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Thomas Sowell interview

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Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#331

Post by mc32 »

tdhz77 wrote: post #295
tharne wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, they advocate for "control", with them in charge, of course.

Who better to control the money and know how best to use money than the people?

I think you’re talking past each other. In communism, in principle, things belong “to the people”, but in reality they belong to the state which can decide what you get, and taken away (as form of punishment). On the other hand, in democracies governments rarely leave things to “the people” they take the money to the feds, the state, county and then the local gov... Do I want my money going to podunk or a mismanaged (corrupt city), or locally where we have more of a voice?

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#332

Post by peterpeppers »

manfredo wrote: post #256
peterpeppers wrote: post #210

[flagged]

Comparing China and Rome to a modern economy is basically impossible. Those were agrarian societies whose net output per unit of territory was largely static, and determined by the amount of food that can be grown in the land. I don't think it's valid to categorize them as either socialist or capitalist societies. Marx agreed: he wrote of feudalism (and probably, by extension other agrarian civilizations) as a distin…

The fact that they were agrarian societies doesn't negate the fact that both China and Rome often cycled between socialist and capitalist styled policies.

Feel free to substitute any modern economy in their place and you'll see a society that is capitalistic but uses socialist policies to constrain the amount of inequality (ie. healthcare, education, etc) driven by that capitalism.

You're missing the point that balance between the two usually is best for the populace and for the stability of the government.

This is a point that Thomas Sowell misses often as well. He strives for conformity with the conservative status quo.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#333

Post by peterpeppers »

zeruch wrote: post #326
_-david-_ wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland is not socialist. They have social democracy.

True, but most Americans seemingly do not know how to make such a distinction. The key, but seemingly too nuanced aspects of European governments in that regard, gets distilled to "liberal/leftist/commie/pinko" states. It's daft as hell, and quite annoying.

Americans suffer from poor public education and are for the most part ignorant to matters both inside and outside of their country.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#334

Post by philwelch »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #259
philwelch wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sowell has some well-thought-out views on these issues, and he’s been expressing many of them for decades, but he has a curmudgeonly side as well. And I think if you understand his more well-thought-out views on these issues, I think you’ll also at least understand his curmudgeonly attitude. Oddly enough, what you’re doing now—if it were done to dismiss the thoughts of a “progressive” black person—would probably be c…

Sowell has been criticized widely for his reductionist take on economics. Not sure what "tone policing" has to do with anything...

Did you mean to reply to a different thread? This was about Sowell’s conservative social views and the sometimes intemperate way he expresses them, not about his economics (which the person I’m replying to expressed an appreciation for).

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#335

Post by refurb »

chmod600 wrote: post #145

One important impact he had on my thinking is that he rejects groupings of people based on snapshots in time. For instance, it is very common to use income as a proxy for your economic success, and then to group people into quintiles, calling the bottom quintile "the poor". It seems reasonable, but it's wrong enough to lead to very wrong conclusions. A college student living on their own will appear to be a "poor hou…

Exactly. And when you try and track people across decades, things start to look different.

https://medium.com/@russroberts/do-the-rich-capture-all-the-...

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#336

Post by AQuantized »

dnautics wrote: post #159
RoboticWater wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were immeasurable and undefinable, then we wouldn't have studies showing disproportionate sentencing of Black people [1] or the persistent negative effects of redlining [2]. And if it were unchangeable, we wouldn't be able to construct studies to show the specific choke-points of racial inequality, nor suggest policy solutions to remedy them. > What is the systemic racism measure for Canada vs US? I don't under…

Redlining and sentencing disparities are institutionalized racism, not systemic racism.

Do you not think the institutions of justice are systems? Not sure I get what you're trying to communicate.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#337

Post by mcguire »

pas wrote: post #190
mc32 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish other writers would take this to heart. Reading The New Yorker it’s as if their language is a shibboleth and if they didn’t use it, it would alienate their audience for using average language, yet they are the same people who pontificate and pretend they advocate for the lower classes.

It's not just the vocabulary, but the structure, the whole style. It's long, it's very meandering, it's very illustrative, but rarely direct and informative. Not many people have the time and desire to read something that presents so little value to them.

Not many people read, full stop.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#338

Post by _fq4v »

RoboticWater wrote: post #321
_fq4v wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sowell believes that systemic racism doesn't exist because he has examined the various research and finds issues with all of them -- namely that the various discrepancies they find can be explained in other ways. He never claimed that systemic racism could not exist. In fact, in his books, he openly admits that he believes that it did indeed once exist. He just questions whether the studies being produced today are d…

> No one has put forth the argument that Sowell believes systematic racism cannot ever exist. The comment I was responding to literally said "It is immeasurable, undefinable, unchangeable. As a propagandist you must take care to use things that can not be countered. Systemic racism is one of those." A very clear implication that systemic racism doesn't exist. Now, this may not be Sowell's views, but fortunately for S…

> Now, call me crazy, but given that he believes it once existed, I find it hard to believe that he also believes that it's just over and done with now.

Yes, he does believe racism exists within systems. But this is not what is meant by 'systemic racism'. Today, systemic racism is both a description of a problem, as well as an insinuation of its cause -- namely 'white privilege' and white hegemony -- and an insinuation of solutions -- namely progressive legislation. Sowell rejects these insinuated causes and insinuated solutions and instead believes discrimination and poor outcomes for blacks today is driven by progressive policies such as a lack of school choice, laws encouraging loans be made to blacks who cannot afford it, etc. He believes that blacks will be helped by a return to a less regulated market. While this viewpoint could be named under the umbrella of 'systemic racism', let's be honest with ourselves that that's not what the term has come to mean

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#339

Post by Shraal »

blub wrote: post #301
Shraal wrote: post #186

Am I the only one here who thinks that "Basic Economics" is overrated? I loved the first chapters but I didn't finish it because of his obvious bias against regulations. While I enjoyed his analyses of failed regulations, the book makes it seem like there're no successful market regulation laws in place and every attempt is doomed to be short-sighted like all his examples. This [1] review on Amazon from someone else…

I didn't finish it either, but mostly because of lack of time. However, I was also having an almost visceral reaction to his aversion to regulation, because I was comparing it to the situation that I know in some European countries and his claims seemed to clash with what I knew. I wouldn't dismiss the book just because of that, but it did make the lecture rather difficult because it was challenging my assumptions an…

> I know in some European countries and his claims seemed to clash with what I knew.

To be precisely, I would say his conclusions and the lack of other perspectives clashes with what I know about economy in European countries because I see how his reasoning makes sense in a vacuum.

> I wouldn't dismiss the book just because of that, but it did make the lecture rather difficult because it was challenging my assumptions and knowledge quite strongly. I guess that's good :-)

Exactly. I want to finish it someday for that exact reason.

> I like Ha-Joon Chang's "Economics: The User's Guide" as an introduction to economics. It's understandable, it has plenty of references and is written in a pleasant tone.

Thanks!

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#340

Post by gen220 »

pas wrote: post #190
mc32 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish other writers would take this to heart. Reading The New Yorker it’s as if their language is a shibboleth and if they didn’t use it, it would alienate their audience for using average language, yet they are the same people who pontificate and pretend they advocate for the lower classes.

It's not just the vocabulary, but the structure, the whole style. It's long, it's very meandering, it's very illustrative, but rarely direct and informative. Not many people have the time and desire to read something that presents so little value to them.

I might be a minority, but I'm willing to stick out my neck for meandering, illustrative, and indirect writing.

Don't get me wrong, if it was the only thing available, I'd probably go crazy, too. But I believe there is a time and place in my "reading diet" for this kind of long-form journalism.

As your adjectives suggest, New Yorker articles are less bullets of breathlessly-repeated facts, and more illustrations of nuanced scenes and interactions. I think it's natural, because life is messy and meandering, too.

That being said, most of their articles have very well-defined and well-informed points. They don't make them by stating it up front, but by drawing a picture, observing some of its details, and asking you to form your own opinion. We can disagree, but to me it feels more intellectually-honest than other forms of journalism.

Yes, it takes longer to get there. Yes, some of the details (what clothes people are wearing, what the rooms smell like, whatever) could probably be removed without compromising the structural integrity. But the New Yorker is about structural integrity and style. It's like the "literary fiction" of news. I don't read each article in each magazine, but it's still pretty rare that I've regretted finishing one; maybe once every other month.

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