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Preferential Policies: An International Perspective
Examines the policies of India, South Africa, Israel, the United States, and other nations that are guilty of government-sanctioned preferential treatment
221 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1990
4 people are currently reading
361 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Sowell
90 books5,620 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 11, 2016
In this book, Thomas Sowell coolly dissects the phenomenon of race and gender preferences, usually identified in this country with the euphemism "affirmative action," as this phenomenon exists around the world.
Sowell begins with countries where the racial group which exercised political power voted itself formal racial preferences. Sowell is able to identify only a few examples under this rubric: the pre-1960s American South, pre-1990s South Africa, which remained under apartheid control when Sowell wrote his book, and some places in India. Sowell's most remarkable finding perhaps is that the only effective resistance to either system was led by private enterprise. This finding should not surprise anyone. Discrimination imposes costs. For example, it is more expensive to provide separate railroad cars for blacks and whites than it is simply to put everyone together. Similarly, the costs of overlooking the best applicant for a job in favor of a less qualified applicant with the proper skin tone should be obvious. These costs make private business and the free enterprise system the natural enemies of irrational racial discrimination.
Sowell proceeds to analyze those more numerous instances where a political minority has been voted preferences over members of more numerous and successful groups. Sowell fails to consider the extent to which Public Choice theory may account for these programs. Public choice theory recognizes that where the benefits of a program are concentrated among members of a motivated minority, while the costs are diffused widely among the public at large, the minority can wield outsized influence over the program in question. This idea explains why many unpopular and unjust programs, including racial preferences and most government "pork barrel" programs, remain in place despite widespread public opposition. This failure is perhaps the most obvious shortcoming of the book.
Sowell finds that the justifications for preference programs tend to be similar from country to country. These justifications include the claim that preferences are only temporary, are needed to lift up underprivileged people, are small in scope, and merely compensate their beneficiaries for past discrimination going the other way. Sowell shows that these justifications are, at best, illusions based upon faulty assumptions and research. I would go farther and say that at least among those who have any knowledge as to how preferences work, such arguments are not mere illusions, but rather knowing lies on the part of people trying to defend a policy they know cannot be defended.
Sowell concludes by arguing that all of the various "illusions" offered by the proponents of preferential policies should be discarded in favor of cold, hard facts. It would be even better simply to adhere rigorously to the principle of equal standing under the law. This principle is so self-evidently fair and reasonable that very few people openly challenge it, no matter how strenuously they may seek to defend preferences.
Preferential Policies: An International Perspective was published in 1990. As a result, it necessarily is somewhat dated. Indeed, most books on public policy would be completely archaic after 26 years had passed. One of the depressing things about racial preferences, however, is that very little has changed over the years. The defenders of preferences have been engaged in a decades-long program of massive resistance against equal protection under the law, and have chosen to employ invective over rational discussion. As a result, the issues and arguments have hardly changed, and Sowell's book remains useful and informative.
Sowell begins with countries where the racial group which exercised political power voted itself formal racial preferences. Sowell is able to identify only a few examples under this rubric: the pre-1960s American South, pre-1990s South Africa, which remained under apartheid control when Sowell wrote his book, and some places in India. Sowell's most remarkable finding perhaps is that the only effective resistance to either system was led by private enterprise. This finding should not surprise anyone. Discrimination imposes costs. For example, it is more expensive to provide separate railroad cars for blacks and whites than it is simply to put everyone together. Similarly, the costs of overlooking the best applicant for a job in favor of a less qualified applicant with the proper skin tone should be obvious. These costs make private business and the free enterprise system the natural enemies of irrational racial discrimination.
Sowell proceeds to analyze those more numerous instances where a political minority has been voted preferences over members of more numerous and successful groups. Sowell fails to consider the extent to which Public Choice theory may account for these programs. Public choice theory recognizes that where the benefits of a program are concentrated among members of a motivated minority, while the costs are diffused widely among the public at large, the minority can wield outsized influence over the program in question. This idea explains why many unpopular and unjust programs, including racial preferences and most government "pork barrel" programs, remain in place despite widespread public opposition. This failure is perhaps the most obvious shortcoming of the book.
Sowell finds that the justifications for preference programs tend to be similar from country to country. These justifications include the claim that preferences are only temporary, are needed to lift up underprivileged people, are small in scope, and merely compensate their beneficiaries for past discrimination going the other way. Sowell shows that these justifications are, at best, illusions based upon faulty assumptions and research. I would go farther and say that at least among those who have any knowledge as to how preferences work, such arguments are not mere illusions, but rather knowing lies on the part of people trying to defend a policy they know cannot be defended.
Sowell concludes by arguing that all of the various "illusions" offered by the proponents of preferential policies should be discarded in favor of cold, hard facts. It would be even better simply to adhere rigorously to the principle of equal standing under the law. This principle is so self-evidently fair and reasonable that very few people openly challenge it, no matter how strenuously they may seek to defend preferences.
Preferential Policies: An International Perspective was published in 1990. As a result, it necessarily is somewhat dated. Indeed, most books on public policy would be completely archaic after 26 years had passed. One of the depressing things about racial preferences, however, is that very little has changed over the years. The defenders of preferences have been engaged in a decades-long program of massive resistance against equal protection under the law, and have chosen to employ invective over rational discussion. As a result, the issues and arguments have hardly changed, and Sowell's book remains useful and informative.
February 1, 2016
Thomas Sowell’s “Preferential Policies: An International Perspective” is a fantastic analysis of the history of preferential policies in countries all over the world and their effects on preferred and non-preferred groups. He analyzes situations in as wide reaching places as India, Malaysia, the United States, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and South Africa. Though this was written in 1990, it is just as relevant now as it was then. The agitation for preferential policies has escalated to even more extreme levels in the United States (where I am writing from) recently.
Sowell breaks up his initial analysis, consisting of detailed looks at one situation after another, into three categories: majority preferences in majority economies, majority preferences in minority economies, and minority preferences in majority economies. “Majority preferences in majority economies,” for example, means preferential policies for the majority group with political power in an economy dominated by the majority group. “Majority preferences in minority economy” means preferential policies for the majority group with political power in an economy dominated by a minority group. Sowell presents very similar patterns regardless of which of the three categories into which a preferential policy falls. Often, the preferred group recognizes that they are not able to compete with other groups. Possibly most importantly, Sowell shows with numerous examples how preferential policies tend to benefit most the elite of the preferred group while punishing most the marginal members of the non-preferred group. He also shows how preferential policies have tended to expand upon both the initially intended benefits and the initially intended beneficiaries to include more extreme preferences and many more “disadvantaged” groups. Finally, he demonstrates that preferential policies often harm both non-preferred and preferred groups, rather than simply transferring resources and benefits from the non-preferred group to the preferred group. The most obvious example of this is increased racial tensions and conflict, but it can also take the form of lesser achievement among the preferred group as they begin to feel entitled to particular jobs or stations in life.
Where Sowell really shines is his analysis and insight into the role of incentives from an economic lens, which he is so talented at doing. One of his explanations for the widespread emergence of preferential policies is that politicians see it as a way to garner short-term gains at a low initial cost. The short-term outlooks of most politicians looking toward their next reelection campaigns cause them to institute preferential policies. However, preferential policies have huge costs in the long run, which in the most extreme cases take the form of racial violence or even war. Rather than make long range investments in education, which may take 20 years to show any real gains, well beyond the outlook of the vast majority of politicians, preferential policies will pay immediate political dividends to the politician without any significant initial monetary cost. I also really liked his discussion of activists who claim to speak on behalf of a group despite the fact that a majority of that group does not identify with the activist's ideas. Agitators who call for preferential policies often come disproportionately from the middle class and from current college students and recent college graduates. They claim to speak on behalf of the entire group, but this often is not the case. These writings coalesce perfectly with the current situation in the United States, with Al Sharpton playing the role of the activist claiming to speak on behalf of the group and college students at the center of the agitation. I think we have also seen plenty of evidence that these groups have less incentive to perform and to try to compete with whites and Asians because they believe they are entitled to quality jobs due to their membership in a “disadvantaged” group, which is exactly what Sowell says tends to happen.
Though “Preferential Policies: An International Perspective” is short (185 pages of text in the edition I read), there is a ton of information here. Sowell is like no other with his ability to weave together examples from all over the world at different points in history to decipher patterns and tendencies. This analysis of preferential policies may be more important than ever in today’s political climate. I highly recommend this book.
Sowell breaks up his initial analysis, consisting of detailed looks at one situation after another, into three categories: majority preferences in majority economies, majority preferences in minority economies, and minority preferences in majority economies. “Majority preferences in majority economies,” for example, means preferential policies for the majority group with political power in an economy dominated by the majority group. “Majority preferences in minority economy” means preferential policies for the majority group with political power in an economy dominated by a minority group. Sowell presents very similar patterns regardless of which of the three categories into which a preferential policy falls. Often, the preferred group recognizes that they are not able to compete with other groups. Possibly most importantly, Sowell shows with numerous examples how preferential policies tend to benefit most the elite of the preferred group while punishing most the marginal members of the non-preferred group. He also shows how preferential policies have tended to expand upon both the initially intended benefits and the initially intended beneficiaries to include more extreme preferences and many more “disadvantaged” groups. Finally, he demonstrates that preferential policies often harm both non-preferred and preferred groups, rather than simply transferring resources and benefits from the non-preferred group to the preferred group. The most obvious example of this is increased racial tensions and conflict, but it can also take the form of lesser achievement among the preferred group as they begin to feel entitled to particular jobs or stations in life.
Where Sowell really shines is his analysis and insight into the role of incentives from an economic lens, which he is so talented at doing. One of his explanations for the widespread emergence of preferential policies is that politicians see it as a way to garner short-term gains at a low initial cost. The short-term outlooks of most politicians looking toward their next reelection campaigns cause them to institute preferential policies. However, preferential policies have huge costs in the long run, which in the most extreme cases take the form of racial violence or even war. Rather than make long range investments in education, which may take 20 years to show any real gains, well beyond the outlook of the vast majority of politicians, preferential policies will pay immediate political dividends to the politician without any significant initial monetary cost. I also really liked his discussion of activists who claim to speak on behalf of a group despite the fact that a majority of that group does not identify with the activist's ideas. Agitators who call for preferential policies often come disproportionately from the middle class and from current college students and recent college graduates. They claim to speak on behalf of the entire group, but this often is not the case. These writings coalesce perfectly with the current situation in the United States, with Al Sharpton playing the role of the activist claiming to speak on behalf of the group and college students at the center of the agitation. I think we have also seen plenty of evidence that these groups have less incentive to perform and to try to compete with whites and Asians because they believe they are entitled to quality jobs due to their membership in a “disadvantaged” group, which is exactly what Sowell says tends to happen.
Though “Preferential Policies: An International Perspective” is short (185 pages of text in the edition I read), there is a ton of information here. Sowell is like no other with his ability to weave together examples from all over the world at different points in history to decipher patterns and tendencies. This analysis of preferential policies may be more important than ever in today’s political climate. I highly recommend this book.
July 12, 2016
Preferential Policies was inspired by Thomas Sowell's trip to New Zealand when a Maori woman proclaimed uniqueness of the Maori people to justify special treatment. He conducted his extensive research on the economics of the majority and minority (in its literal sense) in various countries from Nigeria to South Africa, he destroyed all the myths of the affirmative action zealots by presenting detailed arguments with facts to back them up. It is still relevant today, if not, more relevant than ever.
February 7, 2023
Political correctness appears to have found its well of eternal youth.
July 8, 2025
interesting examples but one-sided and no evaluation of central argument
Want to read
June 10, 2018Bought 10/13/17. $4.49. Paperback like new.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews