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 | Elian Gonzalez saga could haunt Obama | |
| Gitmo trial looms in election homestretch | |
| Back at Senate, Clinton treated like royal | |
| GOP favoritism in new IG report | |
| How Hoyer got the deal done | |
| LA Times/Bloomberg Poll: Obama +12 | |
| IN Polls: Prez Race Even, Gov Race Close | |
| McCain's Psychological Benefits | |
| VP Watch: Michigan Numbers | |
| The Charm Offensive Continues |
| A Transportation Stimulus | |
| McCain's Speech in Santa Barbara | |
| A Serious Energy Policy for Our Future | |
| The Imitators | |
| 'Victims' of Cut-Rate Loans |
|
February 03, 2008
Thomas Sowell Delivers Inconvenient Truths
By Heather Wilhelm
Economic Facts and Fallacies
By Thomas Sowell
Perseus Publishing, December 2007
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Want to be a real hit at a cocktail party? Try bringing up politics, preferably with someone who disagrees with you--and if they're an emotional sort, even better. Proceed to delve into controversial issues of the day (the politics of race and gender, for instance) and, as you do, back up each point with lucid economic facts. After thorough research and a calm, learned presentation, odds are that you'll make a real impact. An impact, that is, in the form of gigantic tufts of steam shooting out of your audience's ears.
Thomas Sowell's new book, "Economic Facts and Fallacies," is much like that cocktail party guest: cool, logical, informative, insightful, and, for some sides of the political aisle, a major irritant to be blocked out of the mind. Indeed, Sowell is the first to admit that facts, though the subject of his book, aren't always enough when it comes to winning the debate. He quotes Henry Rosovsky, a Harvard economist: "Never underestimate the difficulty," the professor once said, "of changing false beliefs by facts."
Sowell's book dismantles many of the pervasive fallacies running rampant in politics today, broken into categories of urban life, gender, academia, income, race, and the problems of the third world. Some of these fallacies stem from false assumptions; others from faulty economics; still others from dodgy definitions. "Undefined words have a special power in politics," Sowell writes, "particularly when they evoke some principle that engages people's emotions." He mentions "fair" as a prime example. In the charged political milleu of 2008, "change" is surely another.
Sowell packs the book with salient facts--that less than 5% of all American land is developed, for instance, or that the percentage of American families with incomes over $75,000 has tripled over the past few decades--but the more interesting sub-current of the book asks "Why?" rather than "What?" Simple fallacies, as Sowell points out, can have disastrous impacts. The view that economics is a zero-sum game, he writes when discussing the third world, "had kept millions of very poor people needlessly mired in poverty for generations before such notions were abandoned. That is an enormously high price to pay for an unsubstantiated assumption."
Similar examples of unfortunate outcomes and unintended consequences fill the book. Rent control, long known for wreaking havoc for apartment renters and owners alike in places like New York City and San Francisco, has yet to die. Certain brands of foreign aid, proven repeatedly to be ineffective and often detrimental, also live on, celebrated by celebrities and the ONE campaign. And the long-accepted economic principle of "you can't get something for nothing" is often disregarded in today's political discourse, whether it comes to plans to stoke the economy ("But this stimulus shouldn't be paid for," Hillary Clinton recently argued) or vast entitlement expansions.
So, with hard facts at hand, why do fallacies continue to thrive in public policy? Some fallacies, Sowell points out, stem from people's penchant for sorting data to fit preconceived notions--a feat that, he shows, is remarkably easy to do. Others in the political realm might chalk the survival of certain fallacies up to pure ignorance, or, as author and professor Bryan Caplan argues, something even less savory. Voters, Caplan argues, are "worse than ignorant. They are, in a word, irrational," with anti-market, pessimistic biases leading to all sorts of fallacious policies.
"Economic Facts and Fallacies" hints at another intriguing explanation, however--a explanation that hovers around the murkier sides of the human psyche. In his discussion of income, Sowell cites a currently popular political lament: the impending "demise" of the American middle class. This widely-accepted assertion, he writes, is simply a function of statistical voodoo: defining a "middle class" income bracket (say, $35,000 to $50,000), claiming it is shrinking, and then ignoring the fact that the bracket is shrinking because average incomes are moving up, not down, the curve.
What could be a simple error for some, Sowell points out, is doubtful to be the case for many in today's chattering class--including Paul Krugman, a trained economist and frequent middle-class Cassandra, who falls into Sowell's category of "people who should know better (and perhaps do know better)." Why would writers like Krugman repeat a negative spin that is contradicted by facts? That, Sowell writes, is a "question that goes beyond the realm of economics."
Indeed. For many, it seems, beliefs in economic fallacies take on a quasi-religious significance, fueled by a fervent belief in the way things ought to be or in a worldview soaked in victimization. Sowell suggests that certain "evidence is too dangerous--politically, financially, and psychologically--for some people to allow it to become a threat to their interests or to their own sense of themselves." In that sense, as many an innocent, cocktail-holding political wonk has found, logic and facts often have no place when it comes to defining good policy. For many, emotions and psychological crutches take their place. "Blame," Sowell writes, "is much easier to understand than causation, and more politically convenient. But it is also a source of many fallacies."
In "Economic Facts and Fallacies," as in his other work, Sowell makes a persuasive and powerful case, armed with a solid arsenal of statistics, numbers, and historical facts. Those of the conservative and libertarian persuasion will likely nod as they go through the book. Many will encounter arguments that they've heard before. Some of the arguments will make them pause or think twice. But what about those who disagree?
Odds are, of course, they won't be reading the book. Facts are essential, but as Sowell notes, they don't always win arguments, and, standing alone, facts won't get you far in the marketplace of ideas. Many of those with boundless faith in free markets, ironically, often fall prey to a fallacy of their own: a stunning lack of faith in the power of marketing. Emotions, in many cases, are as powerful of facts. Ideas, no matter how good they are, often need to be sold. Sowell has surely done his part to get those ideas out into the world, demonstrating that free markets often lead to better outcomes for all citizens. Once more on his side of the political aisle grasp the importance this truth--and the importance of selling it--that message will more likely make the impact it deserves.
