Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell (born 1930) is noted for his conservative views on social and economic issues. An African American author and economist, Sowell opposes such programs as affirmative action, busing, racial quotas, minimum wage, and welfare. He has drawn fire from liberals and a number of African Americanleaders, while generating applause from fellow conservatives.

Sowell is an advocate of the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" philosophy, which encourages people to improve their positions not by government intervention, but by personal ambition and hard work. He believes that government initiatives to ensure a fair playing field for African Americans have actually hurt their chances for equality. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with his views, Sowell is respected as a top economist, having published extensively in economic journals and general periodicals. He also spent the better part of three decades teaching in prestigious academic institutions. Into the 1990s, his name was commonly seen in a weekly column for Forbes magazine and on his syndicated column appearing in newspapers nationwide. Sowell is the author of over 20 books and has edited or contributed to others. "The word 'genius' is thrown around so much that it's becoming meaningless," remarked renowned economist Milton Friedman in Forbes, "but nevertheless I think Tom Sowell is close to being one."

Sowell was born June 30, 1930, in Gastonia, North Carolina, and spent much of his youth in Charlotte, North Carolina. Being a very private person, not much is known about his family or early years, except that he moved to Harlem in New York City with his parents at around the age of eight or nine. His father worked in the construction industry. Sowell attended classes for gifted students and was ranked at the top of his class at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School. He left school in tenth grade and worked for the next four years in a factory, as a delivery person, and as a Western Union messenger. These lean early years would heavily influence his politics later in life and provide him with arguments during debates with liberal leaders.

Higher Education

Sowell completed high school by attending night classes, then was drafted to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1951. He spent two years at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where he worked as a photographer. Thanks to the G.I. Bill, he enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C., a majority African American institution, while working part-time as a photographer and a civil service clerk for the General Accounting Office. After three semesters, Sowell transferred to Harvard University. There, he wrote his senior thesis on the German political philosopher, Karl Marx. Sowell graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1958. A Marxist sympathizer as an undergraduate, Sowell gradually became more conservative as he pursued his master's degree at Columbia University. He continued his education at the University of Chicago, where he studied under economist and Nobel laureate, Milton Friedman, and George Stigler. Sowell obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1968.

Academic and Government Employment

Sowell began his illustrious professional career as a summer intern in 1960, then as an employee of the U.S. Department of Labor in 1960-61 as an economist. From there, he taught at Rutgers (1962-63) and Howard (1963-64) universities, later taking a post as an economic analyst with AT&T from 1964-65. Sowell taught from 1965-69 as an assistant professor of economics at Cornell and spent the summer of 1968 there as the director of the Summer Intensive Training Program in Economic Theory. After teaching from 1969-70 at Brandeis, Sowell went to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as an associate professor of economics, where he was promoted to full professor in 1974. He also served as project director of the Urban Institute from 1972-74. Sowell stayed at UCLA until 1980 and also taught there from 1984-89. In 1980, he was named a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan took control of the presidency and ushered in a conservative political era that would last most of the decade. It seemed that Sowell's time had come. He organized a Black Alternatives Conference in San Francisco to publicize the conservative voice of African Americans. About 100 Republican business professionals and educators attended, advocating right-wing policies such as lowering the minimum wage, doing away with rent control, and reorganizing federal programs. After that event, Edwin Meese III, then the director of Reagan's transition team, announced that the new president would appoint African Americans to his cabinet and other high-level positions. Sowell was offered a cabinet post, but did not even entertain the notion. According to a Newsweekpiece from the time, "Such active participation in politics … would only damage his scholarly reputation." In February 1981, Sowell agreed to serve on the White House Economic Advisory Board, but resigned after one meeting. The distance between Washington, D.C. and his home in Palo Alto, California, was "too much of a strain," as People Weekly reported.

Wrote for Mass Media

Sowell continued working at the Hoover Institute, teaching at UCLA for part of the decade, and penning his controversial ideas. A prolific writer for much of his career, Sowell has churned out books nearly every year since 1971 and has contributed regularly to scholarly economic journals as well as periodicals, such as the New York Times Magazine and Spectator. His topics range from law to education in addition to economics and race relations. In 1984, Sowell began writing a newspaper column, believing that if George Will could make a point in 750 words, so could he. He was a regular columnist for the Scripps-Howard news service from 1984-90, then began writing a column for the weekly Forbes magazine as well as newspaper columns for the Creators Syndicate in 1991. He has been criticized by fellow economists who think his academic papers are not "formal" enough, but Forbes defended him by saying that his work was readable and not bogged down in algebraic formulas. A biography of Sowell on the web explained his desire to publish in the mass media: "Writing for the general public enables him to address the heart of issues without the smoke and mirrors that so often accompany academic writing."

Controversial Views

Readers have also been taken aback by Sowell's authorship. His conservative opinions have been the cause of dissent. One of Sowell's often-targeted beliefs is that poverty among minority groups is less a result of racial and social discrimination than of a group's values, ethics, and attitudes. He contends that if discrimination is to blame for a group's lack of progress, then many of the Japanese, Chinese, and Jewish groups in America would never have reached the level of prosperity that they enjoy. As an example, he says that Chinese immigrants from a certain province have had more success in America than those from other areas. Those older immigrants from the Toishan district of the Kwantung Province are affluent, whereas newer immigrants from various other areas work in sweatshops and live in poverty. As he asserted in U.S. News & World Report, "The two have different cultures, and that accounts for the contrast in their situations. … The enormous difference between the groups cannot in any way be attributed to how the larger society treats Chinese people, because the average American employer cannot tell the two apart." He also cited statistics on West Indian blacks, who have higher incomes than whites in the United States, yet cannot be distinguished from other African Americans.

Sowell believes that government programs such as busing black children to white schools, welfare, affirmative action programs, and other social programs have hurt blacks by causing them to rely too heavily on government safety nets instead of using their own motivation to succeed. He also has said that government programs will harm African Americans by fueling racist sentiments of whites upset by busing, quotas, and other laws that Sowell feels discriminate against the majority. He claimed in U.S. News and World Report that the status of African Americans was rising prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and that they were making strides in housing integration and career advancement. Thus the act did not really have the impact that people thought it did.

Sowell's 1990 book, Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, dealt specifically with the issue of affirmative action. In it, he vehemently opposed quotas in college admissions and jobs, using examples not just from American society, but from around the world. He argued that preferential treatment led to relaxed standards, which caused people to fail to reach their true potential. Quotas caused underprepared members of minority groups to suffer frustration and a higher drop-out rate, or may be a reason they were steered to "softer" fields of concentration instead of more practical pursuits at schools that fit their pace. Sowell also believed that quotas led to more interracial tension on campuses. Andrew Hacker in the New York Times Book Review related Sowell's claims that policies such as affirmative action make the "trendy middle classes" feel virtuous, as if they were somehow making up for slavery or for overrunning a native culture. Sowell disagreed with those who called for reparations to be paid by the government to African Americans for the slavery they endured, arguing that African Americans today should progress to thinking about the present, not the past.

Not surprisingly, many liberal African American leaders, including Jesse Jackson and Benjamin Hooks, as well as left-wing whites took offense with Sowell's arguments, saying, ironically, that he is the one promoting racism, and that his arguments are too simplistic. Economist Bernard Anderson of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School asserted in Newsweek, "We cannot separate the incredible gains that have been made [by blacks] from the strong role that the government has played." He added that the U.S. government is the largest single employer of middle-class African Americans in the nation. People Weekly reported that Carl T. Rowan charged that Sowell gave "aid and comfort to America's racists," but that "Sowell has dismissed Rowan as an 'idiot' whose 'dumb remarks' intimidate blacks holding differing views."

Sowell also expressed strong opinions in 1995, after publication of the controversial study, The Bell Curve. Emotions were highly charged when the book was released asserting that intelligence quotient (IQ) is genetic and that blacks scored lower on IQ tests than whites. Though it was derided by many as having a cultural bias, Sowell defended much of the study, detailing his arguments in a lengthy article in American Spectator. He did point out aspects that troubled him, but overall, he stated, "Contrary to much hysteria in the media, this is not a book about race, nor is it trying to prove that blacks are capable only of being hewers of wood and drawers of water."

With the repealing of affirmative action laws and the ensuing debates in the late 1990s, Sowell's works were more salient than ever. He continued to write a weekly column for Forbes, publish books, and make numerous appearances on the lecture circuit. Divorced from his first wife, Alma Jean Parr, he married again in the early 1980s, but remained secretive about his personal life; his name was not even posted on his office door at the Hoover Institute. He was reputed to be blunt and impatient, but humorous and outgoing among friends. Indeed, his wit often showed through in his writing. Known for his satire as well as his serious messages, Forbes once reprinted Sowell's "glossary of common political terms" as published in National Review, which included gems such as "Equal opportunity: Preferential treatment," "Stereotypes: Behavior patterns you don't want to think about," "Demonstration: A riot by people you agree with," "Mob violence: A riot by people you disagree with," "A proud people: Chauvinists you like," and "Bigots: Chauvinists you don't like."

Sowell's intent not to be swayed by voices of dissent among other African American leaders may be illustrated by one of his favorite quotations, as listed on his own home page and attributed to David Ricardo: "I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind."

Further Reading

American Spectator, February 1, 1995, p. 32.

Forbes, August 24, 1987, p. 40; August 26, 1996.

Newsweek, March 9, 1981, p. 29.

New York Times Book Review, July 1, 1990.

People Weekly, December 28, 1981, p. 66.

U.S. News & World Report, October 12, 1981, p. 74.

Washington Times, September 18, 1995.

"Biography of Thomas Sowell," Conservative Current web site, http://www.townhall.com (April 28, 1998).

"Favorite Quotations," Thomas Sowell home page, http://www.tsowell.com (April 28, 1998).

"Online News Hour: A Gergen Dialogue with Thomas Sowell-July 11, 1996," PBS web site, http://www.pbs.org (April 28, 1998).

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economist; writer

Personal Information

Born June 30, 1930, in Gastonia, NC; married Alma Jean Parr; children: two.
Education: Harvard University, A.B., 1958; Columbia University, A.M., 1959; University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1968.
Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Marine Corps, 1951-53.
Memberships: American Economics Association, National Academy of Education.

Career

U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC, economist, 1961-62; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, instructor in economics, 1962-63; Howard University, Washington, DC, lecturer in economics, 1963-64; American Telephone & Telegraph Co., economic analyst, 1964-65; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, assistant professor of economics, 1965-69, director of Summer Intensive Training Program in Economic Theory, 1968; Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, associate professor of economics, 1969-70; University of California, Los Angeles, associate professor, 1970-72, professor of economics, 1974-80; Urban Institute, project director, 1972-74; writer. Amherst College, visiting professor of economics, 1977; Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA, fellow, 1977; Stanford University, Hoover Institution, fellow, 1977, senior fellow, 1980--.

Life's Work

In 20 years of prolific writing, Thomas Sowell has expressed his controversial views concerning race, ethnicity, and economics, often earning the label of visionary among conservatives and scoundrel among liberals. Believing blacks would be better off if they advanced by their own means, the conservative economist harshly criticizes ideas that most black leaders hold as essential to the social and economic advancement of the race, including affirmative action, minimum wage laws, and government assistance laws. In 1981 Newsweek described Sowell as "the intellectual fountainhead of the black conservatives" and "{President} Ronald Reagan's favorite black intellectual," while black commentator Carl T. Rowan once called him an "Aunt Jemima, giving aid and comfort to America's racists," according to People.

Hailed as "one of the brightest men around doing social research," by columnist William F. Buckley, as quoted by People, Sowell has taught at some of America's most prestigious universities and was offered a Cabinet post in the Reagan administration in 1981, which he turned down. As he told Forbes, "I don't want to make policy. There are thousands of people in Washington who can formulate policy. What's really crucial is that they have the facts straight before doing it, which by no means is the usual case." Sowell did join the White House Economic Policy Advisory Board in February of 1981, but resigned after one meeting, saying the trip from his Palo Alto, California, home was too much of a strain. An intensely private person, Sowell has a false nameplate on his office door at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and keeps his home number and private life a secret, including details about his two marriages.

Sowell's life experiences illustrate the values of self-help and determination he expounds on in his writing. He was born June 30, 1930, in Gastonia, North Carolina, and when he was eight years old, he moved with his parents to Harlem, New York, where his father worked in construction. Though ranked at the top of his high school class, Sowell dropped out after ninth grade to deliver telegrams for 65 cents an hour. Working odd jobs in his teenage years was an "invaluable experience," Sowell recalled People. Once he had to sell his only suit to buy food--a knish and an orange soda. "Since then ... I've eaten at the Waldorf and the White House. It has never been as good."

Sowell finished high school at night and enrolled at Howard University after a stint in the Marines. He transferred to Harvard University, where he wrote his senior honors thesis on the theories of left-wing German political philosopher Karl Marx and graduated magna cum laude in 1958. A committed Marxist when he left Harvard, Sowell gradually shifted his beliefs to the right during graduate studies at Columbia University and later at the University of Chicago. During the 1960s, Sowell's academic sojourn took him to teaching positions at various universities with brief stops as an economic analyst at the U.S. Labor Department and American Telephone & Telegraph Company. For the better part of the 1970s, he taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and in 1980 he became a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Sowell's overtly conservative views, asserted in such books as 1981's Ethnic America: A History, quickly made him a target of criticism from liberals. One of his more controversial beliefs is that poverty among minority groups is less a result of racial and societal discrimination than of a group's values, ethics, and attitudes. If discrimination alone were to hold a segment of the population back, Sowell contends, American Japanese, Chinese, or Jewish populations would never have accomplished what they have. In Ethnic America, Sowell writes that government assistance debilitates people who could make it on their own. To illustrate, he points to hundreds of small businesses successfully established during the economic depression of the 1930s by the low-income followers of Harlem's Father Divine and contrasts them with "the massive business failures under the government-sponsored black-capital programs of the sixties and seventies."

Sowell further suggests that "ghettoized urban blacks are like immigrants having headed north in waves from the foreign world of the rural South only in this century," according to Newsweek. They are now in the second generation, he says, comparable to Irish-Americans of a century ago. "Just as the Irish progressed rapidly ... without government aid, so can urban blacks." Though the economist concedes that federal legislative and judicial efforts in the 1950s and 1960s were a substantial benefit to blacks in outlawing segregation and blatant discrimination, he believes such legislation as 1964's Civil Rights Act was counterproductive. "He is incensed by the 'social reformers' who 'don't take seriously the ideas and interests of poor people,'" observed a writer in Newsweek. "Says Sowell: 'Maybe people are poor not because they have made bad decisions, but because other people have made bad decisions for them. The liberals and civil-rights organizations have their own grand designs to impose on blacks. And the government is there to see you have no other choice.... If you allow the people to decide, you eliminate all the middlemen, the researchers, consultants and economists who fatten themselves at the expense of the poor.'"

Such opinions have alienated Sowell from liberal black leaders, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Benjamin Hooks. Denouncing tenets like affirmative action and busing black children to white schools, which he feels are underlying causes of racial disharmony, Sowell has also spoken of "undoing the harm" resulting from minimum wage laws. He told U.S. News & World Report that such legislation makes it difficult for the poor to get anywhere in society. "Back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the black teenage unemployment rate was a fraction of what it became by the 1970s," he said. "When you raise the wages of unskilled labor, you lead people to substitute capital for labor, and that helps produce high unemployment." He pointed out in Forbes the important lessons a teenager learns from having a job: "The 14-year-old shoving burgers across the counter at McDonald's ... learns to get there on time, or the manager will fire him." Government programs "let {teens} get away with things they would never get away with in private industry. If you didn't give in, you wouldn't have a program. We shouldn't train people to think that all the world is like a government program." Sowell's thoughts on the minimum wage have drawn criticism, notably from economist Bernard Anderson of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, who told Newsweek that paying teens a sub-minimum wage would "just give the employer the incentive to fire the father and hire the son."

Concerning the issue of busing children to forcibly integrate schools, Sowell concludes that the situation does not benefit black children, and it makes white adults angry. The U.S. Supreme Court's integration decision reflects a paternalistic attitude toward blacks, he believes, and implies that black children can't learn anything unless they go to school with whites. Sowell similarly scorns affirmative action and racial quotas. "Since affirmative action has come in," Sowell commented in Forbes in 1981, "Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans and blacks don't have any higher income than they had before, compared to whites. In some cases they have less." In the same interview he chastised some black leaders who receive federal money to fund various social programs for blacks. He believes most blacks would prefer lower taxes to a few federally funded social programs. "I suspect that black people in general would be much more receptive to {cutting government funding} than the 'black leadership.' Blacks have no vested interest in high taxes. They don't have many tax shelters. I'm sure there are far more blacks paying these incredible tax rates than there are on welfare." Sowell further argues that black leadership represents a privileged few who view blacks as victims of racism who can only progress as far as the government will take them. "Black leaders ... are providing fuel to extremist groups like the {fascist} Nazis and the {white supremacist} Ku Klux Klan through such programs as quotas and busing, which are producing no tangible benefits for blacks as a whole," Sowell remarked in U.S. News & World Report in 1981. Ten years later, the economist's words echoed true as radical right-wing groups attacked such programs and used them as political weapons against blacks in general.

In 1987, Sowell wrote A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggle, in which he hypothesizes the origins of the political battle between right and left in terms of opposing world outlooks. Sowell defined the two views of mankind as "constrained" and "unconstrained"; the New York Times further described this theory as "two divergent visions of man and society that {Sowell} convincingly contends underlie many of the political, economic and social clashes of the last two centuries and remain very much with us today." The unconstrained vision sees people as guided by reason and ever able to improve themselves and their surroundings. The constrained vision, on the other hand, imagines people basing their behavior on self-interest and possessing a limited ability to alter their surroundings. In short, as Time put it, "the unconstrained see humans as perfectible, the constrained as forever flawed."

In A Conflict of Visions, Sowell uses the two concepts to illustrate the basis for political and social actions. The unconstrained--or leftists--Sowell writes, believe in government policies to improve life, and the constrained--or rightists--tout the workings of free market systems. To battle crime, seers of the unconstrained vision try to get to the cause of the problem, fighting poverty and unemployment, while those closer to the constrained vision count on the deterrence of the penal system. Furthermore, the unconstrained advocate equal income for all, and the constrained espouse equal opportunities to earn income. At the core of the idea of "social justice," a phrase created by those with an unconstrained vision, Sowell opines, is the "notion that individuals are entitled to some share of the wealth produced by a society, simply by virtue of being members of that society and irrespective of any individual contributions made or not made to the production of that wealth."

Sowell acknowledges that not every social theory falls easily into one category or the other. But a New York Times writer observed that " A Conflict of Visions does lay out styles of thinking that we can readily recognize today in the divisions between left and right on matters from nuclear arms to dangerous subways, illegitimate births and affirmative action. It helps us to see where, as they say, our political theorists are coming from."

In his 1990 book, Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, Sowell sharply criticizes the use of preferential quotas in college admissions and employment opportunities, using examples from societies around the globe. Sowell attacks affirmative action policies in the United States and particularly the motives behind them. The New York Times wrote that Sowell "reserves his greatest contempt for the 'trendy middle class,' which support preference for certain groups because it makes them feel more virtuous." Preferential treatment and relaxed standards, the book argues, can keep people from reaching their full potential. On the college campus, for example, relaxed admissions standards for certain groups can be detrimental to minority students; some black students may not be properly prepared for the pressure and competition of the university setting and may find themselves in a "softer" field of concentration instead of in a more practical field at a school more suited to their abilities. The result, Sowell asserts, may be heightened interracial tensions on campus.

In many of his previous writings, Sowell disputes the use of statistical disparities as being the result of racism. 1984's Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?, for example, questions whether differences in income, jobs, and education were proof of racial discrimination, citing that blacks hit on average many more home runs than Hispanics in major league baseball, but that doesn't prove discrimination is the reason. Though critics charged Sowell with oversimplifying the argument, he expressed a similar viewpoint in 1990 in the Wall Street Journal: "Both majorities and minorities have been over-represented and under-represented in institutions and occupations that were good, bad and indifferent. Such widespread statistical disparities make it arbitrary to treat particular disparities as weighty evidence of discrimination."

Though his views frequently stir up controversy and are diametrically opposed to those of most black leaders, Sowell is confident, according to Newsweek, in the black community's ability "to pull itself up by its own bootstraps." In general, the economist is more interested in "the improvement by degrees of the black masses than in the government efforts to shoehorn a few fortunate blacks into symbolic positions," commented a Forbes contributor. "People ask me," Sowell noted in Forbes, "'Don't you get an awful lot of flak from blacks?' No, I don't. There is a handful of black intellectuals screaming and yelling, and there are people who have vested interests in programs I criticize, but people know I'm being straight."

Works

Writings

• (Contributor) Readings in the History of Economic Thought, edited by I. H. Rima, Holt, 1970.
• Economics: Analysis and Issues, Scott, Foresman & Co., 1971.
• Black Education: Myths and Tragedies, David McKay Co., 1972.
• Say's Law: An Historical Analysis, Princeton University Press, 1972.
• Classical Economics Reconsidered, Princeton University Press, 1974.
• Affirmative Action: Was It Necessary in Academia?, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1975.
• Race and Economics, David McKay Co., 1975.
• Patterns of Black Excellence, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Georgetown University, 1977.
• (Editor) American Ethnic Groups, Urban Institute, 1978.
• (Editor) Essays and Data on American Ethnic Groups, Urban Institute, 1978.
• Knowledge and Decisions, Basic Books, 1980.
• Markets and Minorities, Basic Books, 1980.
• Pink and Brown People, and Other Controversial Essays, Hoover Institution Press, 1981.
• Ethnic America: A History, Basic Books, 1981.
• The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective, William Morrow & Co., 1983.
• Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?, William Morrow & Co., 1985.
• Marxism: Philosophy and Economics, William Morrow & Co., 1985.
• Education: Assumptions Versus History, Hoover Institution Press, 1986.
• A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, William Morrow & Co., 1987.
• Compassion Versus Guilt, William Morrow & Co., 1987.
• Judicial Activism Reconsidered, Hoover Institution Press, 1989.
• Choosing a College: A Guide for Parents and Students, Harper & Row, 1989.
• Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, William Morrow & Co., 1990.
• Syndicated newspaper columnist; contributor to numerous periodicals, including Forbes, Commentary, Conservative Digest, Current, Ethics, Economic Review, Education Digest, Social Research, Oxford Economic Papers, and Economica.

Further Reading

Sources

• Forbes, September 14, 1981; August 24, 1987.
• Fortune, March 16, 1987.
• Nation, October 10, 1981.
• Newsweek, March 9, 1981.
• New York Times, January 24, 1987; July 1, 1990.
• New York Times Book Review, January 25, 1987.
• People, December 28, 1981.
• Time, March 16, 1987.
• U.S. News & World Report, October 12, 1981.
• Wall Street Journal, March 6, 1990.

— John P. Cortez

Thomas Sowell

New Social Economics
Born	June 30, 1930 (1930-06-30) (age 81) Gastonia, North Carolina
Nationality	American
Institution	Hoover Institution (1980–present) UCLA (1970–1972, 1974–1980) Urban Institute (1972–1974) Brandeis University (1969–1970) Cornell University (1965–1969)
Field	Economics, Education, Politics, History, Race relations, Child development
Influences	Milton Friedman, George Stigler, F. A. Hayek
Influenced	Clarence Thomas, Milton Friedman, Steven Pinker
Awards	Military Service: United States Marine Corps, Corporal, Francis Boyer Award, National Humanities Medal, Bradley Prize, getAbstract International Book Award

Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a conservative and libertarian perspective. He is currently a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Sowell was born in North Carolina, but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school, and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He had received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his doctorate degree in economics from the University of Chicago.

Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell and University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980 he has worked at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of more than 30 books.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Writings 2.1 Columns 3 Critical reception 3.1 Awards 3.2 Political views 3.3 Economics 4 Career highlights 5 Books by Sowell 6 See also 7 References 8 External links 8.1 Articles and interviews

Biography

An African-American, Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina. His father died shortly before he was born, and his mother, a house maid, already had four children. A great-aunt and her two grown daughters adopted Sowell and raised him.^[1] In his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, he said his childhood encounters with white people were so limited that he did not believe blond was really a hair color.^[2] When Sowell was nine, his family moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Harlem, New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, 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.^[1] He worked at a number of jobs, including at a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union,^[3] and tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948.^[4] Sowell was drafted in 1951, during the Korean War, and was assigned to the Marine Corps. Because of his experience in photography, he was assigned as a photographer, but he also trained Marines in .45 caliber pistol proficiency.^[1]

After his discharge, Sowell worked a civil service job in Washington, D.C. and attended night classes at Howard University, admitted on the basis of his General Education certificate. 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.^[1][5] He received a Master of Arts from Columbia University the following year, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.^[5]

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.^[6]

Sowell has taught economics at Howard University, Rutgers, Cornell, Brandeis University, Amherst College, and UCLA. 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.^[5][7]

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 judicial activism, a concept that Bork opposed, "has not been beneficial to minorities."^[8]

Sowell has stated that he was a Marxist “during the decade of my 20s"; one of his earliest professional publications was a sympathetic examination of Marxist thought vs. Marxist-Leninist practice.^[9] 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 a correlation 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]

Writings

Sowell is both a syndicated columnist and an academic economist.

Besides scholarly writing, Sowell has written books, articles, and syndicated columns for a general audience in such publications as Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and major newspapers. He is a regular contributor to GOPUSA, a conservative web and email newsletter run by Endeavor Media Group, LLC. He primarily writes on economic subjects, generally advocating a free market approach to capitalism. Sowell, whose autobiography describes his serious study of Brady McGarry, opposes Marxism, providing a critique in his book Marxism: Philosophy and Economics.

Sowell also writes on racial topics and is a critic of affirmative action and race based quotas.^[11][12] While often described as a black conservative, he prefers not to be labeled, and considers himself more libertarian than conservative.^[13]

In another departure from economics, Sowell wrote The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, a follow-up to his Late-Talking Children. This book investigates the phenomenon of late-talking children, frequently misdiagnosed with autism or pervasive developmental disorder. He includes the research of—among others—Professor Stephen Camarata, Ph.D., of Vanderbilt University and Professor Steven Pinker, Ph.D., of Harvard University in this overview of a poorly understood developmental trait. It is a trait which he says affected many historical figures. He includes famous late-talkers such as physicists Albert Einstein, Edward Teller and Richard Feynman; mathematician Julia Robinson; and musicians Arthur Rubenstein and Clara Schumann. The book and its contributing researchers make a 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. The book contradicts Simon Baron-Cohen’s speculation that Einstein may have had Asperger syndrome (see also people speculated to have been autistic).

Themes of Sowell’s writing range from social policy on race, ethnic groups, education and decision-making, to classical and Marxist economics, to the problems of children perceived as having disabilities.

In Intelligence and Ethnicity, Sowell argues that 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 particular ethnic white groups in years past.

Sowell has also written a trilogy of books on ideologies and political positions, including A Conflict of Visions where he speaks about the origins of political strife, The Vision of the Anointed, where he compares the conservative/libertarian and liberal/progressive worldviews,The Quest for Cosmic Justice, where, like in many of his other writings, he outlines the 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, where he discusses what he argues to be the blind hubris and follies of intellectuals in a variety of areas, building on his earlier work.

Sowell takes strong issue with the notion of government as a helper or savior of minorities, arguing that the historical record shows quite the opposite.

Sowell also challenges the notion that black progress is due to progressive government programs or policies, in The Economics and Politics of Race, (1983), Ethnic America (1981), Affirmative Action (2004), and other books. He claims that many problems identified with blacks in modern society are hardly unique in terms of American ethnic groups, nor in terms of a rural proletariat swept by disruption as it became urbanized, discussed in his book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals.

In Affirmative Action Around the World^[14] Sowell holds that affirmative action covers most of the American population, particularly women, and has long since ceased to be directed towards blacks.

Columns

Sowell has a nationally syndicated column distributed by Creators Syndicate that appears in various newspapers, as well as online on websites such as Townhall, WorldNetDaily, OneNewsNow and the Jewish World Review.^[15]

Sowell comments on issues he considers to be problematic in modern-day society, which include liberal media bias;^[16] judicial activism (while staunchly defending originalism);^{[17][18][19][20][21]} partial birth abortion;^[22] the minimum wage; socializing health care; government undermining of familial autonomy; affirmative action; government ^[23] bureaucracy; militancy in U.S. foreign policy; the U.S. war on drugs, and multiculturalism.^[24]

Sowell supports free market and pro-growth economics. In one column he criticized as socialism for the rich certain policies which he describes as benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the poor.^[25]

Sowell in a Townhall editorial, "The Bush Legacy," assessed President George W. Bush, deeming him "a mixed bag," but "an honorable man."^[26]

Sowell also favors decriminalization of all drugs.^[27]

In November, 2011, a column fiercely critical of "Obama's America" and falsely attributed to Sowell was circulated on the Internet.^[28]

Critical reception

Awards

In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 1998 he received the Sydney Hook Award from the National Association of Scholars.^[29] In 2002, Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. In 2003, he was awarded the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement.^[30] In 2004 he was given a Lysander Spooner Award for his book Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One.^[31] In 2008, getAbstract awarded his book Economic Facts and Fallacies with its International Book Award.

Political views

Sowell has been criticized for various remarks such as a comparison he made between President Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler in an editorial for Investor's Business Daily^[32] after the creation of a relief fund for the BP oil spill. This has been criticized by liberal groups such as Media Matters^[33] and the Democratic National Committee.^[34] However, Republicans such as Sarah Palin^[34] and Representative Louie Gohmert^[35] have endorsed Sowell's comparison. Sowell was also criticized for an editorial in which he stated that the Democratic Party played the Race card, instigating ethnic divisions and separatism, and argued that a similar situation occurred between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda.^[36][37]

Economics

The Economist magazine praised Sowell's books Affirmative Action Around the World as "terse, well argued and utterly convincing" and "crammed with striking anecdotes and statistics"^[38] and Economic Facts and Fallacies: "Mr Sowell marshals his arguments with admirable clarity and authority. There is not a chapter in which he does not produce a statistic that both surprises and overturns received wisdom."^[39]

The Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen reached conclusions inconsistent with Sowell's research of price gouging.^[40]

Reviewing Sowell's 1984 book Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?, University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson said that Sowell did not explore "reasonable alternative explanations and hypotheses" in his critiques of affirmative action. For instance, regarding Sowell's theory that women are underrepresented in fields like law and engineering because of the heavy responsibilities of marriage such as childrearing and other household work: "A plausible alternative to Mr. Sowell's hypothesis on women's pay differentials and occupational segregation is that women are virtually excluded from many desirable positions and therefore crowd into obtainable occupations."^[41] Sowell since then has written on affirmative action in an international context to address such criticisms in two books (Preferential Policies, Affirmative Action Around the World) and has written about pay differentials and occupational segregation in Economic Facts and Fallacies.

Career highlights

• Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, September 1980–present
• Professor of Economics, UCLA, July 1974–June 1980
• Visiting Professor of Economics, Amherst College, September–December 1977
• Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, April–August 1977
• Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, July 1976–March 1977
• Project Director, The Urban Institute, August 1972–July 1974
• Associate Professor of Economics, UCLA, September 1970–June 1972
• Associate Professor of Economics, Brandeis University, September 1969–June 1970
• Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell University, September 1965–June 1969
• Economic Analyst, American Telephone & Telegraph Co., June 1964–August 1965
• Lecturer in Economics, Howard University, September 1963–June 1964
• Instructor in Economics, Douglass College, Rutgers University, September 1962–June 1963
• Labor Economist, U.S. Department of Labor, June 1961–August 1962

Books by Sowell

• 2011. The Thomas Sowell Reader. Basic Books. pp. 464. ISBN 978-0465022502. 
• 2011. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (4th edition ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Books Group. ISBN 978-046502252. 
• 2010. Dismantling America. Basic Books. pp. 352. ISBN 978-0465022519. 
• 2010. Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books. pp. 416. ISBN 978-0465019489. 
• 2009. The Housing Boom and Bust. Basic Books. pp. 184. ISBN 978-0465018802. 
• 2008. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One (2nd ed.). Basic Books. pp. 400. ISBN 978-0465003457. OCLC 260206351. 
• 2007. Economic Facts and Fallacies. Basic Books. pp. 262. ISBN 978-0465003495. 
• 2007. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (3rd edition ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Books Group. ISBN 978-0465002603. OCLC 76897806. 
• 2007. A Man of Letters. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 320. ISBN 978-1594031960. 
• 2006. Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. pp. 460. ISBN 978-0817947521. 
• 2006. On Classical Economics. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. 2006. pp. 320. ISBN 978-0300126068. 
• 2005. Black Rednecks and White Liberals: And Other Cultural And Ethnic Issues. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 360. ISBN 978-1594030864. 
• 2004. Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. pp. 256. ISBN 978-0300107753. 
• 2004. Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy, revised and expanded ed. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08145-2 (1st ed. 2000)
• 2003. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, ISBN 0-465-08143-6
• 2002. The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, ISBN 0-465-08141-X
• 2002. Controversial Essays, ISBN 0-8179-2992-4
• 2002. A Personal Odyssey, ISBN 0-684-86465-7
• 2002. The Quest For Cosmic Justice, ISBN 0-684-86463-0
• 1998. Conquests and Cultures: An International History, ISBN 0-465-01400-3
• 1996. Migrations and Cultures: A World View, ISBN 0-465-04589-8 OCLC 41748039
• 1996. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08995-X
• 1995. Race and Culture: A World View. Description & chapter previews. ISBN 0-465-06796-4
• 1993. Inside American Education, ISBN 0-7432-5408-2
• 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 0688-07114-7
• 1985. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Quill, ISBN 0-688-06426-4
• 1984. Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-03113-7
• 1983. The Economics and Politics of Race. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-01891-2
• 1981. Ethnic America: A History. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-02074-7
• 1981. Markets and Minorities. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-04399-2
• 1980. Knowledge and Decisions. Basic Books.
• 1975. Race and Economics. David McKay Company Inc, ISBN 0-679-30262-X
• 1972. Say's Law, An Historical Analysis. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04166-0

See also

Biography portal

• List of newspaper columnists

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Graglia, Nino A. (Winter 2001). "Profile in courage". Hoover Institution Newsletter. Hoover Institution. Archived from the original on September 9, 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050909080051/http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/pubaffairs/newsletter/01winter/review.html. 
2. ^ Sowell, A Personal Odyssey, p. 6.
3. ^ Sowell, A Personal Odyssey, pp. 47, 58, 59, 62.
4. ^ Nordlinger, Jay. "Brains and Nerve". National Review. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/258804/brains-and-nerve-jay-nordlinger. Retrieved 2011-02-03. 
5. ^ ^{a b c} Sowell, Thomas. "Curriculum vita". TSowell.com. http://www.tsowell.com/cv.html. Retrieved January 6, 2011. 
6. ^ "Charlie Rose - September 15, 1995". Youtube.com. http://youtube.com/watch?v=QFWuR_JxANE. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
7. ^ "Thomas Sowell". Hoover Institution. http://www.hoover.org/fellows/9767. Retrieved January 6, 2011. 
8. ^ Greenhouse, Linda (September 26, 1987). "Legal Establishment Divided Over Bork Nomination". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/26/us/the-bork-hearings-legal-establishment-divided-over-bork-nomination.html?pagewanted=all. Retrieved November 18, 2011.  Video of Sowell's testimony at C-SPAN
9. ^ Sowell, Thomas (1963). “Karl Marx and the Freedom of the Individual,” Ethics 73:2, p 120.
10. ^ Elizabeth, Mary (1999-11-10). "Black and right". Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
11. ^ "''Townhall.com''". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20030108.shtml. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
12. ^ "''Townhall.com''". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20030109.shtml. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
13. ^ Sawhill R. (1999) “Black and right: Thomas Sowell talks about the arrogance of liberal elites and the loneliness of the black conservative.” Salon.com. Accessed May 6, 2007.
14. ^ Sowell, Thomas (2004-10-30). "Affirmative Action around the World | Hoover Institution". Hoover.org. http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/8108. Retrieved 2011-01-30. 
15. ^ "Thomas Sowell". Jewishworldreview.com. 2009-11-06. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell.html. Retrieved 2011-05-30. 
16. ^ "Thomas Sowell, Conservative, Political News". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041012.shtml. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
17. ^ "Judicial Activism Reconsidered". Tsowell.com. http://www.tsowell.com/judicial.htm. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
18. ^ "Thomas Sowell, Conservative, Political News". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041109.shtml. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
19. ^ "Thomas Sowell, Conservative, Political News". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041110.shtml. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
20. ^ "Conservative Columnists and Political Commentary". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassf. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
21. ^ "Thomas Sowell, Conservative, Political News". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050914.shtml. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
22. ^ Sowell, Thomas. "Thomas Sowell : 'Partial truth' abortion". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2004/06/04/partial_truth_abortion. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
23. ^ "getAbstract International Book Award". getAbstract. http://www.getabstract.com/pages/0/web/BookAward.jsp. Retrieved July 22, 2011. 
24. ^ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/250190/cult-multiculturalism-thomas-sowell
25. ^ "Thomas Sowell". Jewishworldreview.com. http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell010036.php3. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
26. ^ Thomas Sowell (16 January 2009), The Bush Legacy, Townhall.com, http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2009/01/16/the_bush_legacy 
27. ^ Sowell, Thomas (1987); Compassion versus guilt, and other essays; ISBN 0688071147.
28. ^ http://blogs.knoxnews.com/editor/2011/11/thomas-sowell-letter-to-knoxvi.shtml
29. ^ Jim Nelson Black (2004). "Freefall of the American university". Nashville WND Books.
30. ^ Thomas Sowell. "Hoover Institution - Fellows - Thomas Sowell". Hoover.org. http://www.hoover.org/bios/sowell.html. Retrieved 2010-03-12. 
31. ^ "Hoover Fellow Thomas Sowell Receives Lysander Spooner Award for Applied Economics".
32. ^ Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny? Investor Business Daily.
33. ^ Sowell falsely claims Obama essentially "confiscated" $20 billion from BP and compares Obama to Hitler"
34. ^ ^{a b} "Sarah Palin praises column linking Obama, Hitler", Politico
35. ^ "Gohmert Endorses Sowell's Hitler Comparison", The Washington Monthly
36. ^ Race and Politics, Townhall.com
37. ^ Media Matters
38. ^ "Advantages for the advantaged", The Economist 371 (8380): p. 83, June 19, 2004, http://www.economist.com/node/2765848 
39. ^ "A black and white case". The Economist. January 3, 2008. http://www.economist.com/node/10424269. Retrieved July 22, 2011. 
40. ^ Amartya Sen Poverty and Famines. An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford) 1981
41. ^ Wilson, William Julius (June 24, 1984). "Hurting the Disadvantaged". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/24/books/hurting-the-disadvantaged.html?pagewanted=all. Retrieved January 5, 2011. 

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Thomas Sowell

• Thomas Sowell’s home page
  • Complete list of writings
• Thomas Sowell Features at Creators Syndicate
• Column archive at Townhall.com
• Free Podcasts of Sowell’s recent articles
• Archive of Articles by Thomas Sowell at JewishWorldReview.com
• Book review of The Einstein Syndrome by Isabelle Rapin, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
• Snopes.com on Various articles attributed to Thomas Sowell

Articles and interviews

• 'Uncommon Knowledge' Interviews (2008-2011)
• Booknotes interview with Sowell on Preferential Policies, June 10, 1990.
• Fox News - 'In the Right Direction' interview (2005)
• CSPAN - 'Q&A' interview (April 17, 2005)

• "A Dangerous Obsession" — Part I II, III, IV, and V
• "Too “Complex”?" — Part I, II, & III
• "Alice in Health Care" — Part I, II, III, IV
• "The 'Costs' of Medical Care" — Part I, II, III, IV
• Socialism for the rich by Thomas Sowell (October 6, 2006)
• “10 Questions With Thomas Sowell”, John Hawkins, Right Wing News. Sowell on flat-tax vs. progressive tax, rent-control, balanced budget amendments, protectionist tariffs, poverty and welfare, profit-restriction, illegal immigration, a weak dollar vs. a strong dollar, affirmative action, and reparations.
• 'Uncommon Knowledge' discussion of affirmative action
• Economic Fallacies -- Interview with Thomas Sowell by Bill Steigerwald
• Thomas Sowell- Columns on Jewish World Review website
• “Race and IQ” Detailed discussion of Race and IQ including techniques that have masked the improvement of black IQ scores.
• “Choosing a College” — discusses benefits and costs including college quality, size, specialty, intellectual rigor, social, political and sexual environment of today’s campuses. Recommends hard-nosed parental analysis (including campus visits) that ignores PR fluff and focuses on the bottom line
• “Affirmative Action around the World” - critical analysis of Affirmative Action and its failures worldwide.
• Salon interview with Sowell
• Audio interview with National Review Online
• Sowell on Economic Facts and Fallacies: Audio interview
• Sowell en español

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Persondata
Name	Sowell, Thomas
Alternative names
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Date of birth	1930-06-30
Place of birth	Gastonia, North Carolina
Date of death
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