The Words of Thomas Sowell

Whether blatant or subtle, brainwashing has become a major, time-consuming activity in American education at all levels. Some zealots have not hesitated to use the traditional brain-washing technique of emotional trauma in the classroom to soften up children for their message. Gruesome and graphic movies on nuclear war, for example, have reduced some school children to tears—after which the teacher makes a pitch for whatever movement claims to reduce such dangers. Another technique is the ambush shock: A seventh-grade teacher in Manhattan, for example, innocently asked her students to discuss their future plans—after which she said: ‘Haven’t any of you realized that in this world with nuclear weapons no one in this class will be alive in the year 2000?’

— Inside American Education (1993), Ch. 1

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The ideal of freedom behind the American Revolution had its effect in freeing thousands of people from slavery in the newly formed United States, something that was happening nowhere else in the world at that time. To call slavery “America’s original sin” is to turn reality upside down.

— Wealth, Poverty and Politics (2015), Ch. 15

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The barbarians are not at the gates. They are INSIDE THE GATES and have academic tenure, judicial appointments, government grants, and control of the movies, television, and other media.

— Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)

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No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce. On the contrary, the growth of a large parasitic class marked the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and the collapse of Spain from the heights of its golden age.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011), § POWER TO THE PARASITES

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Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.

— Basic Economics (2000)

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The Fourteenth Amendment provides for equal rights and equal protection of the laws. If you want more than that, then you are no longer talking about rights, but about special privileges.

— Controversial Essays (2002), § MURDER IS MURDER

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Thousands of free blacks owned slaves in the antebellum South. And, years after the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States, whites as well as blacks were still being bought and sold as slaves in North Africa and the Middle East.

— Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999), § THE SLAVERY CARD

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Envy used to be just a human failing, but today it is a major industry. Politicians, journalists and academics are all part of that industry, which some call ‘social justice.’

— Hard Times for Envy (2003)

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Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has if you count the tail as a leg. When they answered "five," Lincoln told them that the answer was four. The fact that you called the tail a leg did not make it a leg.

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010)

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Journalists cannot serve two masters. To the extent that they take on the task of suppressing information or biting their tongue for the sake of some political agenda, they are betraying the trust of the public and corrupting their own profession.

— The Media and Politics (2008)

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The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011)

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One of the problems with many of the elites is that the very commonness of common sense does not serve their purposes. It's wonderful to believe you have some insight that all the vast millions don't have, and that therefore you should be making their decisions for them.

— Uncommon Knowledge: More Social Justice Fallacies (Robinson) (2023)

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Perhaps the most dangerous ‘favor’ done to blacks has been the making of excuses for all their problems. All human beings are so imperfect, no matter what color wrapping they come in, that to exempt any group from the standards of performance and behavior expected of others is not a blessing but a curse. Many white liberals have adopted blacks as mascots, in order to ‘make a statement’ against American society. But mascots are only symbols — and their well-being is seldom a top priority.

— Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)

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The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

— Knowledge and Decisions (1980), p. 79

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The average American today has a standard of living that includes things that only the upper crust could have afforded in times past—and some things that even the rich didn’t have in past generations, like personal computers. But are the people who made that possible even mentioned, much less publicized and praised? There is not an inventor, scientist, medical researcher, or industrialist who is as well known as loudmouths like Rosie O’Donnell or Jesse Jackson. Any bimbo who exposes her body can get more attention than someone who finds ways to reduce the cost of housing for millions of people. In California, the bimbo can get favorable attention while the developer is condemned.

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010), p. 203

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By cheering on counterproductive attitudes, making excuses for self-defeating behavior, and promoting the belief that “racism” accounts for most of blacks’ problems, white intellectuals serve their own psychic, ideological, and political interests.They are the kinds of friends who can do more harm than enemies. A crucial fact about white liberals must be kept in mind:They are not simply in favor of blacks in general. Their solicitude is poured out for blacks as victims, blacks as welfare mothers, criminals, political activists against the larger society, as well as those blacks who serve as general counter-cultural symbols against the larger society. White liberals have nothing approaching the same interest in blacks as the principal victims of black criminals or as people advancing themselves within the existing framework of American society, including many who have risen within the military, nor do they get particularly worked up over blacks who build up their own human capital or business capital. None of the many reports of black schools that excel academically seems to arouse any great interest among white liberals. It was not the liberals in Washington, but the Reagan administration, which offered successful black educator Marva Collins an appointment as Secretary of Education."

— Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005), p. 57-58

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In the United States, the group hardest hit by minimum wage laws are black male teenagers. Those who refuse to admit that the minimum wage is the reason for high unemployment rates among young blacks blame racism, lack of education and whatever else occurs to them.

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010)

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Both the Sicilian mafia and the criminal tongs in China began as movements to defend the oppressed, so perhaps we should not be so painfully surprised that venerable American civil rights organizations have begun to degenerate into extortion rackets.

— Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (2006), p. 450

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The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them, and only in the short run.

— Big Lies in Politics (2012)

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The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

— Controversial Essays (2002), p. 318

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