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Controversial Essays
One of conservatism's most articulate voices dissects today's most important economic, racial, political, education, legal, and social issues, sharing his entertaining and thought-provoking insights on a wide range of contentious subjects. --"This book contains an abundance of wisdom on a large number of economic issues." --Mises Review
322 pages, Paperback
Published September 1, 2002
73 people are currently reading
472 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Sowell
88 books5,550 followersThomas Sowell is an American economist, social philosopher, and political commentator. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he became a well-known voice in the American conservative movement as a prominent black conservative. He was a recipient of the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush in 2002.
Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina and grew up in Harlem, New York City. Due to poverty and difficulties at home, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and worked various odd jobs, eventually serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. Afterward, he took night classes at Howard University and then attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In his academic career, he held professorships at Cornell University, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked at think tanks including the Urban Institute. Since 1977, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy.
Sowell was an important figure to the conservative movement during the Reagan era, influencing fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner in the Ford administration, and was considered for posts including U.S. Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, but declined both times.
Sowell is the author of more than 45 books (including revised and new editions) on a variety of subjects including politics, economics, education and race, and he has been a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers. His views are described as conservative, especially on social issues; libertarian, especially on economics; or libertarian-conservative. He has said he may be best labeled as a libertarian, though he disagrees with the "libertarian movement" on some issues, such as national defense.
Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina and grew up in Harlem, New York City. Due to poverty and difficulties at home, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and worked various odd jobs, eventually serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. Afterward, he took night classes at Howard University and then attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In his academic career, he held professorships at Cornell University, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked at think tanks including the Urban Institute. Since 1977, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy.
Sowell was an important figure to the conservative movement during the Reagan era, influencing fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner in the Ford administration, and was considered for posts including U.S. Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, but declined both times.
Sowell is the author of more than 45 books (including revised and new editions) on a variety of subjects including politics, economics, education and race, and he has been a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers. His views are described as conservative, especially on social issues; libertarian, especially on economics; or libertarian-conservative. He has said he may be best labeled as a libertarian, though he disagrees with the "libertarian movement" on some issues, such as national defense.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 15, 2022
Refreshingly direct, an appetite whetter for a main course which isn’t of course served here. His tone starts off grumpy and becomes angrier. The last few pages are one off rants.. This is a sort of hair shirt/cold shower/glass of health salts to be taken from time to time to ward off lazy liberalism!
(note to self: Baseball?)
(note to self: Baseball?)
April 27, 2018
A compilation of newspaper columns written by Dr. Sowell in the 1980s and 1990s; brilliant snapshots of how bad things happen when people fail to use common sense.
July 16, 2015
Comments on Sowell as I read:
On reading Thomas Sowell on economics, I'm left underwhelmed by his essays. They attack the liberal leaning floozies without really going into why they're wrong. Only that they are because, duh, economics dude. He may go into more detail in one of his long books on the matter, but these essays are not a good indicator that the longer form will be any better.
His essays on race are laughably, cringe worthy, and terrible to behold. "Hey, did you know that a black dude in 1920, during the resurgence of the KKK somehow became an architect despite all the hurdles? Therefore, racism isn't so bad. Just grin and bear it, pay your dues, and you might become win the lottery and become the real McCoy." He argues the public school system is at fault because this is where the blacks are lagging - they don't have as many opportunities because the school system failed and an employer doesn't want them when they can get a white person from a good school system. This is ignoring the fact that the same resume with a black sounding name and a white sounding name usually ends in the white person getting hired. That's not racism. Not at all. He claims vouchers are the key: the destruction of the public schools system for a private one. Alas, evidence is quickly showing that nonpublic schools do no better than public schools when the same population is present. Increasingly (in Indiana for example) vouchers are no longer even helping the poor - an increasing percentage of the money is going to families who already pay to send their children to private/charter schools, subsidizing the middle to upper class rather than providing an escape for a child caught in the ghetto. He fails to consider property tax caps and the way schools are funded as reasons: how is it schools in wealthy neighborhoods have the money to pay the teachers more, have shinier computers, more access to upper level courses etc the inner neighborhood schools? It's in the spending. An inner city school spends millions on social services that wealthier neighborhoods do not need to do. A hungry child isn't a learning child. It has to be mentioned, he also has an undercurrent of stating blacks today just don't have the drive or ambition to be good at school, but I'll just leave that alone. It's just stupid.
His political essays are mostly throw away conservative rants lamenting those darn liberals. He wonders why liberal speakers get more speaking engagements than conservatives and he doesn't get the irony of his reasons (it's not that people don't want to hear them, it's because liberal elites somehow prevent them from speaking). I'm not really sure how true this is anyway: I think data would show conservative speakers do just fine. His global warming essay is bad and full of misinformation. For example, he quotes the oft quoted Science article about how in 1970 there was a global cooling. He doesn't mention this one article was thoroughly debunked shortly thereafter by a majority of scientists. This is not true for global warming, which is supported by over 95% of published scientific papers and backed by an ever increasing amount of data.
I'm actually with Sowell on a piece talking about the serious repercussions for eliminating the use of DDT which may have been done on faulty science (much like the fear of GMOS today). He loses me when he blames the price of skyrocketing gas on the limits to new oil sources. That's a bogus argument proven just recently: we were producing so much oil due to fracking, the price of oil plummeted. American oil companies were trying to steal a percentage of the market by forcing price down so much in hopes the Saudis would cut their own output to stabilize prices. Instead, OPEC buckled down, continued producing at the same levels and the American fracking companies who forced the cost of oil below their price point gave up the game. The oil is there. There are enough wells tapped and ready for drilling. Oil companies keep prices high by falsely limiting the supply. There isn't any profit in supplying cheap gas. Now we're left with barren, stripped land and dirty water until the companies feel like once again challenging the might of OPEC or humans wisen up and stop depending on oil to make our world turn. Oil prices have nothing to do with government interference.
Sowell argues vouchers will allow schooling to be provided cheaper. Alas, this is not how it's playing out in Indiana. On a small scale, charter schools were able to provide their services for cheaper (they also didn't demonstrate any statistically relevant change in the quality of the education either). However, as the voucher program has expanded, Indiana is now spending more on the voucher program per student than the public school system is. Sadly, the last report on this matter has been published and Indiana won't be publishing it in the near future. Such evidence isn't good for vouchers and charter schools in general. Let's not even mention the various exemptions charter schools are given for reporting how well their students are doing.
Sowell say a lot on education. Most of it negative. He likes to claim our education system is somehow worse than it was when he went. His evidence is all of the relative nature: we’re falling down in the ranks when compared to other first world countries. Somehow, our curriculum is weaker than it used to be according to Sowell. I’m not really sure where he gets this – he likes to go on rants about the social indoctrination in school about socialism and gays. Yes, relatively we’re bottoming out but the idea its due to a slippage in absolute education is ridiculous – just to take one simple example, more kids graduate high school knowing calculus than they ever did before, it just so happens that others have started teaching math better. Which leads to: there is irony in his education arguments. Sowell constantly fails to point out that all the countries doing better than us, use socialized schooling with huge public investment, very few private/charter schools, all with curriculum dictated by the State not local governments. They also tend to offer higher education either free or at a heavily discounted rate. They tend not to have the extreme disparity in poverty across school districts. Go figure.
One of his hilarious praises is made to the University of Phoenix. He praises it for their ability to be a for-profit against a world of non-profits and can’t help but conclude it will increase competition and education. He, of course, wipes his hands of researching whether Phoenix is actually effective in providing good education. The double standard he applies is entirely expected: he doesn’t want to point out that the university uses mostly loans backed by the federal government, that its graduation rates are terrible, that the quality doesn’t meet any great standard, and that the majority of those federally backed loans are never paid off and without those federally backed loans the University of Phoenix could not possibly exist. Sowell loses again.
In his argument against homosexual marriages (which is entirely terrible), Sowell has a doozy I’ll need to quote verbatim: “…time has very different effects on men and women. As the years pass and women lose their physical attraction, men are typically rising in income and occupational status. It is usually easier for a middle-aged man to abandon his wife and make a second marriage with a younger ‘trophy wife’ than for a woman to remarry equally advantageously. Since a woman has often invested years of her life in creating a home and family, the marriage contract is one way of trying to assure her that this investment will not be in vain.” There’s so much wrong it’s unbelievable he could even get it published. Begin with the idea a woman’s lot in life is to grow old and haggy, becoming completely dependent on her husband bringing home the check and crossing her finger its not love that keeps bringing him home but a contract. Then, the idea the marriage contract historically protected women is laughable. Alimony is only a recent enactment in marriage contract law, and if I was to guess, Sowell probably isn’t much for it.
It’s interesting to see him complain in this series of essays that the left is crying that criticism by others is silencing their speech since this is now the common cry of conservatives. Both sides seem to have difficulty understanding this whole free speech thing.
I would be remiss to include the one thread in his many essays I find myself agreeing with: California and its inability to build adequate housing. I’m not sure I agree with all his reasons, but there is no argument to the idea California’s housing situation is tragically inept.
On reading Thomas Sowell on economics, I'm left underwhelmed by his essays. They attack the liberal leaning floozies without really going into why they're wrong. Only that they are because, duh, economics dude. He may go into more detail in one of his long books on the matter, but these essays are not a good indicator that the longer form will be any better.
His essays on race are laughably, cringe worthy, and terrible to behold. "Hey, did you know that a black dude in 1920, during the resurgence of the KKK somehow became an architect despite all the hurdles? Therefore, racism isn't so bad. Just grin and bear it, pay your dues, and you might become win the lottery and become the real McCoy." He argues the public school system is at fault because this is where the blacks are lagging - they don't have as many opportunities because the school system failed and an employer doesn't want them when they can get a white person from a good school system. This is ignoring the fact that the same resume with a black sounding name and a white sounding name usually ends in the white person getting hired. That's not racism. Not at all. He claims vouchers are the key: the destruction of the public schools system for a private one. Alas, evidence is quickly showing that nonpublic schools do no better than public schools when the same population is present. Increasingly (in Indiana for example) vouchers are no longer even helping the poor - an increasing percentage of the money is going to families who already pay to send their children to private/charter schools, subsidizing the middle to upper class rather than providing an escape for a child caught in the ghetto. He fails to consider property tax caps and the way schools are funded as reasons: how is it schools in wealthy neighborhoods have the money to pay the teachers more, have shinier computers, more access to upper level courses etc the inner neighborhood schools? It's in the spending. An inner city school spends millions on social services that wealthier neighborhoods do not need to do. A hungry child isn't a learning child. It has to be mentioned, he also has an undercurrent of stating blacks today just don't have the drive or ambition to be good at school, but I'll just leave that alone. It's just stupid.
His political essays are mostly throw away conservative rants lamenting those darn liberals. He wonders why liberal speakers get more speaking engagements than conservatives and he doesn't get the irony of his reasons (it's not that people don't want to hear them, it's because liberal elites somehow prevent them from speaking). I'm not really sure how true this is anyway: I think data would show conservative speakers do just fine. His global warming essay is bad and full of misinformation. For example, he quotes the oft quoted Science article about how in 1970 there was a global cooling. He doesn't mention this one article was thoroughly debunked shortly thereafter by a majority of scientists. This is not true for global warming, which is supported by over 95% of published scientific papers and backed by an ever increasing amount of data.
I'm actually with Sowell on a piece talking about the serious repercussions for eliminating the use of DDT which may have been done on faulty science (much like the fear of GMOS today). He loses me when he blames the price of skyrocketing gas on the limits to new oil sources. That's a bogus argument proven just recently: we were producing so much oil due to fracking, the price of oil plummeted. American oil companies were trying to steal a percentage of the market by forcing price down so much in hopes the Saudis would cut their own output to stabilize prices. Instead, OPEC buckled down, continued producing at the same levels and the American fracking companies who forced the cost of oil below their price point gave up the game. The oil is there. There are enough wells tapped and ready for drilling. Oil companies keep prices high by falsely limiting the supply. There isn't any profit in supplying cheap gas. Now we're left with barren, stripped land and dirty water until the companies feel like once again challenging the might of OPEC or humans wisen up and stop depending on oil to make our world turn. Oil prices have nothing to do with government interference.
Sowell argues vouchers will allow schooling to be provided cheaper. Alas, this is not how it's playing out in Indiana. On a small scale, charter schools were able to provide their services for cheaper (they also didn't demonstrate any statistically relevant change in the quality of the education either). However, as the voucher program has expanded, Indiana is now spending more on the voucher program per student than the public school system is. Sadly, the last report on this matter has been published and Indiana won't be publishing it in the near future. Such evidence isn't good for vouchers and charter schools in general. Let's not even mention the various exemptions charter schools are given for reporting how well their students are doing.
Sowell say a lot on education. Most of it negative. He likes to claim our education system is somehow worse than it was when he went. His evidence is all of the relative nature: we’re falling down in the ranks when compared to other first world countries. Somehow, our curriculum is weaker than it used to be according to Sowell. I’m not really sure where he gets this – he likes to go on rants about the social indoctrination in school about socialism and gays. Yes, relatively we’re bottoming out but the idea its due to a slippage in absolute education is ridiculous – just to take one simple example, more kids graduate high school knowing calculus than they ever did before, it just so happens that others have started teaching math better. Which leads to: there is irony in his education arguments. Sowell constantly fails to point out that all the countries doing better than us, use socialized schooling with huge public investment, very few private/charter schools, all with curriculum dictated by the State not local governments. They also tend to offer higher education either free or at a heavily discounted rate. They tend not to have the extreme disparity in poverty across school districts. Go figure.
One of his hilarious praises is made to the University of Phoenix. He praises it for their ability to be a for-profit against a world of non-profits and can’t help but conclude it will increase competition and education. He, of course, wipes his hands of researching whether Phoenix is actually effective in providing good education. The double standard he applies is entirely expected: he doesn’t want to point out that the university uses mostly loans backed by the federal government, that its graduation rates are terrible, that the quality doesn’t meet any great standard, and that the majority of those federally backed loans are never paid off and without those federally backed loans the University of Phoenix could not possibly exist. Sowell loses again.
In his argument against homosexual marriages (which is entirely terrible), Sowell has a doozy I’ll need to quote verbatim: “…time has very different effects on men and women. As the years pass and women lose their physical attraction, men are typically rising in income and occupational status. It is usually easier for a middle-aged man to abandon his wife and make a second marriage with a younger ‘trophy wife’ than for a woman to remarry equally advantageously. Since a woman has often invested years of her life in creating a home and family, the marriage contract is one way of trying to assure her that this investment will not be in vain.” There’s so much wrong it’s unbelievable he could even get it published. Begin with the idea a woman’s lot in life is to grow old and haggy, becoming completely dependent on her husband bringing home the check and crossing her finger its not love that keeps bringing him home but a contract. Then, the idea the marriage contract historically protected women is laughable. Alimony is only a recent enactment in marriage contract law, and if I was to guess, Sowell probably isn’t much for it.
It’s interesting to see him complain in this series of essays that the left is crying that criticism by others is silencing their speech since this is now the common cry of conservatives. Both sides seem to have difficulty understanding this whole free speech thing.
I would be remiss to include the one thread in his many essays I find myself agreeing with: California and its inability to build adequate housing. I’m not sure I agree with all his reasons, but there is no argument to the idea California’s housing situation is tragically inept.
April 21, 2025
Brilliant, just brilliant!
I am so glad that I found Mr Sowell. He is an intellectual giant, in its truest sense, and that's an understatement. Would love to see him scoff at that last statement like he scowls when commenting on 'intellectuals'.
I found Noam Chomskey during formative years and despite that, I had this uneasy feeling that there was something not right with that self-up righteous left world view which looks great on paper. Anyway, Mr Powell finally explained this anxiety of mine to myself.
I am so glad that I found Mr Sowell. He is an intellectual giant, in its truest sense, and that's an understatement. Would love to see him scoff at that last statement like he scowls when commenting on 'intellectuals'.
I found Noam Chomskey during formative years and despite that, I had this uneasy feeling that there was something not right with that self-up righteous left world view which looks great on paper. Anyway, Mr Powell finally explained this anxiety of mine to myself.
July 22, 2023
Though some of these essays clearly haven't aged well (the ones on EVs and climate change, in particular), I still gave this 4 stars. Though a clear conservative preference runs through a lot of these essays, the general truths he speaks still matter, to conservatives, liberals and centrists / moderates like me alike. It's also clear that many of todays conservatives are guilty of the same behaviors Mr. Sowell writes against here i.e. government meddling in the free market and business practices, given many conservatives in government today doing exactly that by trying to punish businesses for ESG programs. A conservative bias isn't necessarily bad, nor is a liberal one, as long as one is willing to admit said bias, compensate for it, and have the intellectual integrity to apply these truths equally to all sides. Many conservatives and liberals today don't do this, but there are still some that do.
June 27, 2025
Sowell is one of the most brilliant minds of our generation. If readers didn’t know these essays were written decades ago they could be forgiven for thinking he was writing about our country and culture as it is today. All that dates the book is Sowell’s references to political and thought leaders of that time (although that hardly matters as the same tired arguments are being recycled today). Truth is timeless and there really is nothing new under the sun.
July 2, 2018
My first from his works, this collection of essays demonstrates his keen mind and ability to unveil ideological hypocrisies, fallacies and nonsensical arguments. It also taught me the art of concise, thoughtful and witty written arguments. More, please? :)
June 19, 2021
The writing style is crisp and refreshingly straightforward. As a reader more to the left, I found a surprising number of convincing points and solid arguments made in between the ones that are problematic and dated. The short random chapter of random reflections at the end was highly entertaining.
June 10, 2024
I've come to Thomas Sowell very late in life - I have a lot of catching up to do.
Apart from the fact that it can be occasionally repetitive, this is an excellent book: easy to read, fascinating and informative.
Apart from the fact that it can be occasionally repetitive, this is an excellent book: easy to read, fascinating and informative.
March 3, 2021
If you want to really know what is going on in our world, you cannot go wrong with this favorite economist.
August 14, 2021
Clear, concise, and entertaining.
November 26, 2021
“The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. Thomas Sowell
December 29, 2022
Absolutely superb!
February 8, 2024
Some were interesting. Some were pretty boring.
April 20, 2025
dated, but I've always had a soft spot for Sowell's economy of words.
October 31, 2025
Series of essays
Economic Issues
Racial Issues
Political Issues
Educational Issues
Legal Issues
Social issues
Economic Issues
Racial Issues
Political Issues
Educational Issues
Legal Issues
Social issues
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 10, 2021
Outstanding thinker
May 3, 2016
There're interesting tidbits; e.g. Sowell graduated from Harvard, after dropping out from high school.
There're also things Sowell says which I didn't particularly find compelling.
Some of the things Sowell repeats would be worth entering public discussion (e.g. he repeats that those now in the highest income bracket were almost always at some point in the lowest income bracket); but overall Sowell's stance can usually be summarised as "those damned American-liberals ruin everything". - Sowell emphasises facts and cases to argue this thesis.
There're also things Sowell says which I didn't particularly find compelling.
Some of the things Sowell repeats would be worth entering public discussion (e.g. he repeats that those now in the highest income bracket were almost always at some point in the lowest income bracket); but overall Sowell's stance can usually be summarised as "those damned American-liberals ruin everything". - Sowell emphasises facts and cases to argue this thesis.
March 25, 2010
More great essays (about 3 pages, since they started as newspaper columns), continuing the themes of empirical results trumping good intentions, individual choice over government edicts, the failures of state schools, state-enforced dependency vs. personal responsibility and ambition, and racism vs. individual merit.
December 23, 2012
Interesting, wonderful writing, and thought-provoking. The only reason I didn't rate as 5 star is that these pieces, all previously published as newspaper columns, were not dated. Trying to put the information within the context of a time when it might have been published was a disctraction to me. Well worth reading anyway!
February 15, 2015
Sometimes it's good to know what the other political side thinks. And sometimes it's completely exasperating.
These are essentially 500 word sound bites that go to Fox News. There are very few sources given and many audacious claims made.
Sowell is a proponent of the free market system. So much so that he cannot see beyond it. Frustrating read.
These are essentially 500 word sound bites that go to Fox News. There are very few sources given and many audacious claims made.
Sowell is a proponent of the free market system. So much so that he cannot see beyond it. Frustrating read.
April 26, 2017
The title of this book writes a big check but Sowell's pen cashes it with ease. Filled with short Op-Eds from Sowell covering more controversial issues than I can list here. Even when I don't agree with him (which is often) his short pieces are able to ask deeply interesting questions, engage my mind with challenging ideas, and even deliver wisdom! Sowell's abilities as a thinker and a writer are rare and valuable.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews