5 Thomas Sowell Lessons That Will Immediately Change Your Life

His "basic economics" should be required reading

Thomas Sowell on the Myths of Economic Inequality

Imagine, if you will, a country where Thomas Sowell had been the first black president. We’d be a better country for it. You cannot refute this.

If you're unfamiliar with the 93-year-old African American academic, Dr. Thomas Sowell is a well-known Harvard economist, author, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

In my opinion he is the greatest American philosopher of our generation.

The problem is if you're Thomas Sowell or any black politically conservative person, you're considered too white and essentially disowned by intellectuals who feel they have the "credentials" to do so.

I've never seen an asinine backward ass way of thinking like that where people who are successful for their intellect are practically excommunicated as "tokens" and "Uncle Toms."

But we'll get to that.

Here are five lessons from Dr. Thomas Sowell.

1. Political Musical Chairs

"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today." - Thomas Sowell

Dr. Sowell believes that "equity" or equality of opportunity is a failed idea due to the simple reason that equality of opportunity =/= equality of outcome.

Freedom and equality are like oil and water and according to him, egalitarian ideals like "absolute equality" don't work because the simple acts of being talented or working harder create inequality.

Remember this?

Whether you agree or not isn't the meat of Sowell's quote. It's not the prime rib with the A1 sauce, if you know what I'm saying.

The meat is that politics is one giant musical chairs game largely not worth your time outside the local level.

I've seen the political Right flip from frothing at the mouth pro-war in Iraq to anti-war with Ukraine and the Left from anti-corporation to every company becoming leftist. The deeper meaning of Dr. Sowell's quote is that when Americans break free from their partisan programming and prioritize humanity, principles, and morals, that's when America will stand tall again.

2. As Close to Heaven on Earth as It Gets

"The black intellectuals are no more typical of the black population than the white intellectuals are typical of the white population." - Dr. Sowell.

According to Sowell's book Economic Facts and Fallacies, there are three top indicators for living in poverty:

1. Fatherless home

2. Teen pregnancy

3. No high school diploma or lack of educational drive

There’s a reason why Booker T. Washington called a schoolhouse heaven on earth, and that not even Heaven presented more attractions. As for college, almost all bachelor's degrees outside of medicine and computer science are rapidly losing value. The grapes are getting more sour every year.

But whether it’s a coding Boot Camp, Google cert program, Jordan Peterson academy or YouTube lecture, education will always be the coveted edge.

3. Basic Economics

Economics is more important than politics today. It's why I prioritize reading the WSJ and Financial Times over the NYT or WaPo.

The relationship between economics and politics is unbreakable. In Ancient Greece there was even a term 'political economics' and the perception should realistically be rechristened to that.

As Thomas Sowell said in an interview discussing his book Basic Economics, "I think if the average citizen understood economics as well as an economist, most of the nonsense done in Washington would be impossible politically."

4. The Fatal Misstep of Intellectuals

"The fatal misstep of intellectuals is assuming the superior ability within a particular realm can be generalized as superior wisdom or morality overall.” -Dr. Sowell

Idle hands are the devil's playthings and idle minds are his toilet. Real people with NORMAL LIVES don't have time to sit around and pontificate on politics and philosophy all day, dissecting it with critical theories and making up new words and terms and writing 50+ page essays about it for "published journals."

Real people are busy doing real people shit. Sadly, our world is run by idle-minded ivory tower elites — who call themselves "experts" — who are often sucked into lifelong debates about what they think are deep philosophical musings but are actually just the bored ideas of sheltered rich do-nothings.

In fact, most of the world’s recent disasters were caused by these “experts.”

The rub is never letting your intellect trump the firsthand boots-on-the-ground experience you worked for to obtain that idea. Interviews, travel, challenging your beliefs, debate, uncomfortable experiences— that's called wisdom.

5. Black Rednecks and White Liberals

In Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Dr. Sowell posits that black American culture isn't black culture at all. It's southern redneck culture, and that redneck culture originates from West England. Even black street dialect can be traced to West England where instead of using proper English, West Englanders say things like, "I be doing, we be doing, they be doing..." and so on.

I mean, damn.

The book is controversial AF… as the kids say.

He furthers this by saying that black Americans from West Indie countries like Jamaica and Barbados — who also experienced slavery — have better success than black people who grew up around these southern rednecks.

The upshot is Thomas Sowell lays the crux of black America's struggles with its culture, not systemic racism. Read it. It’s his most contentious yet original work.

Final Thought

Because Thomas Sowell isn't promoting the idea of some nameless, faceless, but obviously white, systemic oppression keeping black people down he isn't as popular as he should be.

Sure, I don't swallow every word he spouts, but like any philosopher worth his salt he’s deeply original.

I can say even if he makes you angry at least you’ll be thinking.

He’s one of the few people deserving of the title a “national treasure” and I’m glad to have learned from him.

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