This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“In the real world, there is seldom
anything resembling the equal outcomes that might be expected if all factors
affecting outcomes were the same for everyone.
Even in a society with equal opportunity – in the sense of judging each
individual by the same standards – people from different backgrounds do not
necessarily even want to do the same things, much less invest
their time and energies into developing the same kinds of skills and talents.” –
Thomas Sowell, Chapter 1: “Equal Chances” Fallacies, Page 9
“The fundamental issue is not whether employer
discrimination – or societal discrimination in general – can be a cause of
different economic and social outcomes among racial or ethnic groups. It can be, it has been, and there is no
reason whatever to preclude it from the possibilities in our own times. But there is also no reason to preclude any
of the many other factors that have also produced outcome disparities among all
sorts of groups, around the world and throughout recorded history.” – Thomas
Sowell, Chapter 2: Racial Fallacies, Page 30
“Politicians do learn. They learn what is politically effective, and
what they do is not a mistake politically, despite how disastrous
such policies may turn out to be for the country. What can be a mistake politically is to
assume that particular ideals – including social justice – can be something
that society can just ‘arrange,’ through government, without considering the
particular patterns of incentives and constraints inherent in the institution
of government.” – Thomas Sowell, Chapter 3: Chess Pieces Fallacies, Page 63
Is This An Overview?
There are many factors that create disparities between
people. Human bias that is part of
discrimination is a single factor, among many factors. Discrimination does not have a monopoly on
creating disparities or even always a dominant factor, as there are many
factors that influence human achievement.
There have been societies with industries dominated by ethnic
minorities, who did not control politics or other social aspects. People with the same skill sets, do not
necessarily want the same things, do not want the same outcomes. As people do have different skills, different
people and groups can excel in some achievements while lag in others.
Nature itself is not egalitarian, as resources are not
distributed equally between political boundaries. Knowledge can be used to transform nature,
but not all societies have equal access to the same information. Geographically linked people have more access
to information and develop faster than geographically isolated people. Even with access to information, cultures
need to be receptive to different ideas to make use of the information. Not all cultures are receptive to different
ideas.
What Can Be Done About The Disparities?
Social justice activists may want to fix social problems,
but that does not mean their claims and policies achieve their goals. Intervention in society is claimed by social
justice activists as needed to ameliorate the problems, but they can fail to
share supporting evidence that intervention is needed. Social justice activists tend to hide
evidence of how the problem they sought to ameliorate was ameliorating before
their intervention, and do not share evidence of the problem being exacerbated
after the intervention.
Politicians who advocate social justice to gain votes, learn
to enact politically desirable policies even as there are negative consequences
for society. Society might suffer, but
the politician gains political support.
There are increased chances that terrible policies are enacted for their
political desirability, when the politicians do not face the consequences of
being wrong.
People react differently to the imposition of rules and
policies than expected. They do not
simply accept and carry out someone else’s grand design. Policies can have the reverse consequences
than expected, such as raising tax rates with the expectation of increasing tax
revenue, can have the consequence of lowering tax revenue as people find ways
of avoiding the taxed activity or product.
Alternatively, lowering tax rates can increase tax revenue as more
people will find the activity or product attractive.
Caveats?
While the author shares the biases of the opposition, the
author has biases of one’s own. There
are various examples of how the opposition used evidence incorrectly or did not
share the appropriate evidence, while the author presents favorable alternative
evidence to support the authors’ claims without questioning the evidence in the
same way.
This book contains examples and ideas found in various other books that the author wrote, without many changes to the examples or additional examples. This book can be used as a short reference book to the authors’ other books.
