' and 'religion' and probably even family."
really? c'mon, really?? i guess statements like these fit snugly in a rightwing worldview where all your opponents are anti-american, anti-religious, and anti-family. if rabkin and sowell and their supporters seriously subscribe to this notion, and to the notion that the statement is beyond dispute, you are more wrong-headed and have thicker blinders than the intellectuals (read progressive academics) whom you disdain.
Lincoln Hunter | 9.29.10 @ 5:55PM
There are no intellectuals who are conservative? Is Sowell saying that only liberals are intellectuals? What would Buckley, Hayek, or Russell Kirk ( to name a few) think about that?
jebron| 9.29.10 @ 6:06PM
I've served 20 years in a State Legislature; four years as a combat Marine in WWII; and 20 as an international corporate attorney. Say what you will, when a public problem needs to be solved and lives are on the line, it's better to have some brains on your side than popular rhetoric. Marginally better maybe, but better! There's no substitute for brains and no cure for stupidity.
Frank| 9.29.10 @ 6:54PM
Sowell is not damning brains. Sowell is damning people whose "work begins and ends with ideas".
Merritt Edson, RIP, held the Ridge on the Canal with brains and with guys like you. And if his ideas were [expletive] then he and his men would have all been dead. So good ideas are a good idea, but you've got to be willing to test and prove that they're good in the real world, and too many "intellectuals" don't do that.
Side point about stupidity. Walter Williams, first class pinch hitter on the Limbaugh show, often says of his role as Professor of Economics "I can cure ignorance, but only God can cure stupidity". Very true. But too many people remain willfully ignorant and that has to be the #1 problem in the USA today.
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 6:49PM
The notion of "begins and ends with ideas" is nonsensical. Does this mean all teachers? If I teach math in HS and a couple of my students (the two that are awake) go on to become engineers that design the latest in drone weaponry, did my work begin and end with ideas? How about the those who teach the Constitution? Or how about, say, Descartes? Philosophy. Equations. Or Locke: principles of government. Ideas Ideas Ideas...have I got that right? The whole premise is dumb, sorry.
basil| 9.29.10 @ 10:28PM
Mr. Rabkin misses the point about "middle managers". Middle managers are not influencing millions of University students entering adulthood; or providing "cover" for media editors and opinion makers looking for provocative headlines or "a new need that require new solutions to be written about".
As for accountability, Mr. Sowell provides many examples of Intellectuals who have made outrageous claims that have been completely discedited, but whose reputations and standing have not suffered. Did he miss this?
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 6:15AM
We needn't worry about intellectualism in the current USA. Just look at the comments. Clearly we've reached a point where just about ANY discussion of ANY topic will serve as the trigger for the spewing of the same cliches and slogans from the right. This is a well-programmed group of lab rats...
Gary R. Smith, Ed.D.| 9.30.10 @ 8:03AM
"Intellectuals tend to see what they expect to see, as Sowell's examples show -- but that's true of almost everyone." Well, that sums it up for me!
Dagwood| 9.30.10 @ 6:43PM
Yes! Including Sowell!
Elias | 9.30.10 @ 11:33AM
The whole premise of Jeremy Rabkin is self defeating. You are using your INTELLECT to debunk intellectuals. Is like using English to persuade people of the uselessness of the same language. This article is full of half truths, non sequiturs and plain bad reasoning.
Gypsy Boots| 9.30.10 @ 5:45PM
So managers in the free market are held accountable? What about CEOs who ruin or gut their companies and destroy shareholder value, yet are rewarded by multi-million dollar payouts?
chad| 9.30.10 @ 10:53PM
Sowell notes, those who happened to be in the bottom fifth in 1996 saw their incomes nearly double over the decade, while those who happened to be in the top fifth in 1995 saw gains of only 10 percent on average and those in the top 5 percent actually experienced decline in their incomes. Similar distortions
Sowell is completely wrong on this point: all he is observing is people graduating, working their way up the ladder, and then retiring. That's precisely why you DON'T track individuals, but rather compare people at the bottom of the ladder yesterday with those at the bottom today, and similarly with those in the middle or the top.
Ramesh Raghuvanshi| 9.30.10 @ 11:49PM
Intellectual are just like lawyer they can prove any thing using their intellectual . they are cl aver to manipulate untruth into truth.
Nicholas Karavatos | 10.2.10 @ 1:00AM
Sorry, but I had to soon stop reading the comments because of the name-calling. Maybe the thread became more civil further down. Perhaps someone would like to analyze from which end of the left-right spectrum the most name-calling comes from, then write an article on their ideas about that.
Alex| 10.2.10 @ 3:49PM
"As Sowell was trained as an economist, the chapter on intellectuals and the economy is, naturally, among the most illuminating. So, for example, commentators have repeatedly told us in recent years that the gap between rich and poor has been widening. It is true, if you compare the income of those in the top fifth of earners with the income of those in the bottom fifth, that the spread between them increased between 1996 and 2005. But, as Sowell points out, this frequently cited figure is not counting the same people. If you look at individual taxpayers, Sowell notes, those who happened to be in the bottom fifth in 1996 saw their incomes nearly double over the decade, while those who happened to be in the top fifth in 1995 saw gains of only 10 percent on average and those in the top 5 percent actually experienced decline in their incomes. Similar distortions are perpetrated by those bewailing "stagnation" in average household incomes -- without taking into account that households have been getting smaller, as rising wealth allows people to move out of large family homes."
It would be nice, when critiquing intellectuals, if Sowell actually knew what he was talking about. If he's going to nitpick, for instance, about earners versus taxpayers, than he better damn well include capital gains, as well (he doesn't). (http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p60-191.pdf, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www...../ie6.html, http://www.brookings.edu/views.....070111.htm).
Contrarians are bloody worthless when they don't know what they're talking about.
J| 10.2.10 @ 7:35PM
I find it interesting to see such a Gramscian argument - that the gap between intellectuals and everyone else is more a matter of whose ideas get publicized and whose do not than a matter of who thinks about what - in The American Spectator. I mean, it's true, but still.
jasemurphy | 10.5.10 @ 8:30AM
I really like the definition of intellectuals as those whose profession deals with ideas. It helps make it clear that intellectuals needn't be "good at" ideas, in the same way your waiter may be a bad waiter, or Jennifer Aniston a bad actor.
But I'd distinguish between academics and journalists. The burden on the former to accurately reflect the truth is much higher. The second job (I am a reporter by trade) is merely a job of transmission, designed to sell newspapers by making things seem grim/outlandish/frightening.
But I suspect that doctors and engineers are really dealing with ideas too. And so are physicists and chemists and entrepreneurs.
Really, what we're talking about / complaining about is those intellectuals that deal in ideas that it is too hard to test, because we only have one good laboratory, and people are using it right now. Ideas about history, particle physics, politics and economics.
I suspect that the people who work in this field are destined to find there is "no external test". This is the extreme challenge of dealing with these fields and why they are so fascinating.
Blaming the intellectual for the fact ideas can't be tested is like blaming the physicist for gravity.