
Thomas Sowell interview - RickJWagner
https://www.city-journal.org/thomas-sowell-race-poverty-culture
======
kypro
Thomas Sowell has had a huge impact on me and my views on economics. I'm from
a poor working-class background and am often irritated by the needless
language barriers of academics.

> “Too many academics write as if plain English is beneath their dignity,”
> Sowell once said, “and some seem to regard logic as an unconstitutional
> infringement of their freedom of speech.”

Sowell is unique in this respect. He's book, "Basic Economics" is full of
extremely relatable examples of economics in practice. It's one of the few
books on economics that's a great read regardless of your background or level
of academic achievement.

~~~
mc32
I wish other writers would take this to heart. Reading The New Yorker it’s as
if their language is a shibboleth and if they didn’t use it, it would alienate
their audience for using average language, yet they are the same people who
pontificate and pretend they advocate for the lower classes.

~~~
hedberg10
Let them. If you have the psychological need to constantly show how smart you
are, your life will be very stressful indeed.

You will want to manipulate others to get confirmation of your acrobatics and
always be on the lookout for disproof. This will lead to you limiting your
life severely for fear of actually finding it.

-former smartness showoff who now acts betterer

~~~
minikites
> Years ago my mother used to say to me, "In this world, you must be oh so
> smart, or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend
> pleasant.

~~~
anonymousiam
Great line. For those who do not recognize the source, it's from "Harvey".

------
chmod600
One important impact he had on my thinking is that he rejects groupings of
people based on snapshots in time.

For instance, it is very common to use income as a proxy for your economic
success, and then to group people into quintiles, calling the bottom quintile
"the poor". It seems reasonable, but it's wrong enough to lead to very wrong
conclusions. A college student living on their own will appear to be a "poor
household", even though many are likely to be in the top quintile later on in
their life. These scenarios seem like exceptions, but when you add them up (as
Dr. Sowell does), they show a very different picture.

Following people (statistically) through their lives, and across generations,
is a common theme in his work. It's harder to get good data than the snapshot-
in-time approach, but he does the work, and it's so much more informative.

~~~
refurb
Exactly. And when you try and track people across decades, things start to
look different.

[https://medium.com/@russroberts/do-the-rich-capture-all-
the-...](https://medium.com/@russroberts/do-the-rich-capture-all-the-gains-
from-economic-growth-c96d93101f9c)

~~~
xiler
Interesting read, but supposedly when we're talking about changes in social
mobility we really care about the _change_ in the percentage of people that
are richer than their parents? Indeed towards the end of the article the
author says:

> There is one study of progress over time that follows parents and children
> that is gloomy and that is “The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute
> Mobility Since 1940” by Raj Chetty, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel
> Hendren, Robert Manduca, Jimmy Narang (Chetty et al) They find that if you
> were born in 1940, you had a 92% chance of surpassing your parents income.
> But if you were born in 1984, the number is a depressing 50%. Chetty et al
> control for age — this is for parents and children when they are both 30.
> This does suggest that the American dream is dead or at least dying — half
> of the children do better than their parents but half do worse, suggesting
> no progress over time.

The author then says that we should measure income differently by using a non-
standard measure of inflation. But if we had just used that non-standard
measure on the wage data of Piketty et al., we would've arrived at the same
conclusion anyway?

~~~
refurb
I'm not sure "richer than their parents" alone, is a fair metric for social
mobility. If you're born in the top 20% and stay in the top 20% (not advancing
higher), is that really a social concern? I mean, Bill Gates kids are unlikely
to do better than their parents, but that's ok.

From what I've read, most social mobility metrics are from low quintiles to
higher quintiles.

So if in 1984, 50% of children do better than their parents, and _that 50% is
mostly the bottom half_ (I have no idea if it is), then you're doing pretty
good in terms of social mobility, no? People making below the median are doing
better.

And I would also expect that social mobility would decrease as an economy
"matures". If you're in a developing country seeing 7-10% GDP growth, then
you'd hope mobility is higher than an economy growing at 1-2% per year.

~~~
xiler
> And I would also expect that social mobility would decrease as an economy
> "matures". If you're in a developing country seeing 7-10% GDP growth, then
> you'd hope mobility is higher than an economy growing at 1-2% per year.

They address that in the paper:

> Higher GDP growth rates do not substantially increase the number of children
> who earn more than their parents because a large fraction of GDP goes to a
> small number of high income earners today. To see why absolute mobility is
> insensitive to the growth rate when growth is distributed unequally,
> consider the extreme case in which one child obtains all of the increase in
> GDP. In this case, higher GDP growth rates would have no effect on absolute
> mobility. More generally, GDP growth has larger effects on absolute mobility
> when growth is spread more broadly, allowing more children to achieve higher
> living standards than their parents. Higher GDP growth and a broader
> distribution of growth have a multiplicative effect on absolute mobility:
> Absolute mobility is highest when GDP growth rates are high and growth is
> spread broadly across the distribution.

[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/398.full](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/398.full)

------
brickmort
I've read six Thomas Sowell books in the past few years. His book Basic
Economics is a classic, but my favorite of his is _Applied Economics: Thinking
Beyond Stage One_. It covers the things that the former does but, as the title
suggests, applies it to a real-life scenario. He then walks through the
scenario as it plays out to demonstrate his point to the reader. For example,
when a city artificially lowers the rent, it makes apartments more affordable,
but what happens afterwards? he would then play the scenario out as it affects
tenants, landlords, and the rental market. I highly recommend it!

~~~
sumtechguy
I like the book 'Economics in one lesson' by Henry Hazlitt which does
something similar.

~~~
chrisjarvis
IMO this book should be required required reading for college students.

------
z9e
I’ve been reading a lot of his books lately, I cannot recommend enough. He
does take a conservative approach to a lot of topics but the way he breaks
things down helps you understand why.

His book Basic Economics taught me more than any economics classes did in
school.

~~~
sradman
> He does take a conservative approach to a lot of topics...

Sowell's book _A Conflict of Visions: Idealogical Origins of Political
Struggles_ [1] is, ironically, a very good starting point in understanding
what makes Sowell "conservative" (the Constrained Vision) vs "progressive"
(the Unconstrained Vision). I think this is the work that impressed Steven
Pinker.

The categories get really messy, for example when he describes Marxism as a
hybrid ideology, but the core idea is that people tend to believe either: 1.
we are made of crooked timber and are made better by social structure, or 2.
our potential is being held back by selfish oppressors/exploiters.

Regardless of which vision drives you, I imagine Thomas Sowell would do very
well in Bryan Caplan's _Ideological Turing Test_ [2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Conflict_of_Visions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Conflict_of_Visions)

[2]
[https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.htm...](https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html)

~~~
pinko
Just about every Marxist on the planet believes that we are "made better by
social structure", so I think that characterization of what Marxists vs. non-
Marxists believe is unhelpful.

~~~
moojd
I haven't read Sowell but is this what he means by a 'hybrid ideology'? My
impression of Marxists is that they view the world through both lenses and
believe #1 can be achieved when #2 is solved through revolution or other
means.

------
claudiawerner
I strongly disagree with Sowell on almost every topic one can think of, either
in terms of philosophy, society, or economics, but I admire his outspokenness
and plain speaking, as the article notes he is known for, and it's a shame to
read ad-hominem style attacks have been made against him. From what I can
gather, however, the academic literature engages better with his arguments
than journalists do.

~~~
vixen99
Be interesting to see where you think he's wrong especially where his
arguments are based on some uncompromising statistical facts.

~~~
Eleopteryx
His argument that Donald Trump would be a better choice for President than
Hillary Clinton because the former would be easier to remove from office than
the latter, arguing specifically that "congressional Republicans would [not]
automatically spring to his defense, if he overstepped the line". Doesn't seem
like a great example of keen political judgment in hindsight.

~~~
derision
I've seen numerous examples of congressional Republicans not automatically
springing to his defense

~~~
Eleopteryx
"Numerous examples" is fantastic but what he said was a generalization and as
a generalization it holds up. What % of congressional Republicans would you
estimate "did not automatically spring to his defense"?

------
deiznof
His economics are sound, but I often find that his takes on social issues are
extremely reductionist. His social views a lot of the time are just standard
conservative views (and wrong IMO), I wish he wasn't being praised for that.

One example being his view on systemic racism, which he described as:

“It does remind me of the propaganda tactics of Joseph Goebbels in the age of
the Nazis, in which he was supposed to have said that people will believe any
lie if it’s repeated long enough and loud enough. And that’s what we’re
getting.”

I just can't take this sort of person seriously in regards to social issues. I
just can't do it. And he does this _all the time_ , all of his social views
are just ultra-reductionist conservatives views that are identical to the
things my hardcore mask-refusing conservative relatives post on facebook.

~~~
tlear
It is immeasurable, undefinable, unchangeable. As a propagandist you must take
care to use things that can not be countered. Systemic racism is one of those.

What is the systemic racism measure for Canada vs US? That is his point, you
can use that stick to beat anyone and anything you want without having to
supply a shred of evidence. Just keep repeating it and call everyone who
disagrees racist or Uncle Tom.

~~~
RoboticWater
If it were immeasurable and undefinable, then we wouldn't have studies showing
disproportionate sentencing of Black people [1] or the persistent negative
effects of redlining [2]. And if it were unchangeable, we wouldn't be able to
construct studies to show the specific choke-points of racial inequality, nor
suggest policy solutions to remedy them.

> What is the systemic racism measure for Canada vs US?

I don't understand this. Why do you want to measure against other countries,
and why phrase it like you just want _one_ number? Is it not enough to claim
that certain inequalities appear in certain aspects of our society?

It would be like asking for a measure of our foreign policy. Sure, we could
probably make one, but that seems like an entirely inadequate means of
actually assessing what's happening in a complex sociological ecosystem. Our
assessments have to be more individualized.

> That is his point, you can use that stick to beat anyone and anything you
> want without having to supply a shred of evidence. Just keep repeating it
> and call everyone who disagrees racist or Uncle Tom.

You can do that with anything though. I've heard all the same language used in
Climate Change discourse: "well, if you don't think humans caused climate
change, they'll just label you anti-science and beat you out of the
discussion." This is just a blatant rhetorical tactic to shift discussion from
about the actual problem—and indeed all the evidence that this problem has—to
nebulous Twitter mobs.

[1]
[https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...](https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2413&context=articles)

[2]
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2852856](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2852856)

~~~
tathougies
When it comes to redlining, sowell directly addresses it in in Vision of the
Anointed. He points out that the kinds of houses blacks tend to purchase tends
to be ignored in studies that find widespread discrimination.

For example blacks are much more likely to want to buy multi family homes. The
income and other requirements for these are much stricter which is why they
are denied loans more often.

Moreover, he points out that if blacks were being subject to stricter
requirements then one would expect that they were less likely to default since
the requirements are notionally to calculate default risk.

He points out that before the redlining legislation black and white default
rates were broadly the same indicating that whatever criteria the banks used
it fulfilled its main purpose of estimating default likelihood.

He then shows data that the anti discrimination legislation increased black
default rates and questions whether you encouraging minorities to declare
bankruptcy and enter financial ruin is really something to be desired.

Before you make blanket statements on the man you should be familiar with his
stance on things. Your comment lacks the nuance that one is apt to find in any
sowell book.

~~~
deiznof
>He then shows data that the anti discrimination legislation increased black
default rates and questions whether you encouraging minorities to declare
bankruptcy and enter financial ruin is really something to be desired.

Sowell talked about the CRA and was proven wrong by multiple studies, like
this one, which has a section dedicated to how the CRA wasn't a problem:
[https://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-
lending/research...](https://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-
lending/research-analysis/foreclosures-by-race-and-ethnicity.pdf)

Stop the Sowell worship. Please, internet, for the love of god. He will always
talk about how everything that democrats do is bad and everything
conservatives do is good. He isn't right on everything all the time.

~~~
vadansky
This seems more to say that the 2008 housing crisis was not caused by the CRA,
which no one said it did.

~~~
deiznof
It's actually an extremely common argument that conservatives make to this
day. Thomas Sowell blamed the CRA himself, so I'm not sure what your point is.

~~~
vadansky
>>He then shows data that the anti discrimination legislation increased black
default rates and questions whether you encouraging minorities to declare
bankruptcy and enter financial ruin is really something to be desired.

>Sowell talked about the CRA and was proven wrong by multiple studies, like
this one, which has a section dedicated to how the CRA wasn't a problem:
[https://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-
lending/research...](https://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-
lending/research..).

So you agree the document you linked doesn't disprove what the other poster
said? No one has brought up the 2018 housing crisis.

~~~
deiznof
He brought up anti discrimination legislation causing defaulting and
bankruptcy, which the 2008 crash literally caused. I brought up a specific
example of how Sowell is wrong. Sowell has directly commented on this matter.
It is obviously relevant and doesn't require me to explain any further.

~~~
vadansky
>He brought up anti discrimination legislation causing defaulting and
bankruptcy, which the 2008 crash literally caused.

No he didn't, what are you talking about? Just because he mentioned
foreclosures means he meant the CRA caused the 2008 housing crisis? No one was
talking about it, you just brought it up out of no where.

His statement had NOTHING to do with the housing crisis, the only link between
them seems to be "both involve foreclosures, so if I prove CRA did not cause
the crisis I will prove his other statement is also incorrect... Because they
both have the word 'foreclose' in them"

~~~
deiznof
OH MY GOD...

The OP brought up that Sowell said that anti discrimination legislation
increased defaulting and bankruptcy. Thomas Sowell literally wrote an entire
article blaming CRA about 10 years ago. I brought up how Sowell is wrong
because studies show that he is wrong.

~~~
vadansky
So even though you quoted one argument, you posted a document to prove a whole
other argument wrong, never bothering to bring up that the other argument you
just proved wrong. I still don't know what other argument you proved wrong,
did Sowell go on record saying the CRA caused the 2008 housing crisis?

~~~
deiznof
Yes, as I said he literally wrote an article about it. I literally cannot
understand how you can't connect Sowell's claim that anti-discrimination
legislation (like CRA) is bad to my argument.

~~~
vadansky
Can you post a link? I'm honestly under the suspicious you just posted a PDF
you did not read, or knowingly knew did not back up your arguments but hoped
no one would read the 25 pages to find out.

~~~
deiznof
[https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/02/09/upside-
dow...](https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/02/09/upside-down-
economics)

He was wrong and/or misleading about everything he said in this article. Maybe
you should apply the same suspicion to someone like Sowell instead.

~~~
vadansky
Damn, guess I was wrong. Still nothing to do with the parents argument though,
you should at edit your comment to include that link so people understand what
you're taking about.

------
jrexilius
His writings do exactly what he states: Sowell insists that his work “stands
or falls on its own merits or applicability” and is not “enhanced or reduced
by [his] personal life.”.

And they will continue to stand, objectively, for a long time to come.

But his life and character are inspirational examples of self-determination
and leadership that we need far more of. It is a shame he is not more often
cited as an example that others can learn from in their personal lives.

~~~
mcguire
"Even if 90 percent of all Muslims are fine people, and we admit 10,000
refugees from the Middle East, does that mean that we need not be concerned
about adding a thousand potential terrorists — even after we have seen in San
Bernardino what just two terrorists can do?*"

Thomas Sowell, ladies and gentlemen.
([https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/12/1...](https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/12/12/sowell-
obama-rhetoric-san-bernardino/77169902/))

~~~
loulou24
The all too common argument that there's no problem since it's only a minute
minority that is problematic is in contradiction with a huge chunk of human
history.

On this particular topic, we in Europe are increasingly frequently getting a
painful refresher.

Thanks for the link.

------
tlear
Basic Economics is a very good book. Even if you taken University economics
you will learn something and you will definitely learn how to explain things
to those who did not.

His debates are also great to watch highly recommended.

~~~
smhmd
I very much prefer his older TV appearances to his more recent ones as he used
to elaborate and present you with evidence on the spot. Nowadays, he keeps his
input to a minimum on a given interview which is often unconvincing and
borderline dismissive. I should keep in mind that he's 90 of age, though.

------
chmod600
I've read a number of his books, and I reflect on them regularly. They stand
the test of time.

More important than the specific facts and arguments in his books is that he
checks up on the results of theories and policies. That's not common enough
among social scientists and certainly not among politicians.

Does "the peace process" produce peace? Do anti-poverty programs raise people
out of poverty? Surely some do, and surely some don't. Figuring out which is
which is critical to success -- preferably by learning from others' mistakes,
but if not, at least learning from your own mistakes.

It's too easy to get a sense of moral superiority just by supporting a policy
with a noble _intent_ , and then move on before the consequences arrive.

------
olalonde
His book "Intellectuals and Society" helped me better understand the
difference of visions between the "right" and the left. Highly recommend it to
anyone who's interested in politics.

------
Shraal
Am I the only one here who thinks that "Basic Economics" is overrated? I loved
the first chapters but I didn't finish it because of his obvious bias against
regulations. While I enjoyed his analyses of failed regulations, the book
makes it seem like there're no successful market regulation laws in place and
every attempt is doomed to be short-sighted like all his examples. This [1]
review on Amazon from someone else expresses my concerns in more detail.

Can someone recommend me an alternative book, that at least tries to be a
little bit more well-balanced? I'll probably finish this book for the
conservative perspective anyway but it doesn't seem like a good starting point
despite its name.

[1] [https://www.amazon.de/gp/customer-
reviews/RTG2TIDQB6AJI/ref=...](https://www.amazon.de/gp/customer-
reviews/RTG2TIDQB6AJI/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_btm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00PKS5ZR0#wasThisHelpful)

~~~
blub
I didn't finish it either, but mostly because of lack of time. However, I was
also having an almost visceral reaction to his aversion to regulation, because
I was comparing it to the situation that I know in some European countries and
his claims seemed to clash with what I knew.

I wouldn't dismiss the book just because of that, but it did make the lecture
rather difficult because it was challenging my assumptions and knowledge quite
strongly. I guess that's good :-)

I like Ha-Joon Chang's "Economics: The User's Guide" as an introduction to
economics. It's understandable, it has plenty of references and is written in
a pleasant tone.

~~~
Shraal
_> I know in some European countries and his claims seemed to clash with what
I knew._

To be precisely, I would say his conclusions and the lack of other
perspectives clashes with what I know about economy in European countries
because I see how his reasoning makes sense in a vacuum.

 _> I wouldn't dismiss the book just because of that, but it did make the
lecture rather difficult because it was challenging my assumptions and
knowledge quite strongly. I guess that's good :-)_

Exactly. I want to finish it someday for that exact reason.

 _> I like Ha-Joon Chang's "Economics: The User's Guide" as an introduction to
economics. It's understandable, it has plenty of references and is written in
a pleasant tone._

Thanks!

------
tlholaday
Has he changed his mind about marriage equality in the twenty years since he
published this?

[https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2000/04-01/0001_thoma...](https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2000/04-01/0001_thomas_sowell__fuzzy_thinking_in_.html)

Edit: maybe in the two decades that followed he learned that same-sex couples
often raise children.

~~~
ausbah
wow, for someone who has gotten pretty much nothing but praise for his
supposed amazing writing ability and though process - this article is a
complete steaming dumpster fire

------
jwlake
I've read a few Sowell books and I don't always agree with his conclusions but
I do always enjoy the historical context he puts behind his arguments. I find
most political pundits, journalists, etc to lack a grounding in history when
they take opinions on various things. Sowell's books are usually give you a
historical context and then the argument. It makes his books a good read even
if you don't agree with them.

------
fareesh
Love Thomas Sowell. Basic Economics is a must read.

An extremely intelligent man, and an inspiration to many all over the world.

------
htk
Someone should create a list of books that comprise a beginners manual of
living in a modern society, and “Basic Economics” would fit perfectly in this
list.

~~~
rmellow
I think a lot about this. Modern society is very different from what our
ancestors grew up with.

Any other recommendations on how to do well?

~~~
chrisfinne
I usually think this, but then I'll see some random piece of advice from
thousands of years ago, e.g. Seneca, Sun Tzu, Jesus, Plato and it seems very
relevant.

We've got a lot more bells and whistles these days, but maybe the absence of
reddit, imgur, youtube and the general dopamine hamster-wheel allowed them to
have a better understanding of human nature.

Counter-point is that we are more likely to live longer and have to fight
fewer threats of disease, famine, predators and war, so maybe we have more
time to contemplate higher thoughts.

------
theicfire
Thomas Sowell is a critic of the climate change/environmental science
initiatives, and it's one of the reasons I heavily question his other views.
Here's a 3 min video of him talking about it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweblFwt-
BM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweblFwt-BM)

The points he makes are quite fair. The science isn't perfect, yes. Often,
people try to hide that the science isn't perfect, too. But the impact is
roughly the product of the magnitude of the impact and the probability of the
event. In this case, the magnitude is enormous and the probability is less
than 100% but seemingly quite large. Dr. Sowell seems to simply argue that
climate reports suggest that the probability is higher than it truly is. But
if a report suggest 95%, and Dr. Sowell thinks it's more like 40%, the core
issue is still enormous. I would want him to talk about why he thinks the huge
effects of anthropogenic climate change are such a vanishingly small
probability to the point that we shouldn't do anything about it.

Here's another article by him:
[https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2002/06-08/0002_thoma...](https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2002/06-08/0002_thomas_sowell__global_warming_bui.html)

------
amachefe
In this time of ultra conformism and cancel culture. It is refreshing to read
an articulate alternative view points.

Sowell has an experience of with sides of the debate and brings that
experience to his writing.

I can't recommend him enough

~~~
pjc50
What do you mean by "Cancel culture" here and what specifically do you think
might apply to Sowell?

~~~
cma
Be charitable, he could be talking about the Dixie Chicks or anchors that were
fired for questioning the Iraq war. Or for the biggest example of modern
cancel culture, Kaepernick's firing after targeting by the president.

~~~
baryphonic
> Or for the biggest example of modern cancel culture, Kaepernick's firing
> after targeting by the president.

Kaepernick was "fired" because he was poor at his job. Defenses started to
understand his 1-dimensional attack and then shut it down. He was cut after
the 2016 season, but had been benched in 2015 because the 49ers offense was
struggling.[1] This was nine months before he ever took a knee before a
game.[2] Did the 49ers look into a crystal ball and decide to bench him in
favor of a demonstrably mediocre quarterback because of something that
wouldn't happen for nine months? If he didn't show actual improvement on the
field, were the 49ers obligated to keep him? Is an employer obligated to keep
any employee who says something controversial regardless of performance?

> Be charitable, he could be talking about the Dixie Chicks or anchors that
> were fired for questioning the Iraq war.

Which anchors lost their jobs for questioning Iraq? Dan Rather stepped down
for his role in publishing a hoax memo about George W. Bush's National Guard
duty.[3] Brian Williams was quasi-fired for embellishing a story about his
time as an embedded journalist in Iraq.[4]

The Dixie Chicks were actually blacklisted by country music radio stations, so
we'll give you that one.

Still, .333 isn't great unless you're playing baseball.

[1] [https://www.nfl.com/news/niners-bench-colin-kaepernick-
blain...](https://www.nfl.com/news/niners-bench-colin-kaepernick-blaine-
gabbert-to-start-0ap3000000572076)

[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/01/colin-
kaepe...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/01/colin-kaepernick-
kneeling-history/)

[3]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/business/media/analysis-p...](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/business/media/analysis-
postmortemof-cbss-flawed-broadcast.html)

[4] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/brian-
william...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/brian-williams-
admits-that-his-story-of-coming-under-fire-while-in-iraq-was-
false/2015/02/04/d7fe32d0-acc0-11e4-9c91-e9d2f9fde644_story.html)

~~~
MisterBastahrd
Kaepernick was blackballed by the league, full stop. Find me another instance
of an uninjured QB under the age of 35 who led a team to a Super Bowl 3 years
prior who was not only cut by his current team but not signed for even a
backup role by another club.

There's a reason that Cam Newton has a job today and Kaepernick doesn't, and
it's because Newton didn't get cancelled.

~~~
baryphonic
Both players debuted in the NFL in 2011. In 2015, Kaepernick led the 49ers to
a 2-6 start, while Newton led the Panthers 8-0 (and to a Super Bowl berth).
Sure, the QB isn't the only player responsible, but he is the single point of
failure. Isn't it possible that Cam Newton is just a much better player than
Kaepernick, all else being equal? If Kaepernick were so good and such a talent
that teams should have been picking him, why wasn't he winning?

~~~
MisterBastahrd
In 2013, Kapernick lead his team to the Super Bowl. By the end of 2016, he was
completely out of the league after being blackballed. He hasn't played for a
team in any capacity since. While one can argue whether his stats were great
or not, he certainly was not anywhere near the worst STARTING quarterback in
football.

From 2012 to 2016, Newton's Adjusted Net Yards per Play were .04 higher than
Kaepernick's, a virtually statistical dead heat. After the 2015 season, Newton
got a shiny new $100M contract for those efforts, and Kaepernick was shown the
door after 2016.

In Kaepernick's 11 starts during the 2016 season, his team gave up more than
30 points 9 times. He had a new head coach that had just gotten run out of
Philly for having no chemistry with his team, and he had one of the worst
receiving corps in NFL history. He still managed 16 TDs to just 4 INTs.

So, for having one of the worst defenses in the league, coached by one of the
worst coaches in the league, and throwing to easily the worst group of
receivers in the league, his team didn't do so hot. But there's no reason why
he shouldn't have immediately found another competition elsewhere, because he
WAS a starting-caliber QB, and unlike Newton who was a similar player,
Kaepernick had no outstanding injury issues. He wasn't coming off of foot
surgery and shoulder surgery like Newton is today.

Except that he spoke up.

And that was the end of his career.

------
zippie
Circa 2014, my economics mentor, who also mentored me in reading/trading free
markets recommended reading Sowell.

We discussed Sowell at length, and my primary take away was that Sowell’s
world view was that the individual is much better at improving their own lives
than any intervening external factors. All in all, an ardent believer in
individual capitalism. That is a high level assessment.

A more nuanced assessment is Sowell (like his mentor, Milton Friedman), is a
true to earth anti-Keynesian. Fun fact, he considered himself a Marxist in his
20’s IIRC.

There are lots of anti-Keynesian economists. Though I think what sets Sowell
apart is the way he uses widely accessible data to justify every single view
on public policy he has, and to make it easy to digest for someone without an
economics background (no easy task).

You can find a nice collection of his ideas online [1].

[1] [http://www.tsowell.com/](http://www.tsowell.com/)

~~~
everybodyknows
Can you point us to some of his criticism of Keynes' views?

------
supernova87a
2 things that I liked him for (after reading/hearing just cursorily -- I would
like to read more):

1) His perspectives on how the unfairnesses that life throws at you are part
of, and incentivize you towards making your life better and not something that
you should simply seek to eliminate without knowing what the unintended
consequences are. See his essay on "Cosmic Justice":
[https://www.tsowell.com/spquestc.html](https://www.tsowell.com/spquestc.html)

2) That if we seek to have a sustainable approach to how society is managed,
maybe we need to set up the reasonable rules and structures of how we want
outcomes to be guided by, and not change them willy-nilly because of who
happens to benefit at the time. There will be winners and losers no matter
what. It's tiring to switch your rules every time you don't like who came out
ahead.

------
AlphaOne1
I agree that his Basic Economic book is very easy to read. It completely
opened my eyes as to how to think about economics in high school when I first
read. I recently watched an interview about his latest book, which he just
published at 90 years of age, on charter schools. It was fascinating when he
goes through the data showing that when charter schools were used in New York,
the race gap disappeared. All the special interests involved in schooling as
well as lack of accountability is quite depressing. Here is a transcript:
[https://www.hoover.org/research/economist-looks-90-tom-
sowel...](https://www.hoover.org/research/economist-looks-90-tom-sowell-
charter-schools-and-their-enemies-1)

------
tptacek
It's difficult for me to come up with a charitable reason why Sowell, an arch-
conservative, is somehow interesting to HN (and, to be fair, I'd say the same
thing about a sudden surge in interest in Brad DeLong or Matt Bruenig), or why
we'd vote City-Journal, the house organ of the Manhattan Institute, to the
front page. I think it's especially dicey given the climate.

If you're curious about Sowell, some policy positions worth noting: opposition
to marriage equality on the basis of heterosexual marriage protecting women
from the impact of their declining physical appearance as they age, full-
throated support for the Iraq war, repeated comparisons of Barack Obama to
Adolph Hitler, a spicy " _Brown v. Board of Education_ was decided wrongly"
take, opposition to criminal justice reform and particularly decarceration,
support for Donald Trump in 2016 (and after), and opposition to the building
of mosques.

It's not that these positions are beyond the pale (well: the mosque thing is),
but rather that they're cut directly out of the coupon book of 1990s
conservative think-tankism. Many dozens of public intellectuals held (and
still hold) this same revanchist culture war portfolio of positions. Why is
Sowell, long retired, so enthusiastically trotted out?

~~~
SquishyPanda23
> It's difficult for me to come up with a charitable reason why Sowell, an
> arch-conservative, is somehow interesting to HN

That's pretty easy. It's because tech has a vocal arch-conservative
contingent.

Why are there so many arch-conservatives in tech? I don't really have an
answer to that.

~~~
ardy42
> Why are there so many arch-conservatives in tech? I don't really have an
> answer to that.

This might be of interest:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology)

Tech has a lot of libertarians, which vaguely attribute to a couple of things:
the appeal of simplistic but clean-seeming free market economic models to
kinds of people who are drawn to computers and (to a lesser extent) the
influence of startup culture. People in tech are also typically pretty
economically secure, which gives them the luxury of a certain amount of
aloofness.

------
ralusek
It is such a travesty that Thomas Sowell is completely absent from the
mainstream conversation about race. I also can't recommend Coleman Hughes
enough, as someone who has in many ways taken the torch from Sowell.

There are so many black Americans that have never heard a perspective on their
standing aside from those presented within the context of critical race
theory; a set of conclusions which are completely obliterated by people like
Sowell, Hughes, Jason Riley, Larry Elder, Carol Swain, Desi-Rae Campbell,
Josephine Mathias, Shelby Steele, Kmele Foster, Glenn Loury, Jonathan
McWhorter, among many others in this realm, all of whom have largely differing
opinions.

------
woodandsteel
If I understand the article correctly, Sowell thinks that blacks have a highly
inferior status today because they have a culture that is not suited to
succeeding in modern society.

If we assume Sowell is correct about that, then my reply is that culture is
not fixed. For instance, Western European culture is vastly different than it
was 500 years ago.

So the question is why blacks have the particular culture they do at present.
Does Sowell address this?

~~~
kyrra
He's written a lot of books, and I'd say these are some that dive into this
topic:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36222735-discrimination-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36222735-discrimination-
and-disparities)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3040.Black_Rednecks_and_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3040.Black_Rednecks_and_White_Liberals)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50623786-charter-
schools...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50623786-charter-schools-and-
their-enemies)

~~~
woodandsteel
I have far too many books to read. Could you perhaps give me a summary of his
views?

------
AnimalMuppet
> The prevailing notion today is that your skin color, your chromosomes, your
> sexual orientation, and other markers of identity determine how you think.
> And it is generally those who see themselves as the most
> freethinking—“woke,” while the rest of us are asleep—who apply the strictest
> and most backward formulas.

Beautifully said.

------
simonebrunozzi
> As Kevin Williamson observed, Sowell is “that rarest of things among serious
> academics: plainspoken.”

So rare, and so precious.

------
viburnum
Is there anything new in Sowell? I thought he was a popularizer of traditional
free-market economics.

------
mr_overalls
I'm going to be a nonconformist myself and oppose the near-univeral approval
of Sowell in this discussion. His book Basic Economics was the first book on
econ that I read, and I was very impressed by it. It reaffirmed the rather
right-wing political views that I'd inherited from my parents. However, after
taking a few introductory econ classes at university and doing further reading
on my own, Sowell starts to appear very ideologically driven.

Sowell is a free-market fundamentalist, in that he opposes most government
intervention in markets, and universally trusts laissez-faire capitalism to
provide the optimal social & economic good for practically any situation.

The problem with this position is that there's simply a ton of evidence that
targeted government intervention provides far better outcomes in many
situations.

Another classic example is environmental pollution, a classic case of tragedy
of the commons. On the topic of global warming, Sowell doesn't even try to
address the issue. He belives climate change is a hoax perpetuated by
Democrats.

[https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/27/sowell-the-
catchwords...](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/27/sowell-the-catchwords-
climate-change-deniers-reveals-political-crusade/)

Sowell writes in a conversational style, which is great for accessibility for
non-economics. However, he is rightly criticized as failing to cite rigorous
studies to back up his opinions.

For a more balanced view of basic economics, I'd highly recommend Principles
of Economics by Greg Mankiw.

~~~
bergstromm466
> I'm going to be a nonconformist myself and oppose the near-univeral approval
> of Sowell in this discussion.

> It reaffirmed the rather right-wing political views that I'd inherited from
> my parents.

I really did not know HN was _this_ conservative. I am very surprised at all
this unanimous approval of Sowell.

~~~
mr_overalls
Same here - it's really quite baffling.

Sowell even thinks that racial discrimination in hiring doesn't require
government intervention. He constructs an argument in Basic Economics that
market forces will rectify this kind of social ill.

------
jahaja
MLK was non-conformist. Aligning oneself with the hegemonic theories of the
wealthy and powerful however, is not.

~~~
googthrowaway42
There are righteous forms of hierarchy and tyrannical forms of hierarchy.

What your argument boils down to is an attack on hierarchy qua hierarchy. Very
common to see these days as it is a classic revolutionary/Marxist ideal but
it's also entirely inconsistent with natural law. Even within the
revolutionary ideal, every revolution has its leaders and its strongmen
because that's just how people organize themselves and those at the top live
better off than those at the bottom (think Lenin and Stalin vs the starving
masses).

~~~
jahaja
> it's also entirely inconsistent with natural law

You're equating your subjective ideas with natural law? Seem a bit over-
confident to say the least.

> There are righteous forms of hierarchy

Yes, a parent towards a their child. What other forms of righteous hierarchies
are you thinking about?

> think Lenin and Stalin vs the starving masses

That would be the tyrannical form and completely illegitimate.

~~~
googthrowaway42
> What other forms of righteous hierarchies are you thinking about?

Head surgeon and other surgeons. CTO and other engineers. VP of sales and
sales people, etc.

Other forms of hierarchy would be upper and lower courts.

Whether or not these are righteous is dependent on if, for example, the head
surgeon is actually experienced and talented and a good leader. If he's just
some shmuck they pulled off the street or if he's only in that position
because he's friends with the hospital president then that would be a
tyrannical or dysfunctional hierarchy.

>That would be the tyrannical form and completely illegitimate.

That's my point. But hierarchy itself is not illegitimate. That hierarchy
itself is legitimate is a reflection of natural law. That was my assertion.

~~~
jahaja
There seem to be some mixing of hierarchies and authority here, but even
anarchists aren't as dogmatically opposed to all kinds of authority that you
seem to imply?

"Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter
of boots, I defer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses,
canals, or railroads, I consult the architect or the engineer For such special
knowledge I apply to such a "savant." But I allow neither the bootmaker nor
the architect nor the "savant" to impose his authority on me. I listen to them
freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their
character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of
criticism and censure."

Mikhail Bakunin

~~~
googthrowaway42
I was talking about Marxism and other revolutionary movements that spring from
the French Revolution.

VP and CTO are actual titles that confer authority. What Bakunin is describing
are hierarchies of competence in a particular art ( _techne_ ) but what would
he say about parent-child relationships?

I had never heard of Bakunin until now. I'm not an expert on the schools of
anarchist thought by any measure so I won't pretend to really be able to hold
a discussion you want to get into analysis of various schools of anarchist
thought.

~~~
jahaja
> VP and CTO are actual titles that confer authority.

Those are considered illegitimate since they are undemocratic. A top-down
vanguard too.

> but what would he say about parent-child relationships?

The same competence argument applies to child rearing.

~~~
googthrowaway42
> Those are considered illegitimate since they are undemocratic.

But these are voluntary structures? That's kind of the beauty of the free
market. You have these little monarchal structures that go out and create
something in the world. If people want to join they can. If and when these
structures become too dysfunctional they go away due to market forces.

~~~
jahaja
> But these are voluntary structures?

They're not. No free person would voluntary accept all kinds of shit jobs
that's out there unless indirectly coerced.

~~~
googthrowaway42
By "indirectly coerced" you mean that they need food and shelter and they
don't have slaves to grow their food and build their house for them?

~~~
jahaja
> By "indirectly coerced" you mean that they need food and shelter

Yes, and more.

> and they don't have slaves to grow their food and build their house for
> them?

Is this the level you sink to as soon as Capitalist dogma is questioned? It's
not the poor and workers that have servants in modern society.

~~~
googthrowaway42
It's not dogma to suggest that people want to be compensated for building
houses and growing food and won't do that for free unless a gun is put to
their head.

~~~
jahaja
Of course it is. Assuming that the only other option to Capitalism is slavery
is dogma.

~~~
googthrowaway42
You're using the word Capitalism as though it's representative of an ideology.
"Capitalism" is a term created by Marxists to describe a system that allows
people to freely exchange with one another without force. No one is going to
grow your food or build you a house without compensation. That's why Marxism
requires slavery (public slavery).

~~~
jahaja
You're clearly ignorant of left-wing theory. You actually think that the huge
sympathy that socialism had and still have is based on people not
understanding that it's actually slavery? A no compensation society? Come on.

~~~
googthrowaway42
I mean there's a reason these sorts of programs always end with mass murder
and suffering. Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it
legitimate. Lots of people followed the Soviet and Nazi programs and it
created human suffering on a level never seen before in human history.

You really should read _Human Action_ by Mises. It lays out on a philosophical
level why all this stuff is fundamentally irrational and necessarily leads to
mass human suffering.

~~~
jahaja
Sigh. 99% of socialist want to expand democracy, not establish another
dictatorship. Yet, people like yourself dogmatically focus on that other 1%
that are authoritarian and paint every socialist as such.

71k people die every year in the US due to lack of healthcare. You need to
open both eyes.

I should read a book by the some libertarian god that unsurprisingly dismisses
socialism, while your own knowledge about socialism is obviously paperthin? If
it's so clear and obvious then you should be able to explain it in a paragraph
or two?

~~~
googthrowaway42
> 99% of socialist want to expand democracy

Yes I know they do. This is a bad thing. The Founding Fathers were famously
skeptical of democracy as were many, many thinkers and societies before them.

And yes it's always democratic in the beginning but democracy is not a panacea
(as the Founding Fathers understood) and quickly things devolve into
despotism. Just because someone exists doesn't mean they should have a say in
how a society is run. Existence is a pretty low bar compared to how developed
and complex the structures of a well organized society are.

> 71k people die every year in the US due to lack of healthcare.

Millions are born each year due to abundance and millions more don't die for
want of food and other essential services and that is because there's a
functioning market clearing mechanism (price).

Again I think you should read Human Action, even so you can just understand
your 'enemy'.

~~~
jahaja
> This is a bad thing.

It's refreshing to see that this anti-democratic sentiment is said so bluntly,
usually it's covered up in weasel words.

> And yes it's always democratic in the beginning

Please let me know which of the communist regimes of the 20th century that
started out democratic.

> Millions are born each year due to abundance and millions more don't die for
> want of food and other essential services and that is because there's a
> functioning market clearing mechanism (price).

That's a sociopathic response to why on earth 71k people should die every year
in a country of abundance simply because they don't have any money.

~~~
googthrowaway42
> It's refreshing to see that this anti-democratic sentiment is said so
> bluntly, usually it's covered up in weasel words.

This sentiment is at the core of America. It's not a secret at all.

Pure democracy is necessarily predicated on a rejection of human rights. We
have a Constitution because individuals have human rights that cannot be
violated no matter how many people vote on it.

Pure democracy is evil.

> Please let me know which of the communist regimes of the 20th century that
> started out democratic.

What do you think the word "soviet" means in Soviet Union?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy)

> That's a sociopathic response to why on earth 71k people should die every
> year in a country of abundance simply because they don't have any money.

This is a utopian response which is actually indicative of sociopathy.

"There are three questions which will destroy most of the arguments on the
left: 1. Compared to what? 2. At what cost? 3. What hard evidence do you
have?" – Thomas Sowell

~~~
jahaja
> This sentiment is at the core of America. It's not a secret at all.

It's not a secret no, but it's certainly not part of the propaganda.

> Pure democracy is necessarily predicated on a rejection of human rights.

Why is that? Maybe you should be blunt here too and just say private-property
enforcement instead of human rights?

> What do you think the word "soviet" means in Soviet Union?

Are you really going argue that it was a democracy because of the name? Why
are you doubling down on your own ignorance? Even the link you yourself posted
contains this:

"After Lenin's party, the Bolsheviks, only got a minority of the votes in the
election to the Russian Constituent Assembly, he disbanded it by force after
its first meeting".

The Bolsheviks took power in a coup for themselves and never let go of it.

> This is a utopian response which is actually indicative of sociopathy.

What? There's nothing utopian about universal healthcare and that's firmly
established by now. That also sounds like a means to an end argument which is
sociopathic if anything is.

~~~
googthrowaway42
> There's nothing utopian about universal healthcare and that's firmly
> established by now

Universal healthcare necessarily means rationing of healthcare resources.
Universal healthcare does not mean that every person who has an ailment gets
treated. A market naturally matches supply (healthcare infrastructure) and
demand (sick people). When you remove the market it's up to government to do
this matching process which means rationing.

~~~
dragonwriter
> A market naturally matches supply (healthcare infrastructure) and demand
> (sick people).

Even ignoring that healthcare lacks the factors that approximate the rational
choice model’s information requirements well enough for it decisions in that
space in a market to even reflect average net utility well, a market matches
supply with money; it matches to _need_ only to the extent that willingness to
pay is driven only by expected personal utility, which it's not (because money
also experiences declining marginal utility) when financial resources of each
potential customer vary wildly.

~~~
googthrowaway42
> it matches to need only to the extent that willingness to pay is driven only
> by expected personal utility

How else would you define need? The alternative involves some third party that
determines need aka rationing.

~~~
dragonwriter
> > it matches to need only to the extent that willingness to pay is driven
> only by expected personal utility

> How else would you define need?

The question seems odd and seems to likely to be driven by a misunderstanding
of the quoted material, so I'll try to reexplain what I intended in a way
which I hope resolves the question.

Expected net utility given complete information of the consequences of a
decision is the only plausible definition of need.

It doesn't, however correspond in any particular way (even ignoring the
information problems that are enormous in healthcare) to the number of tokens
one is willing to exchange for a thing in the market compared to other
participants unless the quantity of tokens available to each participant is
the same.

When the tokens are money and the context is a real capitalist society, that's
decidedly far from the case.

~~~
dllthomas
This rests on an assumption that utility is comparable between individuals,
which isn't present in all theories.

"How much would you pay for it" clearly _is_ comparable between individuals,
but (IMO) declaring that doing so defines the proper outcome is circular
and/or verges on the naturalistic fallacy.

------
jkhdigital
I have read more books by Thomas Sowell than by any other author, by a very
wide margin. The one which has influenced me the most is the one which best
captures the fundamental principles underlying his view of the world: _A
Conflict of Visions_. I'd suggest it as required reading for anyone who wants
to fully appreciate Sowell's work, as it provides insight into how he makes
normative judgments about the merits of economic policy choices.

In general Sowell does an excellent job of demonstrating through data that the
outcomes of economic policies are often directly at odds with their stated
objectives, but to really take a principled stand on what the proper
objectives are in the first place you need a set of coherent first principles.
_A Conflict of Visions_ provides this backdrop, and once you understand that
Sowell clearly adheres to the "constrained" vision of humankind then his other
works fall into their proper context.

It's a great book, but not above criticism, so in the interest of thoughtful
inquiry I'd encourage anyone to read the book as well as this review by Bryan
Caplan, economics professor at George Mason University who is also an economic
libertarian:
[http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/sowell](http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/sowell)

------
YesThatTom2
He repeats conservative propaganda so that conservatives can quote him and
pretend they aren’t racist because they have one black friend.

For example there was a recent twitter flap because he repeated an old
invalidated conservative talking point about reproductive rights and tons of
white clconservatives jumped on board saying “see! The black community
agrees!”

This is all a strategy to manufacture consent.

