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Buy the Book
A Lifetime of Sowell-Full Thought
Buy yourself and everyone you know an early Christmas present.
The
Thomas Sowell Reader
By
Thomas Sowell
(Basic Books, 449 pages,
$29.99)
As Thomas Sowell says in the preface to Reader, it’s a challenge to summarize the work of a lifetime.
True enough. Especially so when the work summarized is such a broad, intellectual triumph as that of Professor Sowell. But in a little more than 400 pages, this collection from decades of Sowell’s columns, essays, and books captures some of the best diagnoses and critiques of our post-everything time from one of our time’s clearest thinkers. Considering the season soon to be upon us, Reader would be an excellent stocking-stuffer for the conservative readers on your list.
Sowell, 81, earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968 and has contributed some important work in this discipline. The dismal science is clearer and distinctly less dismal when Sowell writes about it. He’s one of the great explicators and defenders of free-markets as the source of wealth and freedom, as against command and control economies as the sources of tyranny and poverty.
But Sowell has not limited himself to economics. After years as a professor, during some of academe’s most disruptive and downright daffy years, Sowell moved to the more contemplative atmosphere of think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980 he’s hung his hat at the Hoover Institution in California. In his writings and in his speaking engagements, Professor Sowell focuses the light of reason on controversial subjects that are almost exclusively discussed, ranted about more like, in the most irrational way — race, class, sex, crime, education, welfare, the family, et al. He’s even taken on subjects as important as baseball (like many of our most acute thinkers, Sowell knows a good deal about The Grand Old Game).
In addition to a widely read syndicated column, Sowell has written 30 books, all of them readable, some of them truly important. My favorites include A Conflict of Visions (1987), perhaps the best analysis of the differences between the liberal and conservative mind, and The Vision of the Anointed (1995), a clear but scathing indictment of the self-appointed political and culture humbugs who presume, because of their pretentions to great intellect and moral superiority, to micro-manage all our lives. Other signal titles include Intellectuals and Society (2009), Affirmative Action Around the World (2004), and The Quest for Cosmic Justice (2002).
In addition to being a clear thinker and pitiless analyzer, Sowell is an eloquent but accessible writer who lasers in on the relevant and is unafraid of saying things contrary to received wisdom by the “anointed,” a term we have Professor Sowell to thank for. His expression is also economical, sometimes tending to the aphoristic. A few examples:
On minimum wage laws: “Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount — and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.”
On environmentalists who shout NO! at everything: “The essence of bigotry is denying others the same rights you claim for yourself. Green bigots are a classic example.”
On affirmative action and other race hustles: “At the heart of the affirmative action approach is the notion that statistical disparities show discrimination. No dogma has taken a deeper hold with less evidence — or in the face of more massive evidence to the contrary.”
On objective tests that leftists and race-hustlers claim are unfair: “The tests are not unfair. Life is unfair — and the tests just measure the results. The same could be said of the charge that the tests are ‘culturally biased.’ Life is culturally biased.”
On professional whiners, indignatos, chronic demonstrators, and those who file ideological law suits: “This is the age of the complaining classes, whether they are lawyers, community activists, radical feminists, race hustlers, or other squeaking wheels looking for oil.”
On the over-educated non-contributors: “No small part of our social problems today come from miseducated degree-holders who have nothing to contribute to the wealth of the society but who are full of demands and indignation — and resentment of those who are producing.”
On the various controversies surrounding what intelligence means: “Few things are discussed as unintelligently as intelligence.”
On the laughing stock so much of academe has become and the limited life usefulness of much “advanced” education: “Too often what are called ‘educated’ people are simply people who have been sheltered from reality for years in ivy-covered buildings. Those whose whole careers have been spent in ivy-covered buildings, insulated by tenure, can remain adolescents into their golden retirement years.”
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 11.2.11 @ 7:26AM
Great quotes.
One of the smartest men in America that few would recognize.
Michael Tomlinson| 11.2.11 @ 7:36AM
One of the greatest minds in America whose seminal work on the negative impact of the welfare state on the African-American community and the nation as a whole will influence thoughtful conservatives for generations.
RT| 11.2.11 @ 8:14AM
I love reading Thomas Sowell's writings.
D. Wallace| 11.2.11 @ 8:20AM
Thomas Sowell - A true American treasure.
PJ| 11.2.11 @ 9:19AM
OMG! Thomas Sowell is 81 yrs old! Who's going to fill in his shoes when the time comes?
I don't know of anyone living who is extremely versed in many well, thought-out ideas as he is.
Chalkdust| 11.2.11 @ 2:32PM
I was struck by the same thought.
Al Adab| 11.2.11 @ 11:09AM
Dr. Sowell, whos' book will take an honored place alongside Kirk and Buckley on my shelf, should be our President. A man who understands and studies the limitations of government action is needed now more than ever.
Maddox| 11.2.11 @ 11:40AM
If only Dr. Sowell had been asked to head the advisory panel on the economy...
edward del colle| 11.2.11 @ 11:45AM
all should go th NRO for uncommon knowledge with peter robinson currently interviewing the inimitabke Dr sowell on this book. the first section begins with a past show of firing line with buckley's bio intro. and accolades of dr sowell 30 years ago. timeless, significant treasures of american conservatism.
fmm| 11.2.11 @ 11:54AM
Dr. Sowell's book "Basic Economics" has been gifted to all my proginy for their instruction in economic reality.
Anthony| 11.2.11 @ 12:17PM
Dr. Sowell is a national treasure. What a shame the left has ignored this most accomplished man for all these decades.
It's a national loss, except for those of us who don't operate in MSM land.
Ah, but Jessie Jackson (child out of wedlock with a former staffer) and Al (the felon) Sharpton, now those are black men the left want America to emulate.
Can't wait until we clean house!!!
cicero| 11.2.11 @ 1:59PM
Dr. Sowell - brilliant. I only wish that he could live and keep working until he is at least 181 years.
I have given his works to my children (post college) over the years, so that they could begin their real education.
MOS was 71331| 11.2.11 @ 2:12PM
I first became aware of Dr Sowell when I watched the 1980 PBS series "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman. Dr Sowell, in the audience, asked MF a question, and my initial reaction, probably based on my prejudice, was to expect a challenge from the left. I was surprised that Sowell's question was thoughtful and that the question and MF's answer added value to the episode.
Dr Sowell and, later, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas have disabused me of my thoughts of Negro mental inferiority, despite the counter examples of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
Butch| 11.2.11 @ 2:55PM
I'm pretty sure Sowell was Milton Friedman's direct student; that is, Friedman was Chair of Sowell's dissertation committee. That is as close as it gets.
Dan Mathewson| 11.2.11 @ 6:13PM
Not only that, Butch, but Sowell has admitted to still being a Marxist for about a year after gaining his Ph. D. Guess it took him that long after studying under Friedman to see the light.
PattyMor| 11.2.11 @ 2:25PM
Dr. Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Walter Williams, and Herman Cain are examples of excellence that is capable within the black community. It doesn't have to be the intercity plantations (public housing), drugs, dispair, dilapidated schools, and undisciplined kids.
Chalkdust| 11.2.11 @ 2:51PM
White or black, a better word-smith (maybe A. Lincoln) never drew a more manly breath.
If I were king for a day, Thomas Sowell would have his own day.
idalily| 11.2.11 @ 7:26PM
If I were king for a day, I'd appoint Thomas Sowell the President and I'd resign.
absinthe| 11.2.11 @ 3:02PM
I largely have Dr. Sowell to thank for making me a true conservative. Nothing I've read has had as much effect on my thinking as 'The Quest for Cosmic Justic,' 'A Conflict of Visions,' and 'The Vision of the Anointed.' I re-read all of them from time to time.
POST American| 11.2.11 @ 11:27PM
----AS the FUKISHIMA world depop op
goes into its 9th month of Globalist
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---to full-blown TREASON, one and all
might order the upgraded DVD of Akira Kurosawa's 1952
--------------------------'IKIRU'--------------------------
NO matter how 'calm-pro-mized' and
'COW--ardly' you are, no matter how many years
of 'bennie rectum worship' ---when you
circumscize your porn clotted eyes
---and WATCH ---you'll be missing the
genuine adventure ---of your soul.
CHECK IT OUT.
AS all around us, the GM food and
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as FUKSIHIMA fallout mixes with our
CHEM-trail knitted skies --
-------SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW-------
VonMisesJr| 11.3.11 @ 11:18AM
I am the proud owner of over two-dozen of Dr. Sowell's tomes. He is our modern Von Mises or Hayek, but writes in straight-forward and understandable style. You can read his columns at www.jewishworldreview.com.
Another newer and terrific book is "Intellectuals and Society." It explores intelligence (IQ), intellect (the ability to grasp and maipulate complex ideas) and intellectuals (who's work begins and ends with ideas). Intellectual does not refer to good or valid ideas, but simply a lack of physical output.
As Orwell so aptly cited: "Some ideas are so preposterous that only an intellectual could believe them." Dr. Sowell is not one of these intellectuals, but a brilliant and logical gift to America and the world. Obama, Hillary and their progressive friends are perfect examples of intellectuals that Orwell refers to in his famous quote. Just look at teh job market, the financial markets and the economy and it is obvious.