Exploring Discrimination and Disparities Through the Work of Thomas Sowell

Joseph Myren: AWESOME

Canada on Oct 02, 2023

Lee: This book helped me understand the reasons for entrenched poverty much better. It should be read by any person who is interested in forming policies for solving poverty problems.

Canada on Sep 23, 2023

Alex: :) Great book and it came fast :)

Canada on Aug 22, 2023

C_R: There has never been a shortage of people eager to draw up blueprints for running other people’s lives. This is about the power to preempt other people’s decisions. Before you go and trade your freedom for equality, read this book.

Relating past social-justice visions to their contemporary opposites, Sowell compares the scholarly failure of Eugenics to contemporary Discrimination theories, showing how dangerous it is for society, to incessantly depict outcome differences as evidence or proof of malevolent actions. Dr. Sowell eviscerates a jungle of misinformation and misconceptions by the intelligentsia, government and social-activists with factual evidence. The intellectual group "Leaders" that brought us Eugenics in the 1st half of the twentieth century, which Hitler used as a basis for Mein Kampf and the Holocaust are now at polar opposites but still espousing Social-Justice malinformation with no scientific basis.

Against this backdrop, it seems especially important to re-examine these views, lest we become a people easily stampeded by rhetoric. Sowell shows among other things how the Social-Activists have skewed history, particularly with respect to slavery,...

United States on Jul 31, 2023

Amazon Customer: Magnífico como argumenta contra la imposición de lo políticamente correcto

Spain on Apr 23, 2022

Dave: The thing I've found about reading Sowell, is that I've thought a lot of this stuff myself, but not articulately or coherently, and I certainly couldn't have written it out with the clarity he does. But reading him is like a light going on. I'm not sure he's right about everything, but he seems to be right about a lot: empirical evidence should matter a lot in political decisions, and, as he argues, it does seem to be lacking, especially where it conflicts with liberal expectations.
Read this first for his clarity of expression; this is how I expect a philosopher to write (whether TS is a philosopher or an economist is nit picking), not the hand waving and obscurantism of such much 'academic' output. Then read it for the subtle damning of liberalism as at times intentionally racist, and when not intentionally, then unintentionally so. He really doesn't like minimum wages, not least because he thinks they priced blacks (disproportionately) out of entry level jobs, and led to black unemployment. Finally, read this because, even if you do side with, say, AOC or Bernie Saunders, Sowell puts the opposite case well, and at least you can learn what your opponents really think, and not...

United Kingdom on Apr 17, 2021

Richard Kirk: “Just the facts, ma’am.” That was Joe Friday’s interrogation refrain on Dragnet. The same comment could serve as the sub-title of Thomas Sowell’s recent book, Discrimination and Disparities. Few works focused on politically explosive topics maintain such a consistent focus on empirical evidence while avoiding rhetorical jabs at opponents. On the other hand, empirical evidence cuts deep, especially when critics can’t protest the author’s “nasty” style. As radio talker Larry Elder observes, “Facts are to liberals what kryptonite is to Superman.”
Sowell’s title, if employed by a member of the leftist intelligentsia, would doubtless imply a causal link between statistical disparities and some form of discrimination--usually racial. Sowell, by contrast, marshals an abundance of evidence to show that this automatic assumption isn’t justified. Focusing simply on statistical probabilities, Sowell notes that if five prerequisites are needed for success in a particular field, and if the chances are two out of three that any person will have each characteristic, the chance of possessing all five characteristics is still only one in eight--a calculation that helps...

United States on May 08, 2018