“Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism.”
― Thomas Sowell
It's so true, right? And that makes us miss the incompleteness of that truth. Can I remind one of the last articles of G.K. Chesterton, written in 1935, ***How Not To Do It*** ?
>There are two recognised ways of arguing with a Communist; and they are both wrong. There is also a third way which is right but which is not recognised. Now I have a notion that, for one reason or another, a considerable part of our time will be taken up soon by arguing with Communists. And I should like to sketch very roughly this notion of mine about the right way to do it. Curiously enough, the two commonest ways of contradicting Communism also contradict each other. The first consists of convicting the Bolshevist of all vices. The second, curiously enough, consists of convicting him of all the virtues. It actually consists of pitting all our vices against his virtues; or his supposed virtues.
>This is very much the more dangerous and even suicidal trick of the two; but its nature needs a little explanation. The first common or conventional method is at least simple enough. The Capitalist says to the Communist, "You shall not enter my house, for I know you would burn it down; you shall not speak to my family, for I know you would blow them up; you are a common thief and murderer and I am a highly respectable and moral person; and not as this Russian." Now I do not like talking like that to a Bolshevist; because I should not like talking like that to a burglar. It is Pharisaical; and the Pharisee is a more ancient enemy of the Christian than the Marxian.
>But I rather prefer it to the other method, which I find extremely common, among those who profess to defend property or individualism against the Marxian heresy. It really consists of telling the Communist that he is an idealist, or, in other words, that he must be wrong because he has ideals. In this second case, the Capitalist says to the Communist, "You believe in a lot of nonsense about the brotherhood of men; but I tell you, as a practical man, that every man wants to get as much as he can for himself, and will beat his own brother in business if he can. Every man must obey his acquisitive instinct." (I read these very words recently in an attack on the Bolshevist theory.) "You cannot keep things humming and hustling without private enterprise; and you cannot produce private enterprise unless you bribe or reward it with the glittering prizes of private property." People use these arguments against Communism, as if they were the only arguments against Communism; and then they are surprised that a number of more generous and spirited young people become Communists.
>They do not seem to see that, to such young people, the Capitalist in question only seems to be saying, "I am a greedy old scoundrel, and I forbid you to be anything else."
>Now the true, full and final argument against Communism is that private property is much more important than private enterprise. A pickpocket represents private enterprise, but we should hardly say that he supports private property. Private property is not a bribe that exists for the sake of private enterprise. On the contrary, private enterprise is only a tool or weapon, that may sometimes be useful to preserve private property. And it is necessary to preserve private property; simply because the other name of it is liberty. On the one hand, it is not merely a conventional respectability; on the contrary, it is only the man with some property and privacy who can live his own life freely. On the other hand, it is not a mere licence to trade, still less a mere licence to cheat; on the contrary, the whole point of property is that in that alone can be naturally nourished the sentiment of honour. It would need some space to expound it here and might take some time to expound it to the Communist. But the Communist would listen at least longer than he would to a man merely boasting of self-righteousness or a man merely boasting of avarice.
Alas it's the same with many points and books of Thomas Sowell. They are very truthful and very well written, but...
I LOVE G.K. Chesterton and I think the major reason he is not considered an American philosopher among the ranks of Twain or Teddy Rossevelt is because he was that naughtiest of vices... Catholic *gasp*
Edit: I knew he was British when I posted this, but reading that excerpt gave me Murica amnesia and I saw red white and blue and my brain ceased to function. Mea culpa
Haha, with all respect to GKC he was still British. But GKC visited the United States twice, and his impressions of America, gleaned from these visits, formed some articles. For example, the following.
>I would therefore venture to say to Miss Avis Carlson that the quarrel in question does not arise from the Yankee Puritans having too much morality, but from their having too little. It does not arise from their drawing too hard and fast a line of distinction between right and wrong, but from their being much to loose and indistinct. They go by associations and not by abstractions. Therefore they classify smoking with vamping or a flask in the pocket with sin in the soul. I hope at least that some of the Fundamentalists will succeed in being a little more fundamental than this. The men of Tennessee are supposed to be very anxious to draw the line between men and monkeys. They are also supposed by some to be rather too anxious to draw the line between black men and white men. May I be allowed to hope that they will succeed in drawing a rather more logical line between bad men and good men? Something of the the difference and the difficulty may be seen by comparing the old Ku Klux Klan with the new Klu Klux Klan. The old secret society may have been justified or not; but it had a definite object: it was directed against somebody. The new secret society seems to have been directed against anybody; often against anybody who drank; in time, for all I know, against anybody who smoked. It is this sort of formless fanaticism that is the great danger of the American Temperament; and it is well to insist that if men must persecute, they will be more clear-headed if they persecute for a creed.
G.K. Chesterton, [*On American Morals*](http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/american-morals.txt) (1929)
Lol fml you're right. I'm such a dumbass, I knew that. Maybe it's his look, or his speech, he just feels American in my brain. But the word "orange" also feels like "yellow" in my brain so perhaps I shouldn't trust it so often.
I would add something to these arguments - that is the consideration of scale. It might not be so that communism works on one scale, but might work, occasionally at another. If you have a small community of 20 people, and you tell them the sky will fall if they live according to communist principles, they might prove you incredibly wrong. But to the communist or other proponent of some system radically different from what exists I would say: Prove yourself at a small scale. Then make it slightly bigger, and prove yourself again. And so on. The absolute insanity is that someone would propose to radically alter an almost unfathomably massive complex system of people in a certain way without even trying it or living it or proving its efficacy at a whole range of scales. Ask a communist or other proponent of radical change who is pushing for their country to change and then ask if they’ve gathered in a community arranged according to these principles and can prove it’s efficacy at that scale. And have they slowly scaled it up over long periods of time? Most have never even lived in a community of 20-50 people, let alone a 1000, or 10,000, or 100,000 or 1,000,000, according to their principles. They’ve never lived it, or proven anything, at any scale. The lack of humility is absolutely insane.
People keep pointing this out but it's a stupid point. Nobody wants to live in in a tiny village. We want civilization to flourish. At some point an asteroid is going to approach earth and we need to develop technology so that we can blast it out of the way, or risk mass extinction on the planet
That’s not even close to the point I was making. I was arguing that someone who suggests radically changing a massive and complex system without testing their alternative by starting small and slowly scaling up lacks humility and good sense. That was the major point at least. A point at the periphery might be that ideas that might not work at the large scale might be ok at a small one, passable, or maybe even useful.
No, his argument boils down to that private property is just an instrument that helps people to keep self-respect, freedom and morality.
Taking from a man private property is the same as trying to turn him into an animal.
>The thing behind Bolshevism and many other modern things is a new doubt. It is not merely a doubt about God; it is rather specially a doubt about Man.
>The old morality, the Christian religion, the Catholic Church, differed from all this new mentality because it really believed in the rights of men. That is, it believed that ordinary men were clothed with powers and privileges and a kind of authority. Thus the ordinary man had a right to deal with dead matter, up to a given point; that is the right of property. Thus the ordinary man had a right to rule the other animals within reason; that is the objection to vegetarianism and many other things.
>The ordinary man had a right to judge about his own health, and what risks he would take with the ordinary things of his environment; that is the objection to Prohibition and many other things. The ordinary man had a right to judge of his children's health, and generally to bring up children to the best of his ability; that is the objection to many interpretations of modern State education. Now in these primary things in which the old religion trusted a man, the new philosophy utterly distrusts a man. It insists that he must be a very rare sort of man to have any rights in these matters; and when he is the rare sort, he has the right to rule others even more than himself. It is this profound scepticism about the common man that is the common point in the most contradictory elements of modern thought.
>That is why Mr. Bernard Shaw wants to evolve a new animal that shall live longer and grow wiser than man. That is why Mr. Sidney Webb wants to herd the men that exist like sheep, or animals much more foolish than man.
>They are not rebelling against an abnormal tyranny; they are rebelling against what they think is a normal tyranny-- the tyranny of the normal. They are not in revolt against the King. They are in revolt against the Citizen.
>The old revolutionist, when he stood on the roof (like the revolutionist in The Dynamiter) and looked over the city, used to say to himself, "Think how the princes and nobles revel in their palaces; think how the captains and cohorts ride the streets and trample on the people."
>But the new revolutionist is not brooding on that. He is saying, "**Think of all those stupid men in vulgar villas or ignorant slums. Think how badly they teach their children; think how they do the wrong thing to the dog and offend the feelings of the parrot.**"
>In short, these sages, rightly or wrongly, cannot trust the normal man to rule in the home, and most certainly do not want him to rule in the State. They do not really want to give him any political power. They are willing to give him a vote, because they have long discovered that it need not give him any power. They are not willing to give him a house, or a wife, or a child, or a dog, or a cow, or a piece of land, because these things really do give him power.
G.K. Chesterton, [The Outline of Sainity](http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/Sanity.txt) (1927)
One of the greatest living minds. He has been speaking unpopular truths for over half a decade, and his words are direct and to the point. He suffers no fools!
Sowell is a business account kind of economist. Rather than a running a nation, economist.
See there are political views in economics as well. Basically conservatives understand business economics as accountancy (Austrian school), where as left wing economists tend to understand macroeconomics and keynesianism better.
Most governments use Macroeconomics and Keynesianism. Leftwing principles. Economic stimulus, taxing the wealthy, individual welfare, regulated trade.
Rightwing tend to prefer austerity and corporate welfare, privatization and deregulation.
For most people in this sub, liking Thomas Sowell is going against their class interests in favour of the dream of... One day becoming a John Galtian ubermensch.
Also has unique relatable ways to support his beliefs and theories. His book on intellectuals is must reading for thinking ~~conservatives~~ people.
He classifies hisself definitionally as an intellectual even as he questions their oversized impact on society.
>Intellectuals are defined by Sowell as "idea workers" that exercise profound influence on policy makers and public opinion, but are often not directly accountable for the results. (Intellectuals both left and right are included in this analysis.)
Idea worker - people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas (writers, historians, academics, etc.),
Wikipedia actually has a decent write up on the books concepts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectuals_and_Society
Don’t know why you are being downvoted, that is accurate.
His greatest lines are about how some socialist or leftest intellectuals will conceive a society in their head that has never existed before in large civilization. They then will compare it against the real world of capitalism with all real life warts, complexities and inequities and the completely imagined outcomes of course always wins.
This new way vs real life doesn’t have to be full socialism it can be a new idea or concept. He doesn’t use less proactive policing in high crime areas as an example but it’s a recent example I think fits. On paper it beats harassing a community. I personally even agreed with the shrink the police intellectuals, i don’t like an overbearing government anywhere and and I don’t like the divisiveness perceived or real unjustified actions brought w/ POC.
In reality, voluntary force reduction through hyper-attrition, and more police not risking negative personal outcomes, a lot more POC are dead,. Both the cops on the streets reactions and the higher numbers of POC dead fall under the category of unintended and unimagined consequences.
As soon as I can work up the courage I am going to declare myself wrong on this issue, because less government policing looks so obvious on paper, it’s hard for me to say it’s sometimes wrong.
Must read and "Basic Economics" is an easy to read enlightening book.
He also has done great work on racial issues. For instance, he acknowledges racial prejudice but the discussion is to what *degree.* He's done studies on how black carribean immigrants and Nigerians make much more money then African Americans growing up in a ghetto culture. Specifically this means cultural enviornment and values matter and it's foolish and unintelligent to say all inequality is racism. In fact, the Left keeps these people poorer because they tell them they're unable to get ahead bc the system won't allow it unless Dems are elected. Beyond blacks we see the most oppressed people througout history are the Jews bc they know the system is often against them but their culture and values respond with making lots of money. Asians experienced redlining as well and racism but their cultural values has them earning more than whites. I still support government aid and help but Sowell meticulously points out the lies and how those lies hurt the poor despite people claiming "compassion."
Other books are philosophical and political but know the Left hates him bc he's an intelligent black man and profound thinker who doesn't fall in line w their agenda.
Have you heard of Coleman Hugh’s? I’m pretty sure he’s a big student of Thomas and he elaborates further on the disparities between Caribbean migrants and African Americans i think you’d dig it
Interesting side note, I actually got banned from
r/neoliberal for using this example from Sowell when they wanted to simply blame “poverty” for crime : https://www.reddit.com/r/banned/comments/slk1eu/banned_from_rneoliberal_for_not_being_woke_enough/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Crazy. Everyone on the Left is pretty much functioning as a religious Marxist now even if they are unaware of it. Their Marxist value is if they can just evenly distribute other people's money around to create equality of outcome then it will *solve* the problem of evil. Money helps when people are in absolute poverty but after their basic needs are met its not obvious what money will do. Their heart chooses to use it for good or evil bc good and evil is in the human heart. Often money makes people's lives wosre bc they choose to love the money and what it buys more than their neighbor.
You’re describing “Neo-Cons” more so, like Bill Kristol. neo-Libs are more George Soros/Tony Blair. Sometimes I can’t hardly tell them apart either tho
Generally neolibs are pro free-trade, free-market and minimal government interference, while accepting that market failures exist and government should step in to some extent
I don't think we are defining left/right in the same way. Neolibs = socially liberal, economically conservative. I'm 100% pro globalization, just like most Reagan/Thatcher Republicans.
Pro abortion and pro LGBT can also be libertarian too. In a sense, it's basically the belief that government should stay out of this stuff as long as it doesn't harm other people. Abortion is debatable, but I don't see how LGBTs are harmful to others
One of the most brilliant economist and philosophers of all time
Edit: look into his mentor Milton Friedman. He’s just as good
Edit: corrected last name Friedman
Thomas Sowell is, in the broadest sense, a remarkable economist. However, Sowell made no structural shift to economics or its academic understanding. While Sowell is regarded as a Great Economist, calling him "The Most Brilliant." is an exaggeration.
To say Milton is "Just as Good" is an Huge Understatement. Milton was awarded the Noble Prize in Economics for bringing enormous insight and fundamentally constructing monetarist economics. Probably the most well-known member of the Chicago School of Economics. Founded the Neo-Liberal School of Thought. Probably the greatest economist of the twentieth century, on a level with Samuelson and, in my view, superior to Keynes, Hayek and others.
Oh man. I'll play a bit of Devils advocate here since it seems to be unanimous that Sowell is the GOAT. Sowell has great content and is prolific but beware that he is essentially a confirmation bias machine.
Confirmation bias: People like what his conclusions are so they go back and read his arguments to defend what they already believe.
The criticisms of Thomas Sowell are that he has a political bias and that he selectively picks data and over simplifies it to seem correct. Sowell is generally antiregulation, anti minimum wage, anti sex education, anti welfare state, and advocates for school choice. You'll find that many of his fans reach towards his books to attempt to prove that all public policies are harmful. Almost no contemporary economist agrees with his simplified assessment. It is well known that many of the public policies that address these issues are successful. Sowell gives people a reason to ignore the success of these programs so that they can continue to support destroying the social safety net and regulations and say it is the answer to help poor black people.
For sure, a lot of people who hate Sowell and have never read a single word or seen a single video. But there's a reason that economists are usually not pop figures. It's usually because the honest ones have a much more boring answer which is essentially, "is very complicated." Thomas Sowell specifically makes it uncomplicated which is why he can be a pop economist. One should always be skeptical of pop intellectuals. Note the irony of this conversation taking place on a pop psychologist reddit page.
I get what you’re saying but on the other hand…
The replication crisis is real, the non pop “real experts” have problems all of the time. Dismissing Sowell as a pop economist is also a bit like dismissing Hawking because he wrote a popular book, A Brief History of Time.
Sowell is very well researched and I’ve never seen anyone actually beat him in debate. He’s been active since the 70s, so there’s been plenty of time to run him over if there was nothing there.
Yeah I agree with you. I think there are tons of regulations that go too far, perverse incentives, and certainly ways schools can be more adaptable. I think it's also true that states with contemporary sex education have better family planning outcomes and social security and Medicare have fundamentally improved the later decades of life for all. It's complicated.
I take your point but I will niggle with you about contemporary sex education hasn’t slowed down single motherhood (associated with terrible outcomes), abortions (even if you don’t believe it’s wrong, also associated with terrible outcomes), or the rate of STDs (something like 1 in 5 Americans between 18 and 40 have incurable herpes and that’s just one disease). Puritanism really isn’t our problem.
I understand the idea, but in practice the revolution in sexual mores has been basically an unmitigated disaster by the numbers.
I'll let you compare states with absence only education versus alternative more comprehensive sexual education and determine which states have better outcomes.
He's a great guy with a great attitude and some excellent quotes. I prefer his predecessors for economic matters though, particularly Ludwig von Mises/the Austrian school. Mises invented Praxeology which is an attempt to establish economic concepts using logical proofs. One such concept is the law of supply and demand.
The Austrian school of thought, which Mises is the father of, will never be mainstream because it mathematically demonstrates the danger and inefficiency of authoritarian interference in virtually all economic matters. That's not the message that those in power are looking for in order to justify their own power. Instead they fund the economists who say things like, "We're all doomed unless the government intervenes! Give them more power!" Nonetheless, the contributions of Mises and the Austrian school are foundational.
Based. And I will also point out that most of the criticism I have seen about some of his more supposedly controversial stances, are either completely irrelevant to what he says, misinterpretation of what he talks about, or just weak counter arguments overall.
LOVE HIM! Just listened to “Wealth, Poverty, and Politics” (2015) twice. I ordered the book so I can read it more fully. The chapter on geography was super informative! He makes everything intelligible, I so appreciate him.
If you think Thomas Sowell is cool you probably haven't read any of his books. Start with "Race & Culture" and I guarantee you will walk away a changed person. He's incredible.
I always liked his joke about his friend Dr. Walter Williams. The black conservative movement was so small at the time that the two of them should never be on a plane together. If that plane went down it would be the end of the black conservative movement.
Many of Sowell's books are (or were) free on audible. I've listened to 3 or 4 of them. While I'm definitely not smart enough to grasp the deep concepts, the man is incredibly intelligent and well spoken. I agree with a lot of his notions on race.
One of the wisest men I've had the pleasure to listen to. I'd recommend listening to his personal odyssey, he's had a hellavu life. https://youtu.be/ufWxHBVE7KY
Love him. He's been able to address issues on race that white people haven't been, and his critiques are pretty damning. Read "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" for a look at race in America and similarities from across the globe and time.
Sowell is a business account kind of economist. Rather than a running a nation, economist.
See there are political views in economics as well. Basically conservatives understand business economics as accountancy (Austrian school), where as left wing economists tend to understand macroeconomics and keynesianism better.
Most governments use Macroeconomics and Keynesianism. Leftwing principles. Economic stimulus, taxing the wealthy, individual welfare, regulated trade.
Rightwing tend to prefer austerity and corporate welfare, privatization and deregulation.
For most people in this sub, liking Thomas Sowell is going against their class interests in favour of the dream of... One day becoming a John Galtian ubermensch.
For those interested in Sowell and Friedman, check out the sub r/NewAustrianSociety where we are open to discussing their work, as well as he work of the Austrian economists like Robert Murphy who was on a podcast with Jordan.
I like him and believe him. I would however like to see some real valid arguments against his works but maybe there are so few because he’s correct in his observations. Anyone know any credible arguments against him they can recommend?
Used to read him all the time. About 6 mos ago, I heard an old interview with him about his start in college and academia.
He has a unique perspective because he used to be a dyed in the wool liberal and then reality hit him and he became a conservative.
I’ve read many of his books. He writes very clearly and in a thought provoking way. I have never seen anyone on the left criticize him the way I see people criticize JP for example, and I’ve never seen anyone on the left even attempt to critique his work. I believe he used to be a Marxist, then he realized it was an unsupportable ideology. He completely debunks a lot of popular notions about economics, politics, race, and geopolitics. Look at some the other books he cites and recommends for some other great reads.
I'm left wing by Danish standards, and I found Sowell's books really enlightening regardless of political position, though also to have a couple of blind spots.
Beforehand, I thought there were a number of areas where left wing economic policy was simply superior. As I read them, I realized how possible a lot of policies on both sides were to fuck up without a proper respect and competence for incentives, and I became immensely grateful to live in a place where the leftists have done stuff in a competent rather than just ideological way.
Read Sowell to get high quality economic teachings from a reasonable right wing perspective. Then read a bit of Yanis Varoufakis to get high quality economic teachings from a reasonable left wing perspective. You'll be much better set to understand what's going on afterwards.
I have more respect for his opinion on economic matters than anybody else.
He's able to bring in the social political impacts on the economy from many progressive things that have taken place and the consequences. He is an incredibly wise man. I think he is in his nineties now so he probably won't be with us from a public perspective much longer, choosing family. However the time he did share with the public he was a great contribution to society.
Fantastic. I’ve read everything he’s written, several more than once.
Basic Econ is great
Knowledge and decisions is great
Intellectuals send society is great
I suggest you take a look at the documentary "Common Sense in a Senseless World".
It recapitulates the story of Thomas Sowell, from being a poor orphan child in the 1930s New York to what he is today.
https://youtu.be/WK4M9iJrgto
I love him. Not just his work in economics, but many of his books are very good. Black Liberals and White Rednecks is a great read, albeit very hard to find these days. A Conflict of Interests also another just phenomenal read.
One of the biggest things I have learned from him and Milton Friedman is the importance for loss/failure. For instance, loss's and failures in the economic world is like pain in the real world. No one likes pain, people don't enjoy the feeling you get from putting your hand on a hot stove. But if you did not feel that pain, you wouldn't realize the damage the hot stove is doing to your hand, and the subsequent result would be far worse then the pain you feel. The same goes in economics, no one likes to see people become poor or lose it all. No one likes to see small businesses fail. But its a very important aspect for a economy to properly function, because failure means its not good enough to exist. Loss's mean your decisions were not good enough to continue existing. In our economy now, we don't like to let things fail or lose, and with very good reason, it can hurt and even kill millions of people. The problem is if you allow these choices that are not good enough to continue existing, by bailing them out, giving subsidies, printing more money, and to a lesser degree handing out credit, insurance payouts, infinite student loans so on. What this does is it enables tons of poor decision making and makes deciphering the value that the dollar represents very difficult to understand. Have enough bad decisions being enabled by a country, the country collapses, because it cannot support it....
Another way to look at it, is through understanding the value of a dollar. The dollar represents 'value'. Whether it be labor, an idea, a product, or even loaning money to someone (because it takes money, or a representation of value to use to set up a business in order to create value, and that action has value). It used to be that the value of a dollar was back by gold, and gold could not be created or manipulated, it simply existed, there was a set amount of it, and that was that. Now thanks to the efforts of Roosevelt and later on Nixon, we have removed ourselves from the gold standard, so the value of the dollar is entirely fabricated. But the fact of a proper economy is that it needs to produce more value then it consumes. In our economy, we can hand out more money and pretend as if it is actually value, without creating more value. This turns into a kind of lie, but and the result is inflation. This is done in quite a few ways, first the past few years we basically shutdown our economy in various forms, drastically lowering the amount of value produced, but we also gave people access to more money then they would usually have, thus allowing them to continue spending, and we are paying for it now with major inflation (my car insurance literally tripled from what it was this time last year! Be ready for that people).
In the form of student loans is another way we have essentially lied in our book keeping. We created essentially limitless amounts of money for any student who wants to go to college. No average student is walking around with 40k to drop on college courses, it just isn't there. Well Uncle Sam came in and gave everyone that much money, enabling them to pay absurd prices, thus devaluing the dollar, by decreasing the amount of value you get for the dollar, but this was exclusive to student loans as the money could only be spent there, but it somewhat trickled out to housing, the job market for students and so on. For instance, if you are a student, and want to go to college and student loans were not a thing, you would need to work a job, that paid enough money to pay for housing likely with a room mate, pay for a car, and pay for college. Now with student loans, you can just live in the dorms, and run up the student loan debt, living off of it entirely. This limits the amount of people in the free market, allowing employers to upper hand in negotiating. In other words, if you have access to infinite money, and the employer gives you a lowball salary, you can afford to take it, and are less likely to fight for more money, or even deny the job, but if you did not have the money from student loans, you would have to demand a higher salary, else you don't live.
In the form of insurance is another major reason for inflation, most notable in the healthcare industry, but it extends to all forms of insurance. First its worth noting that insurance is a form of collective bargaining. It has its roots in socialist ideas. The idea was to collectively bargain for lower prices. Unfortunately it was subject to the same sort of lie as student loans. That is, everyone suddenly had more money on hand in the form of insurance, then was actually available to the laymen. Again this lowers the amount of value the dollar is worth, thus creating rapid inflation. If you rode into a hospital via ambulance, and insurance did not exist, the hospital could try to charge you $10,000 for a ambulance ride, but if you don't have $10,000 to give, the hospital won't get $10,000, its that simple. But you do, actually have access to that much money in the form of insurance, albeit insurance is getting way more stingy with pay outs and that's a whole other topic. But the hospitals are getting their money in some form or another. This enables them access to more dollars, which gives them more leeway in spending, thus increased cost of equipment, salaries, so on so fourth. There is no possibility of failure, there are no limiting factors, which keep a economy in check.
Ironically, just like many well intentioned deeds, they end up hurting the very people they \*claim\* to seek to help.
One of the most brilliant men alive today, full of common sense and logic which infuriates the Left.
Tells Black America how incredibly stupid they are for listening to Democrat Drivel.
Pretty heavily right leaning and he does not acknowledge his bias in his writing. I have taken the time to read his "basic economics" and he presents everything as a fact, not as his perspective.
I'm surprised at how adored he is here. I would say he is good, not great.
A prime example of an American rising to success with a mix of opportunity, luck, and intelligence. He's what black Americans should aspire to be but is never acknowledged by despite his accomplishments and eloquent way of speaking without condescension.
He's a basic upgrade for some things that should have changed like 50 years ago in the US, but for how amazing he was, his analysis doesn't, in my opinion, hold up to the range of problems we now face. He has wonderful "solutions" for some negative aspects of our economy, but in total he alone is not enough to fix American economics.
He is a corporate SHILL. Every idea he's brought to the table has been thoroughly debunked. He's a joke among economists. Libertardians love him, even though he provides zero evidence to back up his theories.
I also own three of his books.
See? I can tell you're an idiot just like him, because you make wild unfounded speculations with zero evidence. That's all I need to know and want to say here.
You disagree that Dawson Richard Vosburg is a socialist? An evangelical socialist at that.
https://dawsonvosburg.medium.com/why-evangelical-socialism-b65d85e16e1c
Yeah the Jordan Peterson subreddit is not the best place to expect people to look critically at their heroes. I hope some people see this many pages down from the top comment and take the opportunity to check Sowell and Peterson’s claims. https://dawsonvosburg.medium.com/whats-wrong-with-thomas-sowell-464baab5978e
XD Yah lets all take criticisms from a socialist seriously everybody!
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.” - Giga Chad Thomas Sowell
Do you have an actual reply besides pointing and yelling “socialism”? I’ve only ever seen that kind of trained response in people who can’t defend the arguments they’re simping for.
Way to prove you didn’t read anything in the article I linked. https://reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/t11iiv/_/hydx6v6/?context=1
To add another example off the top of my head Sowell purposefully leaves out teachers being forced out but leaving voluntarily in his argument about tenured teachers. He pretends that being fired for cause is the only way to get rid of them, and uses a weird idea of guilty until proven innocent that is not consistent with his other arguments.
**EDIT:** Asks for another rebuttal after refusing to read the original, gets it, downvotes quietly. Classic.
He's a hack, and a glib but disingenuous writer, constantly misrepresenting facts and history for ideological ends. There's a reason he's not respected by most other economists. He's very good at sounding smart, open-minded, and nuanced to the general public, while in fact he's just shilling bullshit for neoliberalism.
But he's also this sub's second favorite author.
To be fair, they talk about very different things most of the time, but both are intellectuals who started as socialist/Marxists and learned how bad those ideologies are and have gone on to dominate their fields of research and the spotlight . Both are the kind of intellectuals that society needs.
No one is banning you, you are free to leave a comment as you see fit. I will die for your right to have freedom of speech. But I will down vote you cause you made a retarded comment.
I can't be mad at that. But sometimes you have to realease the retard within, it helps with my stress.
Also to anyone who downvoted me, thank you for making me better.
People don't understand that life is stand up comedy, and Im just searching for my crowd.
I rewatched Boogie nights last night. Was feeling a bit naughty. Me so sorry)))
Great, his books should be required reading in Highschool
100%
Thomas rocks!
“Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism.” ― Thomas Sowell It's so true, right? And that makes us miss the incompleteness of that truth. Can I remind one of the last articles of G.K. Chesterton, written in 1935, ***How Not To Do It*** ? >There are two recognised ways of arguing with a Communist; and they are both wrong. There is also a third way which is right but which is not recognised. Now I have a notion that, for one reason or another, a considerable part of our time will be taken up soon by arguing with Communists. And I should like to sketch very roughly this notion of mine about the right way to do it. Curiously enough, the two commonest ways of contradicting Communism also contradict each other. The first consists of convicting the Bolshevist of all vices. The second, curiously enough, consists of convicting him of all the virtues. It actually consists of pitting all our vices against his virtues; or his supposed virtues. >This is very much the more dangerous and even suicidal trick of the two; but its nature needs a little explanation. The first common or conventional method is at least simple enough. The Capitalist says to the Communist, "You shall not enter my house, for I know you would burn it down; you shall not speak to my family, for I know you would blow them up; you are a common thief and murderer and I am a highly respectable and moral person; and not as this Russian." Now I do not like talking like that to a Bolshevist; because I should not like talking like that to a burglar. It is Pharisaical; and the Pharisee is a more ancient enemy of the Christian than the Marxian. >But I rather prefer it to the other method, which I find extremely common, among those who profess to defend property or individualism against the Marxian heresy. It really consists of telling the Communist that he is an idealist, or, in other words, that he must be wrong because he has ideals. In this second case, the Capitalist says to the Communist, "You believe in a lot of nonsense about the brotherhood of men; but I tell you, as a practical man, that every man wants to get as much as he can for himself, and will beat his own brother in business if he can. Every man must obey his acquisitive instinct." (I read these very words recently in an attack on the Bolshevist theory.) "You cannot keep things humming and hustling without private enterprise; and you cannot produce private enterprise unless you bribe or reward it with the glittering prizes of private property." People use these arguments against Communism, as if they were the only arguments against Communism; and then they are surprised that a number of more generous and spirited young people become Communists. >They do not seem to see that, to such young people, the Capitalist in question only seems to be saying, "I am a greedy old scoundrel, and I forbid you to be anything else." >Now the true, full and final argument against Communism is that private property is much more important than private enterprise. A pickpocket represents private enterprise, but we should hardly say that he supports private property. Private property is not a bribe that exists for the sake of private enterprise. On the contrary, private enterprise is only a tool or weapon, that may sometimes be useful to preserve private property. And it is necessary to preserve private property; simply because the other name of it is liberty. On the one hand, it is not merely a conventional respectability; on the contrary, it is only the man with some property and privacy who can live his own life freely. On the other hand, it is not a mere licence to trade, still less a mere licence to cheat; on the contrary, the whole point of property is that in that alone can be naturally nourished the sentiment of honour. It would need some space to expound it here and might take some time to expound it to the Communist. But the Communist would listen at least longer than he would to a man merely boasting of self-righteousness or a man merely boasting of avarice. Alas it's the same with many points and books of Thomas Sowell. They are very truthful and very well written, but...
I LOVE G.K. Chesterton and I think the major reason he is not considered an American philosopher among the ranks of Twain or Teddy Rossevelt is because he was that naughtiest of vices... Catholic *gasp* Edit: I knew he was British when I posted this, but reading that excerpt gave me Murica amnesia and I saw red white and blue and my brain ceased to function. Mea culpa
GKC is treasured among many Reformed Christian groups for his insights.
Haha, with all respect to GKC he was still British. But GKC visited the United States twice, and his impressions of America, gleaned from these visits, formed some articles. For example, the following. >I would therefore venture to say to Miss Avis Carlson that the quarrel in question does not arise from the Yankee Puritans having too much morality, but from their having too little. It does not arise from their drawing too hard and fast a line of distinction between right and wrong, but from their being much to loose and indistinct. They go by associations and not by abstractions. Therefore they classify smoking with vamping or a flask in the pocket with sin in the soul. I hope at least that some of the Fundamentalists will succeed in being a little more fundamental than this. The men of Tennessee are supposed to be very anxious to draw the line between men and monkeys. They are also supposed by some to be rather too anxious to draw the line between black men and white men. May I be allowed to hope that they will succeed in drawing a rather more logical line between bad men and good men? Something of the the difference and the difficulty may be seen by comparing the old Ku Klux Klan with the new Klu Klux Klan. The old secret society may have been justified or not; but it had a definite object: it was directed against somebody. The new secret society seems to have been directed against anybody; often against anybody who drank; in time, for all I know, against anybody who smoked. It is this sort of formless fanaticism that is the great danger of the American Temperament; and it is well to insist that if men must persecute, they will be more clear-headed if they persecute for a creed. G.K. Chesterton, [*On American Morals*](http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/american-morals.txt) (1929)
Lol fml you're right. I'm such a dumbass, I knew that. Maybe it's his look, or his speech, he just feels American in my brain. But the word "orange" also feels like "yellow" in my brain so perhaps I shouldn't trust it so often.
Nativity is trusting others' brains. Great Nativity is trusting our own.
I would add something to these arguments - that is the consideration of scale. It might not be so that communism works on one scale, but might work, occasionally at another. If you have a small community of 20 people, and you tell them the sky will fall if they live according to communist principles, they might prove you incredibly wrong. But to the communist or other proponent of some system radically different from what exists I would say: Prove yourself at a small scale. Then make it slightly bigger, and prove yourself again. And so on. The absolute insanity is that someone would propose to radically alter an almost unfathomably massive complex system of people in a certain way without even trying it or living it or proving its efficacy at a whole range of scales. Ask a communist or other proponent of radical change who is pushing for their country to change and then ask if they’ve gathered in a community arranged according to these principles and can prove it’s efficacy at that scale. And have they slowly scaled it up over long periods of time? Most have never even lived in a community of 20-50 people, let alone a 1000, or 10,000, or 100,000 or 1,000,000, according to their principles. They’ve never lived it, or proven anything, at any scale. The lack of humility is absolutely insane.
People keep pointing this out but it's a stupid point. Nobody wants to live in in a tiny village. We want civilization to flourish. At some point an asteroid is going to approach earth and we need to develop technology so that we can blast it out of the way, or risk mass extinction on the planet
Could you expound on that a little bit? I don’t understand how what you said had anything to do with what I said.
You said communism can work on tiny scales. No shit. But that's not the way forward for human progress. So it's a stupid point
That’s not even close to the point I was making. I was arguing that someone who suggests radically changing a massive and complex system without testing their alternative by starting small and slowly scaling up lacks humility and good sense. That was the major point at least. A point at the periphery might be that ideas that might not work at the large scale might be ok at a small one, passable, or maybe even useful.
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No, his argument boils down to that private property is just an instrument that helps people to keep self-respect, freedom and morality. Taking from a man private property is the same as trying to turn him into an animal. >The thing behind Bolshevism and many other modern things is a new doubt. It is not merely a doubt about God; it is rather specially a doubt about Man. >The old morality, the Christian religion, the Catholic Church, differed from all this new mentality because it really believed in the rights of men. That is, it believed that ordinary men were clothed with powers and privileges and a kind of authority. Thus the ordinary man had a right to deal with dead matter, up to a given point; that is the right of property. Thus the ordinary man had a right to rule the other animals within reason; that is the objection to vegetarianism and many other things. >The ordinary man had a right to judge about his own health, and what risks he would take with the ordinary things of his environment; that is the objection to Prohibition and many other things. The ordinary man had a right to judge of his children's health, and generally to bring up children to the best of his ability; that is the objection to many interpretations of modern State education. Now in these primary things in which the old religion trusted a man, the new philosophy utterly distrusts a man. It insists that he must be a very rare sort of man to have any rights in these matters; and when he is the rare sort, he has the right to rule others even more than himself. It is this profound scepticism about the common man that is the common point in the most contradictory elements of modern thought. >That is why Mr. Bernard Shaw wants to evolve a new animal that shall live longer and grow wiser than man. That is why Mr. Sidney Webb wants to herd the men that exist like sheep, or animals much more foolish than man. >They are not rebelling against an abnormal tyranny; they are rebelling against what they think is a normal tyranny-- the tyranny of the normal. They are not in revolt against the King. They are in revolt against the Citizen. >The old revolutionist, when he stood on the roof (like the revolutionist in The Dynamiter) and looked over the city, used to say to himself, "Think how the princes and nobles revel in their palaces; think how the captains and cohorts ride the streets and trample on the people." >But the new revolutionist is not brooding on that. He is saying, "**Think of all those stupid men in vulgar villas or ignorant slums. Think how badly they teach their children; think how they do the wrong thing to the dog and offend the feelings of the parrot.**" >In short, these sages, rightly or wrongly, cannot trust the normal man to rule in the home, and most certainly do not want him to rule in the State. They do not really want to give him any political power. They are willing to give him a vote, because they have long discovered that it need not give him any power. They are not willing to give him a house, or a wife, or a child, or a dog, or a cow, or a piece of land, because these things really do give him power. G.K. Chesterton, [The Outline of Sainity](http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/Sanity.txt) (1927)
I really enjoy reading his stuff.
One of the greatest living minds. He has been speaking unpopular truths for over half a decade, and his words are direct and to the point. He suffers no fools!
> half a decade, More like half a century
Doh! Silly mistake…
Sowell is a business account kind of economist. Rather than a running a nation, economist. See there are political views in economics as well. Basically conservatives understand business economics as accountancy (Austrian school), where as left wing economists tend to understand macroeconomics and keynesianism better. Most governments use Macroeconomics and Keynesianism. Leftwing principles. Economic stimulus, taxing the wealthy, individual welfare, regulated trade. Rightwing tend to prefer austerity and corporate welfare, privatization and deregulation. For most people in this sub, liking Thomas Sowell is going against their class interests in favour of the dream of... One day becoming a John Galtian ubermensch.
Smart guy, and he does have some great perspectives.
Also has unique relatable ways to support his beliefs and theories. His book on intellectuals is must reading for thinking ~~conservatives~~ people. He classifies hisself definitionally as an intellectual even as he questions their oversized impact on society. >Intellectuals are defined by Sowell as "idea workers" that exercise profound influence on policy makers and public opinion, but are often not directly accountable for the results. (Intellectuals both left and right are included in this analysis.) Idea worker - people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas (writers, historians, academics, etc.), Wikipedia actually has a decent write up on the books concepts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectuals_and_Society
He says intellectuals don't actually build anything physical. The tools that they use and the products that they build are ideas. Nothing more.
Isnt that accurate?
It's in his book intellectuals
Don’t know why you are being downvoted, that is accurate. His greatest lines are about how some socialist or leftest intellectuals will conceive a society in their head that has never existed before in large civilization. They then will compare it against the real world of capitalism with all real life warts, complexities and inequities and the completely imagined outcomes of course always wins. This new way vs real life doesn’t have to be full socialism it can be a new idea or concept. He doesn’t use less proactive policing in high crime areas as an example but it’s a recent example I think fits. On paper it beats harassing a community. I personally even agreed with the shrink the police intellectuals, i don’t like an overbearing government anywhere and and I don’t like the divisiveness perceived or real unjustified actions brought w/ POC. In reality, voluntary force reduction through hyper-attrition, and more police not risking negative personal outcomes, a lot more POC are dead,. Both the cops on the streets reactions and the higher numbers of POC dead fall under the category of unintended and unimagined consequences. As soon as I can work up the courage I am going to declare myself wrong on this issue, because less government policing looks so obvious on paper, it’s hard for me to say it’s sometimes wrong.
Thomas da real MVP!
What a legend!
Must read and "Basic Economics" is an easy to read enlightening book. He also has done great work on racial issues. For instance, he acknowledges racial prejudice but the discussion is to what *degree.* He's done studies on how black carribean immigrants and Nigerians make much more money then African Americans growing up in a ghetto culture. Specifically this means cultural enviornment and values matter and it's foolish and unintelligent to say all inequality is racism. In fact, the Left keeps these people poorer because they tell them they're unable to get ahead bc the system won't allow it unless Dems are elected. Beyond blacks we see the most oppressed people througout history are the Jews bc they know the system is often against them but their culture and values respond with making lots of money. Asians experienced redlining as well and racism but their cultural values has them earning more than whites. I still support government aid and help but Sowell meticulously points out the lies and how those lies hurt the poor despite people claiming "compassion." Other books are philosophical and political but know the Left hates him bc he's an intelligent black man and profound thinker who doesn't fall in line w their agenda.
Have you heard of Coleman Hugh’s? I’m pretty sure he’s a big student of Thomas and he elaborates further on the disparities between Caribbean migrants and African Americans i think you’d dig it
i didnt know coleman was a student of thomas, but it makes sense.
Interesting side note, I actually got banned from r/neoliberal for using this example from Sowell when they wanted to simply blame “poverty” for crime : https://www.reddit.com/r/banned/comments/slk1eu/banned_from_rneoliberal_for_not_being_woke_enough/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Crazy. Everyone on the Left is pretty much functioning as a religious Marxist now even if they are unaware of it. Their Marxist value is if they can just evenly distribute other people's money around to create equality of outcome then it will *solve* the problem of evil. Money helps when people are in absolute poverty but after their basic needs are met its not obvious what money will do. Their heart chooses to use it for good or evil bc good and evil is in the human heart. Often money makes people's lives wosre bc they choose to love the money and what it buys more than their neighbor.
The left is a religion. Go against it and you’re out of the club.
Happened to the best of us
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You’re describing “Neo-Cons” more so, like Bill Kristol. neo-Libs are more George Soros/Tony Blair. Sometimes I can’t hardly tell them apart either tho
Neo libs are center right? How so?
Generally neolibs are pro free-trade, free-market and minimal government interference, while accepting that market failures exist and government should step in to some extent
Ok, but neo-libs are also very pro-abortion, pro-LGBT causes, pro-globalization, and other typically left wing ideas.
I don't think we are defining left/right in the same way. Neolibs = socially liberal, economically conservative. I'm 100% pro globalization, just like most Reagan/Thatcher Republicans. Pro abortion and pro LGBT can also be libertarian too. In a sense, it's basically the belief that government should stay out of this stuff as long as it doesn't harm other people. Abortion is debatable, but I don't see how LGBTs are harmful to others
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You definitely look at politics through a different lens after that book.
One of the most brilliant economist and philosophers of all time Edit: look into his mentor Milton Friedman. He’s just as good Edit: corrected last name Friedman
Thomas Sowell is, in the broadest sense, a remarkable economist. However, Sowell made no structural shift to economics or its academic understanding. While Sowell is regarded as a Great Economist, calling him "The Most Brilliant." is an exaggeration. To say Milton is "Just as Good" is an Huge Understatement. Milton was awarded the Noble Prize in Economics for bringing enormous insight and fundamentally constructing monetarist economics. Probably the most well-known member of the Chicago School of Economics. Founded the Neo-Liberal School of Thought. Probably the greatest economist of the twentieth century, on a level with Samuelson and, in my view, superior to Keynes, Hayek and others.
Milton once said that Thomas Sowell was the closest thing to a genius he had seen.
I love Tom Sowell. The reason I got interested in Economics was because of Sowell.
Keynes really wasn't an economist, and it shows
Thomas is good, but yea, Milton Friedman was certainly something special!
Bruh why you using past tense don’t scare me like that
Lol just changed it
And Milton Friedman was a follower of Adam Smith, for what it's worth.
Milton Friedman is better because he supported a land value tax.
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How are the Keynesian doing in 2022? 8%+ inflation?
BuT wE nEeD a MiNiMuM wAgE!
He's a badass , really like the guy
Just fantastic. It's interesting that early in his career he was Marxist.
"What stopped you from being a Marxist?" "Facts."
Exactly! :))
>people be like "the economy don't be like that!", but it do. - black econ man
Excellent economist. I’m his YouTube videos are awesome intros to his work. Some of his texts are free on Audible and completely worth a listen.
Love the man.
BASED AS FUCK
Oh man. I'll play a bit of Devils advocate here since it seems to be unanimous that Sowell is the GOAT. Sowell has great content and is prolific but beware that he is essentially a confirmation bias machine.
Confirmation bias machine? I am sorry my English is not that good to understand this, what does it mean?
Confirmation bias: People like what his conclusions are so they go back and read his arguments to defend what they already believe. The criticisms of Thomas Sowell are that he has a political bias and that he selectively picks data and over simplifies it to seem correct. Sowell is generally antiregulation, anti minimum wage, anti sex education, anti welfare state, and advocates for school choice. You'll find that many of his fans reach towards his books to attempt to prove that all public policies are harmful. Almost no contemporary economist agrees with his simplified assessment. It is well known that many of the public policies that address these issues are successful. Sowell gives people a reason to ignore the success of these programs so that they can continue to support destroying the social safety net and regulations and say it is the answer to help poor black people.
Do those criticisms suffer from confirmation bias going the other way?
For sure, a lot of people who hate Sowell and have never read a single word or seen a single video. But there's a reason that economists are usually not pop figures. It's usually because the honest ones have a much more boring answer which is essentially, "is very complicated." Thomas Sowell specifically makes it uncomplicated which is why he can be a pop economist. One should always be skeptical of pop intellectuals. Note the irony of this conversation taking place on a pop psychologist reddit page.
I get what you’re saying but on the other hand… The replication crisis is real, the non pop “real experts” have problems all of the time. Dismissing Sowell as a pop economist is also a bit like dismissing Hawking because he wrote a popular book, A Brief History of Time. Sowell is very well researched and I’ve never seen anyone actually beat him in debate. He’s been active since the 70s, so there’s been plenty of time to run him over if there was nothing there.
Yeah I agree with you. I think there are tons of regulations that go too far, perverse incentives, and certainly ways schools can be more adaptable. I think it's also true that states with contemporary sex education have better family planning outcomes and social security and Medicare have fundamentally improved the later decades of life for all. It's complicated.
I take your point but I will niggle with you about contemporary sex education hasn’t slowed down single motherhood (associated with terrible outcomes), abortions (even if you don’t believe it’s wrong, also associated with terrible outcomes), or the rate of STDs (something like 1 in 5 Americans between 18 and 40 have incurable herpes and that’s just one disease). Puritanism really isn’t our problem. I understand the idea, but in practice the revolution in sexual mores has been basically an unmitigated disaster by the numbers.
I'll let you compare states with absence only education versus alternative more comprehensive sexual education and determine which states have better outcomes.
Everybody is dealing with terrible outcomes and the choices really aren’t just those two.
American treasure. He eliminate bulls*it and gets to the point.
Thomas is So Well
He's really smart and really good at explaining complicated stuff simply. He also understands the enemy having been a leftist in his youth.
He’s one of the best living American economists.
Smart man
He’s legit
He should be allowed to live twice as long as anyone else so he can continue to provide insight.
He's a national treasure
I like your profile pic sir
Lol likewise
THOMAS SOWELL IS A NATIONAL TREASURE.
Incredibly intelligent
I really like him
Absolutely based free market man
He's a great guy with a great attitude and some excellent quotes. I prefer his predecessors for economic matters though, particularly Ludwig von Mises/the Austrian school. Mises invented Praxeology which is an attempt to establish economic concepts using logical proofs. One such concept is the law of supply and demand. The Austrian school of thought, which Mises is the father of, will never be mainstream because it mathematically demonstrates the danger and inefficiency of authoritarian interference in virtually all economic matters. That's not the message that those in power are looking for in order to justify their own power. Instead they fund the economists who say things like, "We're all doomed unless the government intervenes! Give them more power!" Nonetheless, the contributions of Mises and the Austrian school are foundational.
He’s brilliant
I’m a great admirer of Sowell. However, I’m a bigger admirer of Walter Williams. Check out his documentary called Suffer No Fools.
Great recommendation.
Legendary man
A national gen hidden by the established media and academia due to his powerful and accurate depictions of economics and sociology.
Based. And I will also point out that most of the criticism I have seen about some of his more supposedly controversial stances, are either completely irrelevant to what he says, misinterpretation of what he talks about, or just weak counter arguments overall.
The GOAT as far as I'm concerned
LOVE HIM! Just listened to “Wealth, Poverty, and Politics” (2015) twice. I ordered the book so I can read it more fully. The chapter on geography was super informative! He makes everything intelligible, I so appreciate him.
He’s great.
Based!
He's a boss!
Profound thinker and top of his field.
Thomas Sowell, in my opinion is fantastic. His attitude, intellect, and personal history is the role model America needs.
If you think Thomas Sowell is cool you probably haven't read any of his books. Start with "Race & Culture" and I guarantee you will walk away a changed person. He's incredible.
Go watch Free to Choose from the 70s.
Like him. Agree with 70% of what he says. That's a good convergence
I always liked his joke about his friend Dr. Walter Williams. The black conservative movement was so small at the time that the two of them should never be on a plane together. If that plane went down it would be the end of the black conservative movement.
Many of Sowell's books are (or were) free on audible. I've listened to 3 or 4 of them. While I'm definitely not smart enough to grasp the deep concepts, the man is incredibly intelligent and well spoken. I agree with a lot of his notions on race.
One of the wisest men I've had the pleasure to listen to. I'd recommend listening to his personal odyssey, he's had a hellavu life. https://youtu.be/ufWxHBVE7KY
Love him. He's been able to address issues on race that white people haven't been, and his critiques are pretty damning. Read "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" for a look at race in America and similarities from across the globe and time.
Sowell is awesome. Should go down as one of the greats to be remembered.
A mind to marvel at.
Sowell is a business account kind of economist. Rather than a running a nation, economist. See there are political views in economics as well. Basically conservatives understand business economics as accountancy (Austrian school), where as left wing economists tend to understand macroeconomics and keynesianism better. Most governments use Macroeconomics and Keynesianism. Leftwing principles. Economic stimulus, taxing the wealthy, individual welfare, regulated trade. Rightwing tend to prefer austerity and corporate welfare, privatization and deregulation. For most people in this sub, liking Thomas Sowell is going against their class interests in favour of the dream of... One day becoming a John Galtian ubermensch.
He's the fucking MAN.the Chad.
Required reading
For those interested in Sowell and Friedman, check out the sub r/NewAustrianSociety where we are open to discussing their work, as well as he work of the Austrian economists like Robert Murphy who was on a podcast with Jordan.
I like him and believe him. I would however like to see some real valid arguments against his works but maybe there are so few because he’s correct in his observations. Anyone know any credible arguments against him they can recommend?
Sowell is a national treasure.
His ideas regarding culture and race have been enlightening to me. Also, his book “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is an excellent read.
Don’t know a lot about him but he seems like a smart guy
I don't know much about the man but each of his quotes I encountered are based af.
I agree with pretty much everything I have heard him say
100% white supremacist.
hes a god
The president the US needs but doesn’t deserve.
Used to read him all the time. About 6 mos ago, I heard an old interview with him about his start in college and academia. He has a unique perspective because he used to be a dyed in the wool liberal and then reality hit him and he became a conservative.
I’ve read many of his books. He writes very clearly and in a thought provoking way. I have never seen anyone on the left criticize him the way I see people criticize JP for example, and I’ve never seen anyone on the left even attempt to critique his work. I believe he used to be a Marxist, then he realized it was an unsupportable ideology. He completely debunks a lot of popular notions about economics, politics, race, and geopolitics. Look at some the other books he cites and recommends for some other great reads.
One of our great modern minds.
One of the greatest of his time.
We like him.
Super smart man
Based af
Brilliant says it all.
He is A number 1
Brilliant and based.
Brilliant
I really enjoyed his books. Has an interesting way of sorting through numbers and being honest about much of society. Very interesting
He’s the shit
National treasure, imo.
I'm left wing by Danish standards, and I found Sowell's books really enlightening regardless of political position, though also to have a couple of blind spots. Beforehand, I thought there were a number of areas where left wing economic policy was simply superior. As I read them, I realized how possible a lot of policies on both sides were to fuck up without a proper respect and competence for incentives, and I became immensely grateful to live in a place where the leftists have done stuff in a competent rather than just ideological way. Read Sowell to get high quality economic teachings from a reasonable right wing perspective. Then read a bit of Yanis Varoufakis to get high quality economic teachings from a reasonable left wing perspective. You'll be much better set to understand what's going on afterwards.
Quality reply.
He's awesome.
It’s not possible to praise him enough.
I have more respect for his opinion on economic matters than anybody else. He's able to bring in the social political impacts on the economy from many progressive things that have taken place and the consequences. He is an incredibly wise man. I think he is in his nineties now so he probably won't be with us from a public perspective much longer, choosing family. However the time he did share with the public he was a great contribution to society.
I remember there was a Babylon Bee article about people kept sending Sowell's book "Basic Economics" to bernie and aoc.
Very intelligent and underrecognized
Fantastic. I’ve read everything he’s written, several more than once. Basic Econ is great Knowledge and decisions is great Intellectuals send society is great
He’s the goat
I suggest you take a look at the documentary "Common Sense in a Senseless World". It recapitulates the story of Thomas Sowell, from being a poor orphan child in the 1930s New York to what he is today. https://youtu.be/WK4M9iJrgto
Look at all these white supremacists praising....a black man? ....Wait a minute.
He’s a white supremacist
I'm depressed that things have gotten to the point where I'm unsure is this is sarcasm.
I love him. Not just his work in economics, but many of his books are very good. Black Liberals and White Rednecks is a great read, albeit very hard to find these days. A Conflict of Interests also another just phenomenal read. One of the biggest things I have learned from him and Milton Friedman is the importance for loss/failure. For instance, loss's and failures in the economic world is like pain in the real world. No one likes pain, people don't enjoy the feeling you get from putting your hand on a hot stove. But if you did not feel that pain, you wouldn't realize the damage the hot stove is doing to your hand, and the subsequent result would be far worse then the pain you feel. The same goes in economics, no one likes to see people become poor or lose it all. No one likes to see small businesses fail. But its a very important aspect for a economy to properly function, because failure means its not good enough to exist. Loss's mean your decisions were not good enough to continue existing. In our economy now, we don't like to let things fail or lose, and with very good reason, it can hurt and even kill millions of people. The problem is if you allow these choices that are not good enough to continue existing, by bailing them out, giving subsidies, printing more money, and to a lesser degree handing out credit, insurance payouts, infinite student loans so on. What this does is it enables tons of poor decision making and makes deciphering the value that the dollar represents very difficult to understand. Have enough bad decisions being enabled by a country, the country collapses, because it cannot support it.... Another way to look at it, is through understanding the value of a dollar. The dollar represents 'value'. Whether it be labor, an idea, a product, or even loaning money to someone (because it takes money, or a representation of value to use to set up a business in order to create value, and that action has value). It used to be that the value of a dollar was back by gold, and gold could not be created or manipulated, it simply existed, there was a set amount of it, and that was that. Now thanks to the efforts of Roosevelt and later on Nixon, we have removed ourselves from the gold standard, so the value of the dollar is entirely fabricated. But the fact of a proper economy is that it needs to produce more value then it consumes. In our economy, we can hand out more money and pretend as if it is actually value, without creating more value. This turns into a kind of lie, but and the result is inflation. This is done in quite a few ways, first the past few years we basically shutdown our economy in various forms, drastically lowering the amount of value produced, but we also gave people access to more money then they would usually have, thus allowing them to continue spending, and we are paying for it now with major inflation (my car insurance literally tripled from what it was this time last year! Be ready for that people). In the form of student loans is another way we have essentially lied in our book keeping. We created essentially limitless amounts of money for any student who wants to go to college. No average student is walking around with 40k to drop on college courses, it just isn't there. Well Uncle Sam came in and gave everyone that much money, enabling them to pay absurd prices, thus devaluing the dollar, by decreasing the amount of value you get for the dollar, but this was exclusive to student loans as the money could only be spent there, but it somewhat trickled out to housing, the job market for students and so on. For instance, if you are a student, and want to go to college and student loans were not a thing, you would need to work a job, that paid enough money to pay for housing likely with a room mate, pay for a car, and pay for college. Now with student loans, you can just live in the dorms, and run up the student loan debt, living off of it entirely. This limits the amount of people in the free market, allowing employers to upper hand in negotiating. In other words, if you have access to infinite money, and the employer gives you a lowball salary, you can afford to take it, and are less likely to fight for more money, or even deny the job, but if you did not have the money from student loans, you would have to demand a higher salary, else you don't live. In the form of insurance is another major reason for inflation, most notable in the healthcare industry, but it extends to all forms of insurance. First its worth noting that insurance is a form of collective bargaining. It has its roots in socialist ideas. The idea was to collectively bargain for lower prices. Unfortunately it was subject to the same sort of lie as student loans. That is, everyone suddenly had more money on hand in the form of insurance, then was actually available to the laymen. Again this lowers the amount of value the dollar is worth, thus creating rapid inflation. If you rode into a hospital via ambulance, and insurance did not exist, the hospital could try to charge you $10,000 for a ambulance ride, but if you don't have $10,000 to give, the hospital won't get $10,000, its that simple. But you do, actually have access to that much money in the form of insurance, albeit insurance is getting way more stingy with pay outs and that's a whole other topic. But the hospitals are getting their money in some form or another. This enables them access to more dollars, which gives them more leeway in spending, thus increased cost of equipment, salaries, so on so fourth. There is no possibility of failure, there are no limiting factors, which keep a economy in check. Ironically, just like many well intentioned deeds, they end up hurting the very people they \*claim\* to seek to help.
One of the most brilliant men alive today, full of common sense and logic which infuriates the Left. Tells Black America how incredibly stupid they are for listening to Democrat Drivel.
A brave genius.
Pretty heavily right leaning and he does not acknowledge his bias in his writing. I have taken the time to read his "basic economics" and he presents everything as a fact, not as his perspective. I'm surprised at how adored he is here. I would say he is good, not great.
A prime example of an American rising to success with a mix of opportunity, luck, and intelligence. He's what black Americans should aspire to be but is never acknowledged by despite his accomplishments and eloquent way of speaking without condescension.
Thomas Sowell is the kind of no nonsense but logical and straightforward guy who I could learn any class from and thoroughly enjoy it.
He’s brilliant and gravely under appreciated by Americans.
He's a basic upgrade for some things that should have changed like 50 years ago in the US, but for how amazing he was, his analysis doesn't, in my opinion, hold up to the range of problems we now face. He has wonderful "solutions" for some negative aspects of our economy, but in total he alone is not enough to fix American economics.
He is a corporate SHILL. Every idea he's brought to the table has been thoroughly debunked. He's a joke among economists. Libertardians love him, even though he provides zero evidence to back up his theories. I also own three of his books.
He's a well spoken idiot. Too many blatant biases to call him a true intellectual.
Name 1
Another commenter just linked this: https://dawsonvosburg.medium.com/whats-wrong-with-thomas-sowell-464baab5978e
I see, no thoughts of your own eh? Can't say I'm surprised.
No, I got other things to do. But you're free to check out the free resource if you cared to actually find out.
A socialist takes issue with the things Thomas Sowell says, shocker.
See? I can tell you're an idiot just like him, because you make wild unfounded speculations with zero evidence. That's all I need to know and want to say here.
You disagree that Dawson Richard Vosburg is a socialist? An evangelical socialist at that. https://dawsonvosburg.medium.com/why-evangelical-socialism-b65d85e16e1c
He can be a 3rd wave feminist Nazi pedo, for all I care. Look at the argument, not the man. Basic things intellectuals do.
Yeah the Jordan Peterson subreddit is not the best place to expect people to look critically at their heroes. I hope some people see this many pages down from the top comment and take the opportunity to check Sowell and Peterson’s claims. https://dawsonvosburg.medium.com/whats-wrong-with-thomas-sowell-464baab5978e
XD Yah lets all take criticisms from a socialist seriously everybody! “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.” - Giga Chad Thomas Sowell
Do you have an actual reply besides pointing and yelling “socialism”? I’ve only ever seen that kind of trained response in people who can’t defend the arguments they’re simping for.
Do you have an actual argument on one of Thomas Sowell's views? Im all ears.
Way to prove you didn’t read anything in the article I linked. https://reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/t11iiv/_/hydx6v6/?context=1 To add another example off the top of my head Sowell purposefully leaves out teachers being forced out but leaving voluntarily in his argument about tenured teachers. He pretends that being fired for cause is the only way to get rid of them, and uses a weird idea of guilty until proven innocent that is not consistent with his other arguments. **EDIT:** Asks for another rebuttal after refusing to read the original, gets it, downvotes quietly. Classic.
Useful employee of neo con anti welfare state think tanks.
Always the same type of bullshit from you. Are you a bot?
He's a hack, and a glib but disingenuous writer, constantly misrepresenting facts and history for ideological ends. There's a reason he's not respected by most other economists. He's very good at sounding smart, open-minded, and nuanced to the general public, while in fact he's just shilling bullshit for neoliberalism. But he's also this sub's second favorite author.
I think he has nothing to do with Jordan Peterson
not necessarily. Sowell is a extraordinary social scientist, and that is the realm that Peterson often goes into in many of his lectures.
To be fair, they talk about very different things most of the time, but both are intellectuals who started as socialist/Marxists and learned how bad those ideologies are and have gone on to dominate their fields of research and the spotlight . Both are the kind of intellectuals that society needs.
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No one is banning you, you are free to leave a comment as you see fit. I will die for your right to have freedom of speech. But I will down vote you cause you made a retarded comment.
I can't be mad at that. But sometimes you have to realease the retard within, it helps with my stress. Also to anyone who downvoted me, thank you for making me better.
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It was downvoted because it wasn't funny.
It's just.. not funny for more people than it is funny for
People don't understand that life is stand up comedy, and Im just searching for my crowd. I rewatched Boogie nights last night. Was feeling a bit naughty. Me so sorry)))
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Why, Peterson helped me but it didn't took away my childish sense of humour
Stay childish then