Sowell on the caboose

Thomas Sowell has finally—after the phenomenon has been going on for about two years, and after some media and officials including the black mayor of Philadelphia had finally broken the ice and started saying that the “flash mobs” are black—written about the black “flash mobs.” He makes a few decent points, which he’s made before, about the reality of group differences and the cause of black crime (it’s black criminal behavior, not white racism or white stereotypes of blacks). But this is hardly a searching article or one that is treating with due seriousness the spreading anti-white violence by blacks.

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Paul K. writes:

Thomas Sowell often makes the point that races differ in their abilities, but as far as I know he has never acknowledged that blacks are of lower average intelligence. [LA replies: You’re right, he never has.]

A few months ago I saw him interviewed on the webcast “Uncommon Knowledge.” The host asked Sowell if he still thinks free trade worked out well for the United States, pointing out that for every 52 automobiles that America imports from Korea, it exports precisely 1 in return. Sowell insisted that that was fine with him, it makes no difference, it’s the free market at work, Americans will do other work that we’re better at, etc. To me, his insouciance suggested that he hasn’t reconsidered his premises in light of the evidence of the last 20 years. I suppose that’s forgiveable in a man of 80 years. I have a great deal of respect for the work he did in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 16, 2011 07:21 PM | Send