It’s a privilege and a joy to offer you a Q&A with Thomas Sowell. He has revised and enlarged his important book Wealth, Poverty and Politics. And we duly talk about — wealth, poverty, and politics.
I’m like a guy in a cocktail lounge, calling out requests to the pianist. I ask Sowell to comment on a range of things: Adam Smith and the other classical liberals. Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. The Korean Peninsula, and its starkly different halves.
Trade. Immigration. Indian reservations. Environmentalism. Education. Etc.
I’ll give you a single tidbit: I bring up Gene Genovese, the late historian. Sowell observes that he was honest even when he was a Marxist. Which is so true. He always had that rugged integrity (which is why he was kicked out of the Party when he was 20).
At the end of the podcast, I sum up a longstanding Sowellian theme: People will flourish when the government gets out of their way and they get out of their own way. Of course, those are tall orders. Often too tall, like Ed Jones.
Anyway, enjoy your ’cast with Sowell. I did.