Two Personal Characteristics of Thomas Sowell

Plus some bonus quotes.

Prior to the Sowell celebration earlier this week, I had written a 5,000+ word paper on Thomas Sowell as an economics educator and popularizer. It will be published later. I enjoyed steeping myself in Sowell’s work for a large part of August to come up with the content. Fortunately, it was summarized in the program handed out to participants at the event. I focused on the ways he was so effective at communicating economics. These included his careful digging into data, his great ability as a storyteller, and his ability to coin a pithy memorable phrase.

In the session we had on his work, John Cogan asked me what personal characteristics made him effective. I’m glad John asked in advance because it gave me time to think.

Here’s how I answered.

I can think of two. The first is his sense of righteous anger. He always takes the side of the person or people whom the government treats unjustly. The second is his compassion. I can think of no better illustration than this quote: “It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago. It is hard enough to solve our own problems, without trying to solve our ancestors’ problems.”

I had prepared those remarks and stated them. In the moment, though, another thought occurred to me that I stated: “What a great parent he must be.”

Bonus: Succinct Wisdom from Thomas Sowell

Someone in the audience who liked my remarks asked me to send her some of my favorite pithy quotes from Sowell. These are the ones that I used at the end of my long paper.

People who pride themselves on their ‘complexity’ and deride others for being “simplistic” should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

If you don’t believe in the innate unreasonableness of human beings, just try raising children.

It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.

In a comment on my previous post, commenter Chartertopia noted Sowell’s knack for the telling phrase.