Table of Contents
PREFACE
Summarizing the work of a lifetime can be a challenge, even for someone who has stuck to one specialty. I found it even more challenging because of my very long lifetime and the wide-ranging fields in which I have written over the years, ranging from economic writings in academic journals to both humorous and serious newspaper columns on everything from baseball to politics to war to late-talking childrennot to mention a few books on history, housing, autobiography, intellectuals and race.
Frankly, it would never have occurred to me to try to collect all these very different things within the covers of one book, had the idea not been suggested to me by John Sherer, publisher of Basic Books. I am glad he did, however. A sampling of all these items may have more things to interest the general reader than a book devoted to one subject, aimed at one audience.
In each of the various sections of the bookwhether on culture, economics, politics, law, education or raceI have led off with newspaper columns before moving on to longer writings that permit more in-depth explorations. Each reader can choose from a wide spectrum of subjects to explore, and decide which to sample and which to go into more deeply. Some of the most popular of my newspaper columns have been those titled Random Thoughts. Various unrelated statements about the passing scene from some of these columns have been collected in the Random Thoughts section of this book.
My hope is that this large selection of my writings will reduce the likelihood that readers will misunderstand what I have said on many controversial issues over the years. Whether the reader will agree with all my conclusions is another question entirely. But disagreements can be productive, while misunderstandings seldom are.
One reason for some misunderstandings is that my approach and my goals have been too plain and straightforward for those people who are looking for hidden agendas or other complex motives. From an early age, I have been concerned with trying to understand the social problems that abound in any society. First and foremost, this was an attempt to try to grasp some explanation of the puzzling and disturbing things going on around me. This was all for my own personal clarification, since I had neither political ambitions nor the political talents required for either elective or appointed office. But, once having achieved some sense of understanding of particular issuesa process that sometimes took yearsI wanted to share that understanding with others. That is the reason for the things that appear in this book.
Thomas Sowell
The Hoover Institution
Stanford University
EDITORIAL NOTE
Identifying the books from which the material excerpted here has been taken will be done in the Sources section at the end of the book, for the benefit of those readers who might want to read the fuller accounts in the original. However, no similar reason applies to the numerous columns of mine reprinted from newspapers and magazines over the years, so these sources are not listed.
Thanks are due to the Yale University Press for permission to reprint my critique of John Stuart Mills On Liberty from On Classical Economics and the first chapter of Affirmative Action Around the World. The autobiographical material is reprinted with the kind permission of The Free Press to excerpt the first and last chapters of A Personal Odyssey. Other material excerpted here from Basic Economics, Intellectuals and Society, Migrations and Cultures, The Vision of the Anointed, Applied Economics and Conquests and Cultures are all from books that are already the property of Basic Books. The chapter titled Marx the Man is from Marxism: Philosophy and Economics, which is out of print and whose copyright is mine.
Thanks are also due to my dedicated and hard-working research assistants, Na Liu and Elizabeth Costa, who have contributed so much to the original writings from which these excerpts are taken, as well as to the production of this book. I am also grateful to the Hoover Institution, which has made all our work possible.
SOCIAL ISSUES
GRASSHOPPER AND ANT
Just as the Rocky and Star Wars movies had their sequels, so should the old classic fables. Here is the sequel to a well-known fable.
Once upon a time, a grasshopper and an ant lived in a field. All summer long, the grasshopper romped and played, while the ant worked hard under the boiling sun to store up food for the winter.
When winter came, the grasshopper was hungry. One cold and rainy day, he went to ask the ant for some food.
What are you, crazy? the ant said. Ive been breaking my back all summer long while you ran around hopping and laughing at me for missing all the fun in life.
Did I do that? the grasshopper asked meekly.
Yes! You said I was one of those old-fashioned clods who had missed the whole point of the modern self-realization philosophy.
Gee, Im sorry about that, the grasshopper said. I didnt realize you were so sensitive. But surely you are not going to hold that against me at a time like this.
Well, I dont hold a grudgebut I do have a long memory.
Just then another ant came along.
Hi, Lefty, the first ant said.
Hi, George.
Lefty, do you know what this grasshopper wants me to do? He wants me to give him some of the food I worked for all summer, under the blazing sun.
I would have thought you would already have volunteered to share with him, without being asked, Lefty said.
What!!
When we have disparate shares in the bounty of nature, the least we can do is try to correct the inequity.
Natures bounty, my foot, George said. I had to tote this stuff uphill and cross a stream on a logall the while looking out for ant-eaters. Why couldnt this lazy bum gather his own food and store it?
Now, now, George, Lefty soothed. Nobody uses the word bum anymore. We say the homeless.
I say bum. Anyone who is too lazy to put a roof over his head, who prefers to stand out in this cold rain to doing a little work
The grasshopper broke in: I didnt know it was going to rain like this. The weather forecast said fair and warmer.
Fair and warmer? George sniffed. Thats what the forecasters told Noah!
Lefty looked pained. Im surprised at your callousness, Georgeyour selfishness, your greed.
Have you gone crazy, Lefty?
No. On the contrary, I have become educated.
Sometimes thats worse, these days.
Last summer, I followed a trail of cookie crumbs left by some students. It led to a classroom at Ivy University.
Youve been to college? No wonder you come back here with all these big words and dumb ideas.
I disdain to answer that, Lefty said. Anyway, it was Professor Murkys course on Social Justice. He explained how the worlds benefits are unequally distributed.
The worlds benefits? George repeated. The world didnt carry this food uphill. The world didnt cross the water on a log. The world isnt going to be eaten by any ant-eater.
Thats the narrow way of looking at it, Lefty said.
If youre so generous, why dont you feed this grasshopper?
I will, Lefty replied. Then, turning to the grasshopper, he said: Follow me. I will take you to the governments shelter, where there will be food and a dry place to sleep.
