The symposium on Thomas Sowell’s work went very well. A great group of people from whom I learned a lot.
Here are more of my favorite quotes from Sowell. The first three are from his 2009 book Intellectuals and Society.
Why the transfer of decisions from those with personal experience and a stake in the outcome to those with neither can be expected to lead to better decisions is a question seldom asked, much less answered.
On payday loans:
As for the low-income borrower, supposedly the reason for the concern of the moral elites, denying the borrower the $100 needed to meet some exigency must be weighed against the $15 paid to meet that exigency. Why that trade-off decision should be forcibly removed by law from the person most knowledgeable about the situation, as well as most affected by it, and transferred to third-parties [sic] far removed in specific knowledge and general circumstances, is a question that is seldom answered or even asked.
The difference between decision makers in the market and in government:
The fundamental difference between decision makers in the market and decision makers in government is that the former are subject to continuous and consequential feedback which can force them to adjust to what others prefer and are willing to pay for, while those who make decisions in the political arena face no such inescapable feedback to force them to adjust to other people’s desires and preferences.
By the way, I reviewed Sowell’s book here. You’ll see that I had a fair number of criticisms but the parts I was most critical of were not in the readings.
From The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective. I like this because of its simplicity, clarity, and implicit passion:
The most ghastly example of racial fanaticism in history was the Nazi extermination of millions of defenseless, men, women, and children who were so similar to themselves in appearance that insignia, tattoos, or documents had to be used to tell the victims from their murderers.
READER COMMENTS
Dylan
Mar 28 2023 at 9:00am
Nice quotes, David. I also appreciated the review from 2010. If I may however be allowed to defend a 40 year old paper from a 13 year old criticism, this quote doesn’t make sense to me.
At the first part of the quote, Thurow specifies in peacetime there are a lack of jobs, and the correction is that during the war unemployment was low? The quote is cutoff, so I don’t know what Thurow says about the 1950s and 1960s, where unemployment also seemed to remain pretty low for most of the decade, although the lowest periods do coincide with the Korean and Vietnam wars.
steve
Mar 28 2023 at 10:41am
Isn’t the rejoinder to the first quote….
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
– The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X.
Steve
David Henderson
Mar 28 2023 at 1:10pm
No. I would say more but go check the whole quote.
steve
Mar 28 2023 at 9:14pm
I have. Anyone who thinks it is necessary to have government involvement for the conspiracy to succeed never lived in a small town.
Steve
Monte
Mar 28 2023 at 12:51pm
According to reviewer Robert Morris, Sowell finds (in The Economics and Politics of Race) that:
The implication being that a racial group’s economic fate may be determined much less by its surrounding society than by its own internal patterns. Comparatively speaking, what might this suggest about the economic prosperity of Africa vs African Americans, or Mexico vs Mexican Americans? Maybe, contrary to popular opinion, white society is more than just an oppressive “lump of deformity and diseases both in body and mind, smitten with pride” (to borrow from Jonathan Swift’s character, Lemuel Gulliver, and his cynical view of human beings, in general).
Dennis Hoey
Mar 28 2023 at 3:16pm
Professor Sowell remains a national treasure. His thoughts regarding free markets, role of government, and societal racial issues remain must reads/views. I always feel like I’m at least 25% smarter just being exposed to his viewpoints.
Dave, I’ll know you’ll do more than justice in expounding on Professor Sowell’s ideas.
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