01-30-2021
Thomas Sowell (June 30, 1930 – ?? still working) may be the greatest intellectual of our a time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
He’s easy to find on a google search, lots of U-tube videos, and I would encourage one and all to listen to him regularly. He is like brain food. Thomas Sowell is a true intellectual, not the pseudo intellectual I have been referring to lately. He isn’t in it for the ego boost, he’s been famous for decades in economic circles as well as debates about sociology and philosophy. What is most impressive is his ability to draw hard statistical data to support his arguments. He IS A FACT CHECKER. Very few reporters have the courage to interview him.
Wikipedia: Sowell enrolled at Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude[1] in 1958. He received a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1959, and earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.
Today, I want to share one simple part of this man’s amazing life. During his 20s, this brilliant man was a Marxist.
He went to Harvard a Marxist and graduated a Marxist. He went to Columbia a Marxist and left there a Marxist. Marxism has a home at Columbia so that makes sense. So what made Thomas Sowell change his mind and come to embrace free market economics and democratic rule? He was 30 years old and well educated at the time. He already had an impressive resume and was well thought of everywhere he had been. What could change his mind? How could such a brilliant individual come to the conclusion that he was wrong?
I would point out that this is a sign of a great intellect. He was humble. Some say we are all Democrats in our 20s and become Republican in our 30s. I will admit my own ambivalence in those years. But I did not make the mistake of voting because I had no preference whatsoever. I disliked both parties. Funny how we come full circle.
What changed Thomas Sowell’s mind – and this should be taught as a course – was his experience working for the government in 1960. All he was doing was studying the sugar crop and unemployment rates in Puerto Rico. He was a lowly intern with a desk in a crowded office. Yet in observing the mechanics of government and in trying to analyze a situation as he was tasked to do, Dr Sowell changed his ideology 180 degrees. Why?
Thomas Sowell realized in a very short time that the department where he was working was much more interested in preserving itself and making itself seem valuable than it was in truth seeking or serving the people. His conclusions did not match his superior’s expectations , or shall we say – preconceptions – so he was largely ignored. No action was taken after he submitted his report. I wonder if anyone read it.
What was the subject? Minimum wage.
The 30 year old Sowell determined that the department was not interested in whether the minimum wage helped or hurt the people in Puerto Rico. They did not care where it was set, only that it existed so they could continue to justify their existence. I imagine he was depressed.
Sowell found that the minimum wage policy at that time in Puerto Rico actually created an increase in unemployment and did nothing to help the poor.
Throughout his career, Sowell has demonstrated, with real numbers – that conventional wisdom, or the theory that the government operates from, is often times flawed if not outright exacerbating the very issue trying to be corrected. More government, more regulation, almost always makes things worse, not better. RULE#3
I could list a dozen things our government has done that he has found to be statistically damaging to the society. Better you should listen or read him yourself. His view is often times contrary to popular opinion because he has done the homework. Over the years, his analysis has been proven time and again. Many of the things he said in the 1970s and 1980s are pertinent to today also. That is because principles are timeless and propaganda is ever so temporary, so diabolical, so powerful, yet so very flimsy.
When Sowell went to Chicago to study economics under Milton Friedman he found a mentor as well as an ally in the battle to infuse common sense into the world of intellectuals. Friedman is another mind worth studying if you prefer freedom to subjugation or choice to mandates. You see, you cannot have political freedom without economic freedom and visa versa. Economic reality is tied to political reality in a way that is inexorable.
7 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQLBitV69Cc
A quote from Thomas Sowell’s web site:
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false. —Paul Johnson2
There are other voices out there that you do not hear on the networks. They have been marginalized by the rising sound of the big government echo chamber. We are losing this country and taking it back will require real knowledge and guidance from people like Thomas Sowell, Leo Turrell, Shelby Steele, Larry Elder, Jordan Peterson, Scott Atlas, Victor Hansen.
For reasons I will never understand, we have in this country, a huge number of people who dislike or disapprove of the founding principle of a people ruling themselves – a government by and for the people. Instead, we have an oligarchy of elites who dictate to a bureaucracy that designs, pushes, and implements an ever more authoritarian policy. I would ask the people who dislike this country to leave it. We don’t need you.
Our own Congress calls the population “enemy”. They call their own members “enemy within”. They are looking in rabbit holes for the boogeyman while blaming our woes on those who do not agree with them. They are accusing us of exactly what they are doing. RULE#1 Blame, accuse, and hate: these are their tactics.
Washington DC continues to be occupied by 5,000 Nation Guard, our representatives fearing for their lives. Seriously? It looks more like a set up to me. They need a pretext to crack down even more. A pretext to take your guns. A pretext to limit transportation. A false “narrative” to implement their tyrannical agenda. Just look at how quickly things are transpiring.
Awaken America! Your President has signed over 40 executive orders in 9 days. Is he a dictator? The Speaker of the House rules with an iron Fist. Is she a tyrant? The media have asked about clothing, food choices and whether 2 masks are better than one. Are they complicit?
Tens of thousands have lost their jobs this week. The transportation infrastructure is crumbling. The Congress is preparing another 2 trillion dollar pork package. Individual stock investors are getting canceled by brokerage houses. The intelligence community has been mobilized to seek out “domestic terrorism” because of the DC riot. To hear some speak you would think that 74,000,000 people are suspects.
Another line from Thomas Sowell: “It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.”