Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell
Born	(1930-06-30) June 30, 1930 Gastonia, North Carolina
Nationality	United States
Academic career
Institution	Hoover Institution (1980–present) UCLA (1970–1972, 1974–1980) Urban Institute (1972–1974) Brandeis University (1969–1970) Cornell University (1965–1969)
Field	Economics, Education, Politics, History, Race relations, Child development
School or tradition	New Social Economics
Alma mater	Howard University Harvard University (A.B.) 1958 Columbia University (M.A.) 1959 University of Chicago (Ph.D.) 1969
Influences	Milton Friedman, George Stigler, F.A. Hayek, Edmund Burke

Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, social critic, political commentator and author. He often writes as an advocate of laissez-faire economics, and his political outlook can generally be classified as libertarian. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002, Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. In 2003, he was awarded the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement.

Biography

Sowell, an African-American, was born in Gastonia, North Carolina. His father died before he was born, and Sowell's mother, a maid, already had four children. His great-aunt and her two grown daughters adopted Sowell. In his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, he recalled that his encounters with whites were so limited he did not believe that yellow was a hair color. When Sowell was nine, his family moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to the Harlem borough of New York City. Sowell attended Stuyvesant High School, a selective school, even though no one in his family had an education beyond sixth grade. He dropped out at age 17 because of financial difficulties and a deteriorating home environment. To support himself he worked at various jobs, including in a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union. He was drafted in 1951, during the Korean War, and was assigned to the US Marine Corps. Due to prior experience in photography, he worked in a photography unit but also trained Marines in handgun use.

After discharge, Sowell took a Civil Service job in Washington, D.C. and attended night classes at Howard University despite lacking a high school diploma. High grades on College Board exams and recommendations by two of his professors helped him be accepted to Harvard University, where in 1958 he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics despite poor grades in his early semester. He received a Master of Arts in economics from Columbia University in 1959 and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. Sowell initially chose Columbia University because he wanted to study under George Stigler. After arriving at Columbia and learning that Stigler had moved to Chicago, he followed him there.

Sowell has taught economics at Rutgers University, Howard University, Cornell University, Brandeis University, and UCLA. Since 1980 he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman.

Sowell has stated that he was a Marxist “during the decade of my 20s." His experience working as a federal government intern during the summer of 1960 caused him to reject his Marxian economics in favor of free market economic theory. During his work, Sowell discovered a correlation between the rise of mandated minimum wages for workers in the sugar industry of Puerto Rico and the rise of unemployment in that industry. Studying the patterns led Sowell to allege that the government employees who administered the minimum wage law cared more about their own jobs than the plight of the poor.

Career highlights

• Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, September 1980–present
• Professor of Economics, UCLA, July 1974–June 1980
• Visiting Professor of Economics, Amherst College, September–December 1977
• Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, April–August 1977
• Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, July 1976–March 1977
• Project Director, The Urban Institute, August 1972–July 1974
• Associate Professor of Economics, UCLA, September 1970–June 1972
• Associate Professor of Economics, Brandeis University, September 1969–June 1970
• Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell University, September 1965–June 1969
• Economic Analyst, American Telephone & Telegraph Co., June 1964–August 1965
• Lecturer in Economics, Howard University, September 1963–June 1964
• Instructor in Economics, Douglass College, Rutgers University, September 1962–June 1963
• Labor Economist, U.S. Department of Labor, June 1961–August 1962

Writings

Sowell is both a syndicated columnist and an academic economist.

Besides scholarly writing, Sowell has written books, articles, and syndicated columns for a general audience in such publications as Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and major newspapers. He is a regular contributor to GOPUSA, a conservative web and email newsletter run by Endeavor Media Group, LLC. He primarily writes on economic subjects, generally advocating a free market approach to capitalism. Sowell, whose autobiography describes his serious study of Karl Marx, opposes Marxism, providing a critique in his book Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. He also argues that, contrary to popular perception, Marx never held to a labor theory of value.

Sowell also writes on racial topics and is a critic of affirmative action and race based quotas. While often described as a black conservative, he prefers not to be labeled, and considers himself more libertarian than conservative.

In another departure from economics, Sowell wrote The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, a follow-up to his Late-Talking Children. This book investigates the phenomenon of late-talking children, frequently misdiagnosed with autism or pervasive developmental disorder. He includes the research of—among others—Professor Stephen Camarata, Ph.D., of Vanderbilt University and Professor Steven Pinker, Ph.D., of Harvard University in this overview of a poorly understood developmental trait. It is a trait which he says affected many historical figures. He includes famous late-talkers such as physicists Albert Einstein, Edward Teller and Richard Feynman; mathematician Julia Robinson; and musicians Arthur Rubenstein and Clara Schumann. The book and its contributing researchers make a case for the theory that some children develop unevenly (asynchronous development) for a period in childhood due to rapid and extraordinary development in the analytical functions of the brain. This may temporarily “rob resources” from neighboring functions such as language development. The book contradicts Simon Baron-Cohen’s speculation that Einstein may have had Asperger syndrome (see also people speculated to have been autistic).

Sowell has also written A Conflict of Visions where he speaks about the origins of political strife.

Columns

Sowell has a nationally syndicated column distributed by Creators Syndicate that appears in various newspapers, as well as online on websites such as Townhall, WorldNetDaily, OneNewsNow and the Jewish World Review.

Sowell comments on issues he considers to be problematic in modern-day society, which include liberal media bias; judicial activism (while staunchly defending originalism); partial birth abortion; the minimum wage; socializing health care; affirmative action; government bureaucracy; militancy in U.S. foreign policy; the U.S. war on drugs, and multiculturalism.

Sowell supports free market and pro-growth economics. In one column he criticized as socialism for the rich, certain policies which he describes as benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

Sowell in a Townhall editorial, "The Bush Legacy", assessed President George W. Bush, deeming him "a mixed bag", but "an honorable man".

Sowell also favors decriminalization of all drugs.

Thought

The major themes and philosophies of Sowell’s writing range from social policy on race, ethnic groups, education and decision-making, to classical and Marxist economics, to the problems of children perceived as having disabilities. Sowell has also extended his research from the United States to the international sphere, finding supporting data and patterns from several cultures and nations. He has demonstrated that similar incentives and constraints often result in similar outcomes among very different peoples and cultures.

Five themes in his work cut across specific topics:

1. The importance of empirical evidence, not only in a narrow technical sense but as reflected in the broad record of history.
2. The competing basic visions of policy makers, and their role in the interactions of elites versus the ordinary masses.
3. An importance of trade-offs, constraints and incentives in human decision making.
4. The significance of human capital—attitudes, skills, and work.
5. The importance of systemic (orderly, structured) processes for decision-making—from free markets to the rule of law.

Importance of empirical evidence

Sowell repeatedly emphasized the need for empirical evidence and objective assessments of data, as opposed to the sweeping generalizations, wishful thinking, and distorted or false evidence provided by numerous writers in the field of social policy and economics. Sowell contends that in no field are these distortions greater than when the topic of race is discussed.

In his book Marxism: Philosophy and Economics Sowell contends that too often, social policy is made on the basis of sweeping assumptions, arbitrarily selected statistical data, and ideological dogma, without sufficient evidence.

History and culture

Sowell’s trilogy Race and Culture, Migrations and Culture, and Conquests and Cultures exemplifies his broad analytical approach to historical processes, cutting across centuries of history, and many different peoples. He compares nations and minority groups within nations, particularly migrants.

Race and intelligence

In Intelligence and Ethnicity, Sowell demonstrates how IQ scores have risen among many groups (see: Flynn effect). He notes that the roughly 15-point gap in contemporary black–white IQ scores is similar to that between the national average and the scores of particular ethnic white groups in years past. Indeed similar gaps have been reported within white populations, such as Northern Europeans versus Southern Europeans. Sowell references some of these points in his criticism of the book The Bell Curve.

In short, Sowell argues, IQ gaps are hardly startling or unusual between, or within, ethnic groups. What is distressing, he claims, is the sometimes hysterical response to the very fact that IQ research is being done, and movements to ban testing in the name of self-esteem or fighting racism. He argues that few would have known of black IQ progress if scholars like James Flynn had not undertaken allegedly racist research.

Authentic black culture, dysfunctional white southern redneck culture

Main article: Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Competing visions and intellectuals

Two visions

Main article: A Conflict of Visions

Sowell lays out these concepts in his A Conflict of Visions and The Vision of the Anointed. These two visions encompass a range of ideas and theories. The vision of the anointed relies heavily on sweepingly optimistic assumptions about human nature, distrust of decentralized processes like the free market, impatience with systemic processes that constrain human action, and absent or distorted empirical evidence. The constrained or tragic vision relies heavily on a reduced view of the goodness of human nature, and prefers the systematic processes of the free market, and the systematic processes of the rule of law and constitutional government.

Intellectuals are “idea” workers

Further information: Intellectuals and Society

In his 2009 book Intellectuals and Society, Sowell argues that intellectuals, defined as people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas (writers, historians, academics, etc.) usually consider themselves as anointed, endowed by superior intellect or insight to guide power-brokers and the masses.

Trade-offs, constraints and incentives

Further information: Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One

Ordinary citizens might benefit from analyzing issues and public policies in terms of costs, benefits and trade-offs, where scarce resources have alternative uses, rather than rely on lofty rhetoric from political leaders, activists and special interests
In Basic Economics and Applied Economics, Sowell attempts a popularization of economics. Sowell argues that there are no free lunches, only trade-offs at various levels. This transactional approach to social and economic policy is one of the hallmarks of Sowell’s writings:

Lofty talk about “non-economic values” too often amounts to very selfish attempts to impose one’s own values, without having to weigh them against other people’s values. Taxing away what other people have earned, in order to finance one’s own fantasy ventures, is often depicted as a humanitarian endeavor, while allowing others the same freedom and dignity as oneself, so they can make their own choices with their own earnings, is considered to be pandering to “greed.” Greed for power is more dangerous than greed for money and has shed far more blood in the process. Political authorities have often had “revolutionary values” that were devastating to the general population.

Government action is too often perceived as beneficial, just and noble, when in fact it often hurts those it is purportedly trying to help
As far back as 1975’s Race and Economics and continuing through his Affirmative Action Around The World and Basic and Applied Economics series, Sowell repeatedly shows that much government action in the social and economic domains has not only failed to achieve desired or claimed results but in many cases has created worse conditions than those previously existing. Examples given to bolster Sowell’s arguments range from rent control (which decreases the supply of housing) to busing for racial balance (schools in some areas under busing are just as segregated or worse than before) and crime control, zoning laws, and education.

Sowell also takes strong issue with the notion of government as a helper or savior of minorities, arguing that the historical record shows quite the opposite—from the lower level Jim Crow laws created and enforced by state and local regimes, to welfare subsidies at the federal level that have promoted family dependency and breakdown. The Montgomery Bus Company of the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott in the 1950s, for example, had originally pleaded with local segregationist officials not to impose Jim Crow on the bus lines. Before, such lines served both black and white customers with little problem. This plea was rejected, and the hand of government once again interfered with and hindered free markets that mutually benefited customers of all races. Unlike the free market, where the dollars held by blacks and whites have equal value, the governmental sphere in a massive number of historical instances imposed unequal values—with black votes having less value than white ones—and so Jim Crow expanded. Sowell maintains that, time and time again, the hand of government has negatively intervened to snuff out mutually desirable free market transactions between blacks and whites, raising business costs, dampening profits, and creating huge inefficiencies to local economies. The wasteful duplication of facilities and customer-service areas in the name of segregation are but one example of the waste and inefficiency imposed by government, reputed benefactor of minorities. Sowell draws upon a mass of historical data to question both the priorities and logic of those who call for even more government intervention and spending to “solve” the problems of minorities.

On several measures, black progress was much more positive prior to the significant rise of the welfare state, and prior to the era of affirmative action
Another of Sowell’s themes is to show the painful but steady rise of blacks in the US against heavy odds before massive intervention by government programs, a rise that contradicts some popular assumptions.

Social problems

In Affirmative Action Around the World (2004) and Civil Rights Sowell demonstrates that on several measures, black progress was actually better before the era of the expanding welfare state and affirmative action era of the 1970s, and even the Civil Rights Act of 1964, than in the contemporary era. In the decades immediately after the Civil War for example, blacks posted higher employment rates and lower divorce rates than whites. As regards family stability and out-of-wedlock births, black rates prior to WWII were hardly perfect, (19% in 1940 and 22% in 1960) but were still far lower than the 70% out-of-wedlock births afflicting the black community at the beginning of the 21st century. In every census between 1890 and 1940, blacks posted higher marriage rates than whites. Sowell also shows that numerous other European groups showed patterns of high dysfunction as they migrated to urban areas. He argues that this historical record undermines claims about hopelessly deficient black family patterns due to an alleged legacy of slavery or genetic handicaps, and maintains that the dependency induced by the welfare state undermined much that was stable and commendable about black family and community life, above and beyond the difficulties of rural to urban migration. The weakening of crime controls by judges and political elites during the 1960s fostered an atmosphere of lawlessness in the black community that also contributed to a negative harvest of social problems. As regards murder, for example, a crime that is not much influenced by fluctuations in victim reporting, rates doubled in the 1960s as plea bargaining, lighter sentences, “revolving door” early releases, restrictions on police procedures and probations increased. Although the weakening of controls was sometimes undertaken in the name of fairness for minorities, no community was harder hit by such rising rates than the black community.

Education

Black education was badly hurt by Jim Crow laws and practices; nevertheless Sowell demonstrates in Inside American Education (1993) and Black Education: Myths and Tragedies (1972) that even on this measure, blacks often showed progress that would be almost inconceivable in many of today’s inner city schools. While black education lagged heavily behind that of whites in the segregation era, several black schools were to emerge that produced excellent performances. All-black Dunbar High School in Washington D.C. prior to the 1960s, for example, achieved performance levels equal to or exceeding that of surrounding white schools. The average IQ at Dunbar was 111 in 1939, and again in 1950, and attendance records in some years showed lower levels of absenteeism than that of surrounding white schools in the District of Columbia. Dunbar also produced a impressive number of black firsts in many fields from naval officers, to the first black federal judge, military general, and cabinet member, and with alumni ranging from jazzman Duke Ellington to the black pioneer in the use of blood plasma. Nor could this be due to creaming of the crop to create a tiny elite of black students, Sowell contends. Attendance records suggest Dunbar’s student body was quite representative of the black community it served, and fully one-third of all black students in D.C. passed through its doors in some decades.

Dunbar is not the only example. A record of achievement is documented in several schools across the country. In several New York schools (Harlem) before WWII, black student test scores achieved basic parity with comparable working class white schools on the lower East side—sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but never miles behind as is the case in numerous ghetto schools of the contemporary era. Nor are such patterns necessarily a recent phenomenon. As far back as WWI, black soldiers from various Northern States like New York, Pennsylvania, etc. scored higher on Army intelligence tests than southern whites from various southern states like Mississippi, Alabama and others.

In his 1986 Education: Assumptions versus History, Sowell discusses several all-black public and private schools that achieved high performance standards like Dunbar. Ironically, some of these high-performing black schools declined after the Brown desegregation. Dunbar for example was torn down and rebuilt as a neighborhood school in a neighborhood that had descended into crime, poverty and decay. Similar patterns occurred with many other once thriving black institutions. Schools that once boasted high test scores, numerous academic awards, service to the community, and the development of black professionals became marked by low test scores, locations in decaying neighborhoods, lack of parental support and discipline problems. Policies such as busing for racial balance did little to stem this decline. There is little interest in such past achievements, Sowell argues, because the historical record would call into question prevailing policies and dogmas focused on racial headcounts, trendy black English, diversity, bigger budgets and more spending. The record also highlights counterproductive cultural attitudes towards education among some of today’s blacks as demonstrated by various research on the anti-intellectual “acting white” phenomenon, Sowell claims. Today’s Dunbar, he notes, has much finer physical facilities than the old school before its decline in the 1960s, but produces much more dismal academic results. More students went on to college from Dunbar during the Great Depression than they do in the contemporary ghetto school of today.

Long-standing trend of black progress

Sowell also challenges the notion that black progress is due to progressive government programs or policies. In The Economics and Politics of Race, (1983), Ethnic America (1981), Affirmative Action (2004), and other books, Sowell shows that in the five years prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act black gains in employment and education were actually higher than in the five years after. Black progress in employment and education was a long-standing trend from the WWII era, almost two decades before the 1964 law, and before the era of affirmative action in the mid 1970s. Black gains in education and employment after 1964, Sowell maintains, continued this upward movement in the booming postwar economy. The passage of the race-neutral Civil Rights Act of 1964 complemented this upward swing and, by removing unjust legal barriers, provided significant equal opportunity. Sowell sharply contrasts equal opportunity (fair treatment across the board regardless of race) with the disguised or open race quotas and headcounts of affirmative action.

Long-standing advance in reducing poverty is also a hallmark of black effort, Sowell maintains, contradicting assorted claims of black inability. Prior to the 1964 Act, when few welfare or transfer payment programs as such were in place, a majority of blacks had actually pulled themselves above the poverty line despite open hostility from many whites and open segregation and discrimination in job and housing markets. On several other measures, from youth employment to crime, blacks posted a much better showing prior to the expansion of the welfare state, or the affirmative action era, than after.

White ethnic groups show many of the same problems historically

Sowell also argues that many problems identified with blacks in modern society are hardly unique in terms of American ethnic groups, nor in terms of a rural proletariat swept by disruption as it became urbanized. Heavy patterns of pathology are for example seen in the white peasant migrants to the dismal urban slums that sprung up during the Industrial Revolution in Britain and elsewhere. He maintains that US blacks only became a largely urban people after WWII, when the booming war economy produced a third great migration north, allowing millions of blacks to escape the harsh, oppressive conditions of the South. While southern cities also saw some migration, it was this massive wartime move north that was much more significant, and the arrival of the rural black proletariat into difficult urban conditions broke down many of the social mores and community controls that had maintained its stability in the past.

Sowell notes that social problems occurring after such migrations are nothing new with other white ethnic groups, who had the advantage of entering, acculturating and adjusting to the urban economy in toto several decades earlier than blacks. The black migrants faced race discrimination above and beyond other ethnic groups but fundamentally experienced the same social pathologies others did in becoming urbanized. Difficulties with crime, schooling, substance abuse etc. are thus not uniquely "black" problems but are well represented in other urbanizing groups from peasant background. In Ethnic America (1981), for example, Sowell shows that white ethnic groups like the Irish were marked by many of the same patterns as blacks who migrated from rural backgrounds to the big urban centers, including high levels of violence and substance abuse. As regards out-of-wedlock births, the rate in some New York areas with heavy white Irish settlement was over 50%, comparable to what would develop in later black ghettos in the same city.

Sowell sums of some of these claims in his Pink and Brown People and Other Controversial Essays (1981), warning against what he calls the fallacy of presentism:

"Those who cannot swallow pseudo-biology can turn to pseudo-history as the basis for classification. Unique cultural characteristics are now supposed to neatly divide the population. In this more modern version, the ghetto today is a unique social phenomenon.. American ghettos have always had crime, violence, overcrowding, filth, drunkenness, bad school teaching, and worse learning. Nor are blacks historically unique even in the degree of these things. Crime and violence were much worse in the nineteenth-century slums, which were almost all white. The murder rate in Boston in the middle of the nineteenth century was about three times what it was in the middle of the twentieth century. All the black riots of the 1960s put together did not kill half as many people as were killed in one white riot in 1863.. Squalor, dirt, disease? Historically, blacks are neither the first nor last in any of these categories. There were far more immigrants packed into the slums (per room or per square mile) than is the case with blacks today - not to mention the ten thousand to thirty thousand children with no home at all in the nineteenth-century New York...

Even in the area where many people get most emotional- educational and IQ test results- blacks are doing nothing that various European minorities did not do before them. As of about 1920, any number of European ethnic groups had I.Q.'s the same or lower than the I.Q.'s of blacks today. As recently as 1940, there were schools on the Lower East Side of New York with academic performances lower than those of schools in Harlem. Much of the paranoia that we talk ourselves into about race is a result of provincialism about our own time as compared to other periods in history."

The true beneficiaries of affirmative action are not the less fortunate but those already advantaged

In his 2004 Affirmative Action Around the World Sowell holds that affirmative action covers most of the American population, particularly women, and has long since ceased to be directed towards blacks, although blacks are often invoked as primary beneficiaries, and that the main beneficiaries are not the less fortunate but those already able to well help themselves:

As in other countries, however, these policies spread far beyond the initial beneficiaries. Blacks are just 12 percent of the American population, but affirmative action programs have expanded over the years to include not only other racial or ethnic groups, but also women, so that such such policies now apply to a substantial majority of the American population...

...the top 20 percent of black income earners had their income share rising at about the same rate as that of their white counterparts, while the bottom 20 percent of black income earners had their income share fall at more than double the rate of the bottom 20 percent of white income earners. In short, the affirmative action era in the United States saw the more fortunate blacks benefit while the least fortunate lost ground in terms of their share of incomes. Neither the gains nor the losses can be arbitrarily attributed to affirmative action but neither can affirmative action claim to have advanced lower-income blacks when in fact those fell behind."

Sowell shows that immigrants suffering no past discrimination in the United States have also sometimes been classified as “approved minorities” and have also benefited from Affirmative Action. The affluent Fanjul family from Cuba for example, with a fortune exceeding $500 million, received contracts set aside for minority businesses. European businessmen from Portugal received the bulk of the money paid to minority owned construction firms between 1986 and 1990 in Washington D.C. Asian businessmen immigrating to the United States have also received preferential access to government contracts. Sowell also argues that while affirmative action began as a program primarily intended to benefit blacks, a huge majority of minority- and female-owned businesses are in fact owned by groups other than blacks, including Asians, Hispanics, and women.

In addition, the vast majority of minority firms appear to gain little from government set-asides. In Cincinnati, for example, 682 minority forms appeared on the city’s approved list but 13% of these companies received 62% of preferential access and 83% of the money. Nationally, one-fourth of one percent of minority-owned enterprises are certified to receive preferences under the Small Business Administration, but even within this tiny number, 2% of the firms received 40% of the money.

The history of black achievement prior to the affirmative action era is too often lost and overlooked, Sowell holds, and contradicts some right-wing claims that blacks have not pulled themselves up, or that seek to tar black progress as a function of affirmative action. The same history also contradicts some liberal claims that government programs like race quotas are responsible for black progress, when the facts show that the main beneficiaries of such programs are often non-blacks, and that there has been a long-standing trend of black advance before such programs.

Human capital

Human capital occurs often in Sowell's work. He claims it has permitted ethnic minorities to bounce back and triumph over the harshest, most brutal treatment by majorities. In several works, Sowell traces what he refers to as the triumph of human capital and the human spirit across nations and historical periods. Some critics claim that the sharp, sometimes sarcastic tone found in some of Sowell’s works such as Inside American Education reflects his exasperation and frustration at the waste of human capital occurring in many minority, particularly black communities.

Systemic processes

In several works—his Knowledge and Decisions, A Conflict of Visions, and The Economics and Politics of Race among them—Sowell stresses the importance of systemic processes like free markets, the rule of law, and constitutional government. On balance, Sowell maintains, systemic processes are superior to the dictates or condescension of those on high who presume to know better than ordinary people.

Criticism

The liberal watchdog group, Media Matters has criticized some of Sowell's remarks such as a comparison Sowell made between President Obama and Adolf Hitler in an editorial for Investor's Business Daily because Obama created a relief fund for the victims of the BP oil spill.

Economic criticism

The work of many economists such as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and University of California, Berkeley professor and former International Monetary Fund adviser Barry Eichengreen often contradict Sowell's claims of government interference in issues such as price gouging and protectionism (respectively). In addition, some studies claim that welfare systems often reduce poverty, contrary to Sowell's claim that welfare generates poverty.

Reviewing Sowell's 1984 book Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?, University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson said that Sowell did not explore "reasonable alternative explanations and hypotheses" in his critiques of affirmative action. For instance, regarding Sowell's theory that women are underrepresented in fields like law and engineering because of the heavy responsibilities of marriage such as childrearing and other household work: "A plausible alternative to Mr. Sowell's hypothesis on women's pay differentials and occupational segregation is that women are virtually excluded from many desirable positions and therefore crowd into obtainable occupations."

Those influenced by Sowell

• Sowell’s book Race and Economics greatly influenced Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas read the book in 1975, and later said that the book changed his life.
• Bates College in Maine has an endowed professorship in economics named after Sowell.
• Playwright David Mamet has called Sowell “our greatest contemporary philosopher.”
• British Historian Paul Johnson shares Mamet’s opinion in his book A History of the American People.
• Rush Limbaugh is an admirer of Sowell’s writing and referred to him as an “honest thinker.”

Books by Sowell

• Sowell, Thomas (2010). Dismantling America. Basic Books. pp. 352 pages. ISBN 978-0465022519.
• Sowell, Thomas (2010). Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books. pp. 416 pages. ISBN 978-0465019489.
• Sowell, Thomas (2009). The Housing Boom and Bust. Basic Books. pp. 184 pages. ISBN 978-0465018802.
• Sowell, Thomas (2008). Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One (2nd edition ed.). Basic Books. pp. 400 pages. ISBN 978-0465003457. OCLC 260206351. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Sowell, Thomas (2007). Economic Facts and Fallacies. Basic Books. pp. 262 pages. ISBN 978-0465003495.
• Sowell, Thomas (2007). Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (3rd edition ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Books Group. ISBN 978-0465002603. OCLC 76897806. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Sowell, Thomas (2007). A Man of Letters. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 320 pages. ISBN 978-1594031960.
• Sowell, Thomas (2006). Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. pp. 460 pages. ISBN 978-0817947521.
• Sowell, Thomas (2006). On Classical Economics. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. pp. 320 pages. ISBN 978-0300126068.
• Sowell, Thomas (2005). Black Rednecks and White Liberals: And Other Cultural And Ethnic Issues. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 360 pages. ISBN 978-1594030864.
• Sowell, Thomas (2004). Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. pp. 256 pages. ISBN 978-0300107753.
• 2004. Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy, revised and expanded ed. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08145-2 (1st ed. 2000)
• 2003. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, ISBN 0-465-08143-6
• 2002. The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, ISBN 0-465-08141-X
• 2002. Controversial Essays, ISBN 0-8179-2992-4
• 2002. A Personal Odyssey, ISBN 0-684-86465-7
• 2002. The Quest For Cosmic Justice, ISBN 0-684-86463-0
• 1998. Conquests and Cultures: An International History, ISBN 0-465-01400-3
• 1996. Migrations and Cultures: A World View, ISBN 0-465-04589-8 OCLC 41748039
• 1996. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08995-X
• 1995. Race and Culture: A World View. Description & chapter previews. ISBN 0-465-06796-4
• 1993. Inside American Education, ISBN 0-7432-5408-2
• 1987. A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-06912-6
• 1987. Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays. William Morrow, ISBN 0688-07114-7
• 1986. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Quill, ISBN 0-688-06426-4
• 1984. Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-03113-7
• 1983. The Economics and Politics of Race. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-01891-2
• 1981. Ethnic America: A History. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-02074-7
• 1981. Markets and Minorities. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-04399-2
• 1980. Knowledge and Decisions. Basic Books.
• 1975. Race and Economics. David McKay Company Inc, ISBN 0-679-30262-X
• 1972. Say's Law, An Historical Analysis. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04166-0

See also

• List of newspaper columnists

External links

• Thomas Sowell’s home page
• Thomas Sowell Features at Creators Syndicate
• Column archive at Townhall.com
• Free Podcasts of Sowell’s recent articles
• Socialism for the rich by Thomas Sowell (October 6, 2006)
• A Dangerous Obsession, Parts I II, III, IV, and V by Thomas Sowell
• Too “Complex”?, Parts I, II, & III by Thomas Sowell
• Economic Fallacies -- Interview with Thomas Sowell by Bill Steigerwald
• Archive of Articles by Thomas Sowell at JewishWorldReview.com
• Book review of The Einstein Syndrome by Isabelle Rapin, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
• Snopes.com on Various articles attributed to Thomas Sowell

Articles and interviews

• “10 Questions With Thomas Sowell”, John Hawkins, Right Wing News. Sowell on flat-tax vs. progressive tax, rent-control, balanced budget amendments, protectionist tariffs, poverty and welfare, profit-restriction, illegal immigration, a weak dollar vs. a strong dollar, affirmative action, and reparations.
• 'Q&A' Interview (April 17, 2005)
• 'Booknotes' Interview (June 10, 1990)
• 'Uncommon Knowledge' discussion of affirmative action
• Thomas Sowell- Columns on Jewish World Review website
• “Race and IQ” Detailed discussion of Race and IQ including techniques that have masked the improvement of black IQ scores.
• “Choosing a College” — discusses benefits and costs including college quality, size, specialty, intellectual rigor, social, political and sexual environment of today’s campuses. Recommends hard-nosed parental analysis (including campus visits) that ignores PR fluff and focuses on the bottom line
• “Affirmative Action around the World” - critical analysis of Affirmative Action and its failures worldwide.
• Salon interview with Sowell
• Audio interview with National Review Online
• Sowell on Economic Facts and Fallacies: Audio interview
• Sowell en español