Thomas Sowell

Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina. His father died shortly before he was born, leaving behind Sowell's mother, a housemaid, who already had four children. A great-aunt and her two grown daughters adopted Sowell and raised him.[4] In his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, Sowell wrote that his childhood encounters with white people were so limited that he did not know that blond was a hair color.[5] When Sowell was nine, his family moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Harlem, New York City for greater opportunities—as part of the Great Migration of African Americans from the American South to the North.

He qualified for Stuyvesant High School, a prestigious academic high school in New York City; he was the first in his family to study beyond the sixth grade. However, he was forced to drop out at age 17 because of financial difficulties and problems in his home.[4] Sowell held a number of positions, including one at a machine shop and another as a delivery man for Western Union;[6] he tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948.[7] He was drafted into the military in 1951, during the Korean War, and was assigned to the U.S. Marine Corps. Because of his experience in photography, Sowell became a Marine Corps photographer.[4]

After his discharge, Sowell worked a civil service job in Washington, DC, and attended night classes at Howard University, a historically black college. His high scores on the College Board exams and recommendations by two professors helped him gain admission to Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.[4][8] He earned a master's degree from Columbia University the following year.[8]

Sowell has said that he was a Marxist "during the decade of my 20s"; accordingly, one of his earliest professional publications was a sympathetic examination of Marxist thought vs. Marxist–Leninist practice.[9] However, his experience working as a federal government intern during the summer of 1960 caused him to reject Marxian economics in favor of free market economic theory. During his work, Sowell discovered an association 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 theorize that the government employees who administered the minimum wage law cared more about their own jobs than the plight of the poor.[10]

Sowell received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.[8] His dissertation was titled "Say's Law and the General Glut Controversy".[11] Sowell had initially chosen Columbia University to study under George Stigler, who would later receive the Nobel Prize in Economics. When he learned that Stigler had moved to the University of Chicago, he followed him there.[12]

From 1965 to 1969, Sowell was an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University. Writing 30 years later about the 1969 takeover by black Cornell students of Willard Straight Hall, Sowell characterized the students as "hoodlums" with "serious academic problems [who were] admitted under lower academic standards", and noted "it so happens that the pervasive racism that black students supposedly encountered at every turn on campus and in town was not apparent to me during the four years that I taught at Cornell and lived in Ithaca."[13]

Sowell has taught economics at Howard University, Rutgers, Cornell, Brandeis University, Amherst College, and the University of California, Los Angeles. 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, his mentor.[8][14] In addition, Sowell appeared several times on William F. Buckley Jr.'s show Firing Line, during which he discussed the economics of race and privatization.[15][16]

In 1987, Sowell testified in favor of federal appeals court judge Robert Bork during the hearings for Bork's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. In his testimony, Sowell said that Bork was "the most highly qualified nominee of this generation" and that what he viewed as judicial activism, a concept that Bork opposed as a self-described originalist and textualist, "has not been beneficial to minorities."[17]

In a review of Sowell's 1987 book, A Conflict of Visions, Larry D. Nachman in Commentary magazine described Sowell as a leading representative of the Chicago school of economics.[18]

Previously married to Alma Jean Parr from 1964 to 1975, Sowell married Mary Ash in 1981.[19][20] He has two children, John and Lorraine.[21][22][23]

In 2007, Sowell commented that modern television talk shows did not match the quality of David Susskind's Open End or The University of Chicago Roundtable and that Meet the Press moderated by Tim Russert was unlike the shows moderated by Lawrence Spivak or Bill Monroe.[24] Sowell is also known for his disdain of self-promotion.[25]

While often described as a black conservative, he prefers not to be labeled, having stated, "I prefer not to have labels, but I suspect that 'libertarian' would suit me better than many others, although I disagree with the libertarian movement on a number of things."[41] Sowell primarily writes on economic subjects, generally advocating a free market approach to capitalism.[42] Sowell opposes the Federal Reserve, arguing that it has been unsuccessful in preventing economic depressions and limiting inflation.[43] Sowell described his serious study of Karl Marx in his autobiography; he opposes Marxism, providing a critique in his book Marxism: Philosophy and Economics (1985).

Sowell has also written a trilogy of books on ideologies and political positions, including A Conflict of Visions, in which he speaks on the origins of political strife; The Vision of the Anointed, in which he compares the conservative/libertarian and liberal/progressive worldviews; and The Quest for Cosmic Justice, in which, as in many of his other writings, he outlines his thesis of the need for intellectuals, politicians, and leaders to fix and perfect the world in utopian, and ultimately he posits, disastrous fashions. Separate from the trilogy, but also in discussion of the subject, he wrote Intellectuals and Society, building on his earlier work, in which he discusses what he argues to be the blind hubris and follies of intellectuals in a variety of areas.

His book Knowledge and Decisions, a winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Centre Prize, was heralded as a "landmark work," selected for this prize "because of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government." In announcing the award, the centre acclaimed Sowell, whose "contribution to our understanding of the process of regulation alone would make the book important, but in reemphasizing the diversity and efficiency that the market makes possible, [his] work goes deeper and becomes even more significant."[44] Friedrich Hayek wrote: "In a wholly original manner [Sowell] succeeds in translating abstract and theoretical argument into highly concrete and realistic discussion of the central problems of contemporary economic policy."[45]

Sowell also favors decriminalization of all drugs,[46] and occasionally writes on the subject of gun control, for example:[35]

One can cherry-pick the factual studies, or cite some studies that have subsequently been discredited, but the great bulk of the studies show that gun control laws do not in fact control guns. On net balance, they do not save lives, but cost lives.

Sowell thinks that systemic racism is an untested, questionable hypothesis that is a piece of propaganda pushed on the American people. Sowell has said that “it really has no meaning that can be specified and tested in the way that one tests hypotheses" and "it’s one of many words that I don’t think even the people who use it have any clear idea what they’re saying". He has argued that it is a propaganda tactic akin to those used by Joseph Goebbels because it comes with an attitude that it must be "repeated long enough and loud enough" till it is believed and people "cave in" to it.[47][48]

In several of his works, Sowell challenges the notion that black progress is due to progressive government programs or policies, including in The Economics and Politics of Race (1983), Ethnic America (1981), Affirmative Action Around the World (2004), and other books. He claims that many problems identified with blacks in modern society are not unique, neither in terms of American ethnic groups, nor in terms of a rural proletariat struggling with disruption as it became urbanized, as discussed in his Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005).

Sowell also writes on racial topics, typically critical of affirmative action and race-based quotas.[49][50] He takes strong issue with the notion of government as a helper or savior of minorities, arguing that the historical record shows quite the opposite. In Affirmative Action Around the World,[51] Sowell holds that affirmative action covers most of the American population, particularly women, and has long since ceased to favor blacks:

One of the few policies that can be said to harm virtually every group in a different way.… Obviously, whites and Asians lose out when you have preferential admission for black students or Hispanic students—but blacks and Hispanics lose out because what typically happens is the students who have all the credentials to succeed in college are admitted to colleges where the standards are so much higher that they fail.[52]

In Intellectuals and Race (2013), Sowell argues that intelligence quotient (IQ) gaps are hardly startling or unusual between, or within, ethnic groups. 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 certain ethnic white groups in years past, in periods when the nation was absorbing new immigrants.

Sowell wrote The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, a follow-up to his Late-Talking Children, discussing a condition he termed the Einstein syndrome. This book investigates the phenomenon of late-talking children, frequently misdiagnosed with autism or pervasive developmental disorder. He includes the research of Stephen Camarata and Steven Pinker, among others, in this overview of a poorly understood developmental trait. It is a trait which he says affected many historical figures who developed prominent careers, such as physicists Albert Einstein,[53] Edward Teller, and Richard Feynman; mathematician Julia Robinson; and musicians Arthur Rubinstein and Clara Schumann. He makes the 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. As such, Sowell disagrees with Simon Baron-Cohen's speculation that Einstein may have had Asperger syndrome.[54]

In a Townhall editorial, titled "The Bush Legacy", Sowell assessed President George W. Bush as "a mixed bag" but "an honorable man."[55] Sowell was strongly critical of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and officially endorsed Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries in a February article.[56] However, he indicated that he would vote in the general election against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, due to fears about the appointments Clinton would possibly make to the Supreme Court.[57]

In 2020, Sowell wrote that if the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, it could signal a point of no return for the United States, a tipping point akin to the fall of the Roman Empire. In an interview in July 2020, he stated that "the Roman Empire overcame many problems in its long history but eventually it reached a point where it could no longer continue on, and much of that was from within, not just the barbarians attacking from outside." Sowell wrote that if Biden became President, the Democratic Party would have a huge amount of control over the country and if this happened, they could twin with the "radical left" and ideas such as defunding the police could come to fruition.[48][58]

Two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Sowell urged voters to vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. In 2018, when asked on his thoughts of Trump's presidency, Sowell replied "I think he's better than the previous president."[59]

In March 2019, Sowell commented on the public's response to mainstream media's allegations that Trump is a racist: "What's tragic is that there's so many people out there who simply respond to words rather than ask themselves 'Is what this person says true? How can I check it?' And so on."[60] A month later, Sowell again defended Trump against media charges of racism, stating: "I've seen no hard evidence. And, unfortunately, we’re living in a time where no one expects hard evidence. You just repeat some familiar words and people will react pretty much the way Pavlov’s dog was conditioned to react to certain sounds."[61]

Sowell has written about education throughout his career. He has argued for the need for reform of the school system in the United States. In his latest book, Charter Schools and Their Enemies (2020), Sowell compares the educational outcomes of school children educated at charter schools with those at conventional public schools. In his research, Sowell first explains the need and his methodology for choosing comparable students—both ethnically and socioeconomically—before listing his findings. He presents the case that charter schools on the whole do significantly better in terms of educational outcomes than conventional schools.[62][2][3]

Sowell also writes about the importance of education for young people. He argues that many schools are failing children in their educations. This is for numerous reasons among which he argues are that indoctrination has taken the place of proper education, teaching unions have been making unfair money out of schools and that many schools have become monopolies for educational bureaucracies.[63]

In his book; Education: Assumptions Versus History (1986), Sowell analyses the state of education in US schools and universities. In particular, he examines the experiences of blacks and other ethnic groups in the American education system identify the factors and patterns behind both success and failure.[64]

• 1971. Economics: Analysis and Issues. Scott Foresman & Co.
• 1972. Black Education: Myths and Tragedies . David McKay Co. . ISBN 0-679-30015-5 .
• 1972. Say's Law: A Historical Analysis. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-04166-7.
• 1974. Classical Economics Reconsidered. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00358-0.
• 1975. Race and Economics. David McKay Co. ISBN 978-0-679-30262-9.
• 1980. Knowledge and Decisions. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-03736-0.
• 1981. Ethnic America: A History . Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02074-7 .
  • Chapter 1, "The American Mosaic ."
• 1981. Markets and Minorities. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-04399-2 .
• 1981. Pink and Brown People: and Other Controversial Essays . Hoover Press . ISBN 0-8179-7532-2.
• 1983. The Economics and Politics of Race. William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-01891-2.
• 1984. Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-03113-7.
• 1985. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Quill. ISBN 0-688-06426-4.
• 1986. Education: Assumptions Versus History. Hoover Press. ISBN 0-8179-8112-8.
• 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 0-688-07114-7.
• 1990. Preferential Policies: An International Perspective. ISBN 0-688-08599-7
• 1993. Inside American Education. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-5408-2.
• 1993. Is Reality Optional?: and Other Essays. Hoover. ISBN 978-0-8179-9262-0.
• 1995. Race and Culture: A World View. ISBN 0-465-06796-4.
• 1995. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-08995-X.
• 1996. Migrations and Cultures: A World View. ISBN 0-465-04589-8. OCLC 41748039.
• 1998. Conquests and Cultures: An International History. ISBN 0-465-01400-3.
• 1998. Late-Talking Children. ISBN 0-465-03835-2.
• 1999. The Quest for Cosmic Justice . ISBN 0-684-86463-0.
• 2000. A Personal Odyssey. ISBN 0-684-86465-7.
• 2000. Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy (1st ed.) . Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-08145-2.
• 2002. Controversial Essays. Hoover. ISBN 0-8179-2992-4.
• 2002. The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late. ISBN 0-465-08141-X.
• 2003. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One. ISBN 0-465-08143-6.
• 2004. Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press . ISBN 978-0-300-10775-3 .
• 2004. Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy (revised and expanded ed.). New York: Basic Books.
• 2005. Black Rednecks and White Liberals. San Francisco: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1-59403-086-4.
• 2006. Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays . Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-4752-1 . OCLC 253604328 . ASIN 0817947523 .
• 2006. On Classical Economics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12606-8.[88]
• 2007. A Man of Letters. San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1-59403-196-0.
• 2007. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (3rd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00260-3. OCLC 76897806.
• 2008. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One (2nd ed.). Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00345-7 . OCLC 260206351 .
• 2008. Economic Facts and Fallacies . Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00349-5. OCLC 1033591370. ASIN 0465003494.
• 2009. The Housing Boom and Bust. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01880-2.
  • Chapter 5, "The Past and the Future."
• 2010. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (4th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02252-6.
• 2010. Dismantling America: and Other Controversial Essays. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02251-9 . OCLC 688505777 .
• 2010. Intellectuals and Society . Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01948-9 . Lay summary .
• 2011. The Thomas Sowell Reader. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02250-2.
• 2013. Intellectuals and Race. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-05872-3.
• 2014. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (5th ed.). New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-06073-3.
• 2015. Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective.[89]
• 2016. Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective (2nd ed.). ISBN 978-0-465-09676-3.
• 2018. Discrimination and Disparities. ISBN 978-1-541-64560-8.
• 2019. Discrimination and Disparities (revised, enlarged ed.) ISBN 978-1-541-64563-9.
• 2020. Charter Schools and Their Enemies. ISBN 978-1-541-67513-1.

• 1975. "Affirmative Action Reconsidered. Was It Necessary in Academia?" (Evaluation Studies 27). Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. ISBN 0-8447-3199-4. LCC 75-42779.
• 1979. "Status versus Behavior." Washington University Law Review 1979(1):179–88.
• 1982. "Weber and Bakke, and the Presuppositions of 'Affirmative Action'." Pp. 37–63 in Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity: An Economic and Social Perspective, edited by W. E. Block and M. A. Walker. Fraser Institute. CiteSeer^x: 10.1.1.456.9623.
• 2002. "The Education of Minority Children." Pp. 79–92 in Education in the Twenty-First Century, edited by E. P. Lazear. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. Available via eText.
• 2002. "Discrimination, Economics, and Culture." Pp. 167–80 in Beyond the Color Line: New Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America, edited by A. Thernstrom and S. Thernstrom. Hoover Institution Press.
• 2012. "'Trickle Down' Theory and 'Tax Cuts for the Rich'" (Hoover Institution Press Publication 635) Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-1615-2. Google Books: EY3prsH-5bwC.