Thomas Sowell's "Race and Economics", which influenced Clarence Thomas but still interesting read

[alp227]

I read in Ken Foskett's biography of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Judging Thomas that Thomas subscribed to libertarianism after reading Thomas Sowell's (yes I know let me explain) 1975 book Race and Economics.

Well after torturing myself with a collection of his columns (which ranged from trashy to misinformative to mildly interesting) in Dismantling America) I found a copy of Race and Economics in the library; you can too as the book is now out of print yet is only on snippet view on Google Books (and why does Google Books have snippet view anyway? silly) Yes, right now Sowell is a neocon pro-war libertarian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution think tank, but at the time of writing this book Sowell was an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. (In 1972, Sowell switched his political affiliation from Democrat to independent, and we all know where it went from there.) It was actually a pretty good book unlike the kind of hyperpartisan, biased garbage that he writes in his columns. I'd like recommendations of other related works on the racial factors in American economics.

The book begins by exploring the economic factors behind American slavery and the economic progress of black Americans. In the second part, Sowell analyzes how immigrants of the 19th and 20th centuries advanced the social ladder. Finally, how the market and the government affect racial equality is explored.

According to Sowell, the ethnic groups that advanced the most did so because of self-reliance and education: "Nineteenth-century immigrants from a peasant background seldom used the free libraries available, and resisted compulsory education laws. By contrast, Jewish immigrants crowded into every free educational institution available" (p. 145). Also: "Among the characteristics associated with success is a future orientation--a belief in a pattern of behavior that sacrifices present comforts and enjoyments while preparing for future success" (p. 144), attitudes present in native cultures of Jewish, Japanese, and black Caribbean immigrants, in contrast with the peasant backgrounds of the Irish and Italian immigrants and southern black American migrants to the north. With a focus on the future, Japanese-Americans "did not put their main emphasis on trying to get justice" following the anti-Asian actions of the US government including internment and instead focused on "trying to get ahead" and consequently earned "incomes comparable to the white groups" (p. 96).

Regarding blacks and Irish, "A high value on immediate 'fun,' 'excitement,' and emotionalism has characterized the less successful minorities. For both the Irish and the Negroes Saturday night acquired a great importance as time to release emotions in music, lively social activities, and fighting" (p. 146). (Yes, the song "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" was released in 1973 two years before this book...but Elton John ain't Irish. But do I know the context of that song better now?)

These points you rarely hear from the modern right (where Sowell associates himself nowadays): "A study of the 1920-32 period showed that of all blacks killed by whites in the United States, more than one-half were killed by policemen, and of all whites killed by blacks during that period, 37 percent were policemen," and "Courts also tend to give lighter sentences where the victims of crimes are black" (p. 190). Sowell also reveals a consequence of a segregated antebellum era in the northern US, which sort of can apply to modern society (but replace certain words): "...the small Negro elite...cut itself off from the mass of the black population...The internal cohesion and the many institutional and informational self-help programs that advanced other ethnic minorities...were much less common among Negroes...Negro colleges were geared to serving the social elite and had none of the adult-education, job-preparation, acculturation-of-the-masses, service-to-the-community orientation of other colleges serving low-income populations" (p. 42). In terms of welfare (and Bryan Fischer recently complained about black welfare recepients): "...most welfare recipients are neither Negro, Puerto Rican, nor Mexican-American"...true then, still true now (p. 195).

After the history, Sowell then turns to the economic and governmental elements and takes a pro-market, anti-regulation stance, claiming that the Interstate Commerce Commission led the railroad industry to become more discriminatory in hiring (p. 166) and that the 1960s surge of black employment in telecommunications was due to political pressures as the Civil Rights Act had passed (p. 167). In terms of government policy, Sowell criticizes minimum wage laws linking for instance black unemployment in South Africa following such a law, which "sets the rate of pay above that required to attract the number of qualified workers needed" and makes it "cheaper to discriminate in deciding who not to hire" (p. 186). Rent control is also an unnecessary intrusion in the market and leads to housing shortages (for instance during WWII).

So this was an interesting and compelling book despite its libertarian slant towards the end. As a counterpoint, I'll read The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. That book Thom Hartmann promoted on a show. And at least this isn't complete fearmongering trash like Jim Marrs' The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy (which I reviewed on this board earlier). This book cites the classic How the Other Half Lives as well as the works of people like Carter G. Woodson (a member of the NAACP, y'know, that organization that hates the Tea Party) and Daniel Patrick Moynahan (yes that liberal Democratic senator), and US government census figures and studies.