"Start with equal wealth, finally equal poverty." "I have never seen any country in the world implement the policy that the United States has implemented for black people to help anyone get out of poverty. I have seen many examples of people in the world who started from scratch and eventually became rich. None of them followed the model that the United States has promoted for black people."
This is what the world's famous economist and social critic - Thomas Sowell said when criticizing the United States in 1981. In an era where journalists or scholars may destroy their future if they support unpopular ideas, the straightforwardness and persistence of the mavericks that follow the facts are more appreciated than ever.
This article, History will take you to learn about this "low-key" all-round scholar. Please listen to History. ≥▽≤
Sowell was born in 1930 in a rural American family that had no education. His family lived in a difficult life and was a veritable poor family. He later became an orphan and was raised by his relatives.
When he was 8 years old, the family moved to Harlem District in New York. For a while, he lived in a homeless boys shelter with a knife under his pillow to defend himself (which is enough to show how bad his living environment is). He finished college at the age of 28, and then obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago , becoming a world-renowned intellectual and writer. ^0^
His growing environment was not only a barrier he had to overcome, but also greatly trained his abilities, especially making him despise the elite intellectuals who impose their ideas on society through the US government.
in his memoirs wrote, "The people he came into contact with were neither well-educated nor high-level, but their practical wisdom was far more than mine." This made him always respect the common sense of ordinary people, and this factor is often ignored by intellectuals.
Sowell's works are quite controversial, with topics ranging from race to child development to Charter School and its enemies, the theme of his new documentary and the forthcoming biography Mavericks.
Let’s look at his career now and find that he has always been an incompetent person among intellectuals and can be said to be a “maverick” person. ≥▽≤
Perhaps today, it is considered a maverick to evaluate an intellectual like this:
① A person who disobeys the norm, speaks the truth first, and speaks outright.
② A person who puts truth above reputation and does not care whether he is politically correct.
③He follows the facts, regardless of whether the conclusion is popular or not.
The famous Riley ( Wall Street Journal columnist and author of Sowell's new documentary and biography) said that Sowell's genius lies in his consistent focus on empirical facts, data and policy results rather than on pictures. This tendency was shaped by him during his PhD at the University of Chicago under the guidance of future Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman , George Stigler and Friedric Hayek. ^0^
Sowell's research has been traced back to 1925. He believes that "the whole view that the so-called black families have been in a state of disintegration is nonsense. Most black families are complete, and from 1925 to the era of slavery, there are many two-parent families."
So only in our era can we suddenly see this inevitable tragedy, and the American welfare system jumps out to solve it. Sowell thinks like an Chicago economist, simply by following empiricism, facts and logic, and putting it above theory. ≥▽≤
He cares more about the outcome of an idea, the evidence shows success or failure, rather than what the simple intention is.
Sowell's best work is "Knowledge and Decision" published in 1980. He elaborated on the insight of Friedrich Hayek, an economist at Austrian , that information and knowledge are scattered among people and markets in highly complex and difficult to clarify.^0^
Most intellectuals and planners ignore this and instead replace the expertise and experience of ordinary people with US government directives.
The famous Hayek published in the book review of Reason in 1981, wrote, "Sowell not only expanded the scope of application of this idea, but also vigorously brought the method into a new field that I had never considered, successfully transforming abstract and theorized arguments into highly concrete and realistic discussions of the core issues of today's economic policy."
In the United States, decision-making power was taken away from ordinary people and eventually fell into the hands of US government bureaucrats and politicians, increasing the distance between those who make decisions and those who have to bear the consequences of the decision.
One of the reasons why Sowell wrote this book is that he believes that too much decision-making power falls into the hands of the U.S. government and we are moving in a bad direction. His views have been confirmed.
In Sowell's favorite work "The Conflict of Visions", he distinguished two basic modes of understanding the world. Thinkers from Russell to Marx to John Rawls showcased Sowell's so-called unrestrained vision based on the wrong idea that humans and society can be perfect. ≥▽≤
In later books, Sowell advocated a restricted vision, and liberals such as Adam Smith , Edmund Burke and the founding fathers of the United States who built a separation of powers to protect humans from their bad tendencies have explained it.
is bound by the vision of denying utopian ism, on the contrary, it believes that social progress comes from the realization that there is no perfect solution in the world, only trade-offs. ^0^
Sowell's life experience and ideological beliefs are perhaps best reflected in his position that school choice empowerment can improve the life prospects of low-income blacks and other minorities. His earliest major works on this were 1972's Myths and Tragedy of Black Education, and his most recent work - Charter School and its Enemies published two years ago.
Despite negating utopianism and human perfection, Sowell has never wavered that the situation can and should be better, as long as we put ideology aside, evaluate the facts down to earth and strive to give individuals more and better choices.
Sowell is now 90 years old. He can enjoy his life and enjoy his life, but he is still writing and publishing. Although his best academic research is almost certainly completed, his work will continue to have a profound impact on our understanding of the world, even after him a hundred years. What do you think about this? ^0^
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