Measured by his contributions to economics, political theory, and intellectual history, Thomas Sowell ranks among the towering intellects of our time.
For Sowell, Marx's ideas "Seemed to explain so much," including his own "Grim experience." At the time, Sowell was a 20-year-old high school dropout, working as a clerk by day and taking classes by night-a situation that actually marked an improvement over his being unemployed and, for a time, homeless in his late teens.
Drawing on "Knowledge derived from experience," Sowell writes, the Founders assumed that humans are basically selfish and created a system of incentives and constraints that would impede selfish leaders from doing horrible things.
Like the American Founders, Sowell came to his view of government more through experience than through philosophy.
"While believers in the unconstrained vision seek the special causes of war, poverty, and crime," Sowell writes in Conflict, "Believers in the constrained vision seek the special causes of peace, wealth, or a law-abiding society."
In a dozen books, Sowell has challenged that premise more persuasively than anyone.
The existence of a man like Thomas Sowell will always be a puzzle.
For Sowell, Marx's ideas "Seemed to explain so much," including his own "Grim experience." At the time, Sowell was a 20-year-old high school dropout, working as a clerk by day and taking classes by night-a situation that actually marked an improvement over his being unemployed and, for a time, homeless in his late teens.
Drawing on "Knowledge derived from experience," Sowell writes, the Founders assumed that humans are basically selfish and created a system of incentives and constraints that would impede selfish leaders from doing horrible things.
Like the American Founders, Sowell came to his view of government more through experience than through philosophy.
"While believers in the unconstrained vision seek the special causes of war, poverty, and crime," Sowell writes in Conflict, "Believers in the constrained vision seek the special causes of peace, wealth, or a law-abiding society."
In a dozen books, Sowell has challenged that premise more persuasively than anyone.
The existence of a man like Thomas Sowell will always be a puzzle.
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