IT’S our lucky week as conservative legend and all-round good guy Thomas Sowell is back with his latest book (he’s published more than 40 titles over his career), Social Justice Fallacies.
Sowell, 93, is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. As fierce and feisty as ever, he returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson to discuss his new book.
In this wide-ranging interview Dr Sowell discusses the consequences of our society’s embarking on a quest for equality at the expense of merit. Even if every group in society is given an equal chance, he explains, these groups will end up with disparate levels of income or education.
He also criticises the concept of systemic racism; his research reveals it doesn’t appear to apply to blacks (watch the interview to see why that word isn’t capitalised here) who are married. He also explains why birth order is so important when it comes to outcomes. Something very relevant to my four kids.
The interview concludes with Sowell reading a moving passage from his book. It can be bought here.
Heather Mac Donald has also been pointing out the dangerousness of pursuing ‘equity’ in her book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the pursuit of equity sacrifices excellence, destroys beauty, and threatens lives.
The New Culture Forum interviewed Mac Donald here:
