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âThe barbarians are not at the gates. They are inside the gatesâand have academic tenure, judicial appointments, government grants, and control of the movies, television, and other media.â
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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Itâs no wonder liberals keep doing this. They get to enjoy the praise and moral satisfaction, while others bear the consequences.
When the rewards are yours and the costs fall on someone else, thereâs little incentive to change course.
When the rewards are yours and the costs fall on someone else, thereâs little incentive to change course.
âLiberals take positions that make them look good and feel goodâand show very little interest in the actual consequences for others, even when liberal policies are leaving havoc in their wake.â
â Thomas Sowell
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âToday, wealth can leave the country when heavy taxes threaten itâinstantly, in an age of electronic financial transfersâand create jobs and economic growth overseas, instead of at home.â
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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âEnvy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, âsocial justice.ââ
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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A common misconception is that government must step in to fix market imperfections and produce better outcomes.
It falsely assumes that officials know individual circumstances better than the people themselves and are somehow not driven by self-interest like everyone else.
It falsely assumes that officials know individual circumstances better than the people themselves and are somehow not driven by self-interest like everyone else.
âThe fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.â
â Thomas Sowell
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âNo group votes more solidly for the Democrats than blacksâand no group suffers more as a result than blacks.â
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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âThe fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.â
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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Imposing rent control is like putting a thermometer in cold water when you have a fever and claiming that your fever is gone.
Either we keep pretending or we actually address the underlying problem.
Either we keep pretending or we actually address the underlying problem.
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Public office should be a temporary responsibility, not a lifelong career.
Those who make politics their career naturally become more concerned with winning reelection.
They may exaggerate problems and create âcrisesâ to gain more power and make themselves appear indispensable.
Those who make politics their career naturally become more concerned with winning reelection.
They may exaggerate problems and create âcrisesâ to gain more power and make themselves appear indispensable.
âThe last person to trust with power is someone who is dying to have it. The best person to wield power is someone who is reluctant to do so, but who will do it for a while as a civic duty.â
â Thomas Sowell
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âToo much of what is called âeducationâ is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.â
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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âAdvice to the young: You donât have to listen to anybody. You can learn everything from your own personal experience. Of course, you will be at least 50 years old by the time you know what you need to know at 25.â
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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The problem with government, Sowell argues, is that those who make decisions are rarely judged by the results they produce.
Government officials usually pay no price for being wrong, no matter how high a price others have to pay.
Government officials usually pay no price for being wrong, no matter how high a price others have to pay.
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Sowell has always been a man of principle.
As a young professor at Cornell, he removed a disruptive Black student who was not meeting the standards of a summer program he oversaw.
Cornell administrators overruled his decision and kept the student in the program. Sowell described the intervention as an example of âwhite liberal indulgenceâ toward Black students.
Sowell refused to compromise his principles and resigned from the Ivy League university, believing that Black students should be held to the same standards as everyone else.
As a young professor at Cornell, he removed a disruptive Black student who was not meeting the standards of a summer program he oversaw.
Cornell administrators overruled his decision and kept the student in the program. Sowell described the intervention as an example of âwhite liberal indulgenceâ toward Black students.
Sowell refused to compromise his principles and resigned from the Ivy League university, believing that Black students should be held to the same standards as everyone else.
Ian Rowe (@IanVRowe) tells the story of Thomas Sowell's resignation from Cornell University after the school's leadership declined to discipline a Black student for misconduct.
According to Rowe, Sowell's rejection of racial paternalism and refusal to lower expectations for an empowering model for challenging conventional wisdom on issues surrounding race and education.
Watch The Sowell Legacy on Hoover+: hoover.org/plus/research/âŚ
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âThe last person to trust with power is someone who is dying to have it. The best person to wield power is someone who is reluctant to do so, but who will do it for a while as a civic duty.â
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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It can be hard to wrap our heads around this because we have been taught all our lives that fascism is a far-right ideology.
But what Sowell says here is entirely accurate, and heâs far from the only thinker who has pointed this out.
Ayn Rand, for example, wrote that âfascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory.â
âBoth are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state,â Rand continued, noting that âfascism is not the product of the political âright,â but of the âleft.ââ
Similarly, F. A. Hayek wrote in his book The Road to Serfdom that âthe rise of fascism and Nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period, but a necessary outcome of those tendencies.â
Hayek made the point even more bluntly during an interview, saying, âThere is basically no difference between socialism and fascism.â
But what Sowell says here is entirely accurate, and heâs far from the only thinker who has pointed this out.
Ayn Rand, for example, wrote that âfascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory.â
âBoth are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state,â Rand continued, noting that âfascism is not the product of the political âright,â but of the âleft.ââ
Similarly, F. A. Hayek wrote in his book The Road to Serfdom that âthe rise of fascism and Nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period, but a necessary outcome of those tendencies.â
Hayek made the point even more bluntly during an interview, saying, âThere is basically no difference between socialism and fascism.â
Thomas Sowell explains why fascism and Nazism are left-wing ideologies:
âBack in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widelyâand correctlyâregarded as being on the political left.â
âJonah Goldbergâs great book âLiberal Fascismâ cites f the fascistsâ consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the leftâs embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.â
âMussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.â
âIt was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshootâand verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.â
âWhat socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise peopleâlike themselvesâneed to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.â
Source: âSocialist or Fascist?â (2012)
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A reminder from Thomas Sowell that poverty has been the normal condition of mankind throughout history.
What needs explaining is not why poverty exists, but how some countries have managed to become prosperous.
Wealth does not simply appear; it has to be created. We can raise f we understand and encourage the process of wealth creation.
What needs explaining is not why poverty exists, but how some countries have managed to become prosperous.
Wealth does not simply appear; it has to be created. We can raise f we understand and encourage the process of wealth creation.
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âSome immigrant groups seek to bring to America the very cultures whose failures led them to flee to this country.â
â Thomas Sowell
â Thomas Sowell
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As Thomas Sowell reminds us, we canât keep rewarding irresponsible behavior while expecting people to act more responsibly.
Preferential treatment is highly addictive. Once people grow accustomed to receiving special benefits, they begin to take them for granted and demand more.
Over time, many of them come to view equal treatment as discrimination and any reduction in those benefits as a violation of their rights.
Preferential treatment is highly addictive. Once people grow accustomed to receiving special benefits, they begin to take them for granted and demand more.
Over time, many of them come to view equal treatment as discrimination and any reduction in those benefits as a violation of their rights.
France has FREE health care, paid parental leave, paid family leave, FREE child care, FREE preschool, 5 weeks paid vacation, a 35 hour work week, generous unemployment and housing benefits, and heavily subsidized higher education.
Everything the left says they want AND THEY'RE RNING SHIT DOWN.
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Those who work hard and put in the extra hours will, over time, gain a substantial advantage over people who donât.
Itâs that simple.
Yet we have many people outraged by disparities in outcomes while ignoring the disparities in inputs.
Itâs that simple.
Yet we have many people outraged by disparities in outcomes while ignoring the disparities in inputs.
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What Sowell says here is really just common sense.
If you let in large numbers of people who hate you and your culture, you sure wonât have a shortage of problems.
Those who disagree may be so blinded by ideology that no amount of reasoning or empirical evidence would ever change their minds.
If you let in large numbers of people who hate you and your culture, you sure wonât have a shortage of problems.
Those who disagree may be so blinded by ideology that no amount of reasoning or empirical evidence would ever change their minds.
Thomas Sowell wrote this in 2015. His warning is as relevant as ever.
The situation will only get much worse if people continue to stand idly by.
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