News
The Wit and Wisdom of Thomas Sowell
by Ben Guthrie
News Staff Writer

On Tuesday, January 20, members of The Stanford Review gathered for the weekly lunch with a distinguished Hoover Fellow. The week's guest was the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow Thomas Sowell. Sowell has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and writes on economics, history, social policy, ethnicity, and the history of ideas. Sowell distributed to all in attendance copies of his recently revised book Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy (2004).

Sowell shared his wit and wisdom on a series of topics, including the following:

On Politics and the 2004 Presidential Campaign

"What depresses me most is that the media discusses politics as if it's about politicians, not about the people affected by the policies." About the Democratic contenders he said, "Dean lost [in Iowa], but Dean set the pace. Kerry followed, and carried it off with fewer gaffes." On President George W. Bush he remarked, "The real test of Bush will come if he wins a serious majority in both houses -- whether he belongs on Mt. Rushmore or on the ash heap of history."

On the Economy

When asked whether he thought the recent rebound in the economy is a result of supply side economics and Bush's tax cuts or a result of government spending, Sowell responded, "When it comes to short term analysis, I never make predictions."

On Taxation

When asked his opinion of the differences between a progressive tax and a flat tax, he replied, "I am for the flat tax. You can raise the same amount with a flat tax, [but] you penalize risk with a progressive tax."

Who is your favorite political philosopher and why?

"I don't know that I have a single favorite political philosopher. Hayek and Burke come to mind because both understand the limitations of human beings and that political institutions must be judged by how well they operate within those limitations. For them, the fact that some particular policy or institution sounds attractive is not sufficient unless and until the ability of human beings to carry out that policy or direct such an institution has been investigated. A third political philosopher would be Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes for the same reason, Holmes' judicial restraint being based on the severe limitations on what a judge is capable of accomplishing and the dangers of trying to accomplish more than that."

On Writing

When asked how he writes and what suggestions he would give to a budding writer, Sowell advised, "The only way I know of to be a good writer is to be a bad writer and keep on improving." And he added, "You have to be self-critical." In describing the way he writes, Sowell said, "I am writing several things at once. Basic Economics stretched [out] over a decade."

Do you have any advice for a young conservative at a liberal university?

"I have never been a young conservative at a liberal university, so I have no basis of experience on which to offer advice." Sowell revealed that when he was an undergraduate at Harvard in the 1950s, "I was a Marxist." He discussed his political and philosophical transformation saying, "It began slowly. I was a summer intern in Washington at the U.S. Department of Labor [1961], studying the sugar industry in Puerto Rico." Sowell was examining competing theories for the reduction in the number of jobs. One was the minimum wage, and the other was the destruction of sugar cane crops by hurricanes. He concluded that he needed data on the number of sugar canes before and after the hurricanes to empirically test that theory. However, the Department of Labor did not have that data so Sowell suggested getting it from the Department of Agriculture, which turned out to be an inconceivable proposal to the Department of Labor. Sowell was informed that he would need to write a letter to the Department of Agriculture in order to obtain the necessary information. Needless to say, he is still waiting for a response. What this experience taught young Sowell was that the Department of Labor was "clearly interested in their institutional interests, not the public interest." Gradually, Sowell came to understand that "this whole vision of the world seems to be wrong." This was the first step in Sowell's conversion, but he says, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."

On Liberty

Sowell favors negative liberty, which is freedom from coercion, to positive liberty, which is freedom to certain rights. He says that positive liberties are not liberty at all, "If you have a right to health care, then I have an obligation to pay for it, which is fundamentally an infringement on my liberty."

What are your current projects or books?

"My next book will be Affirmative Action Around the World, a study of preferential policies in various countries, with chapters devoted to India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and the United States."

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