Thomas Sowell talks about his new book Economic Facts and Fallacies — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:02Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson. Joining me today, economist Thomas Sowell
2. 0:07of the Hoover Institution, the author of such classics as Basic Economics and the Vision
3. 0:12of the Anointed. By the way, the Vision of the Anointed explains everything. It is a
4. 0:18truly great book. And when I call that one a classic, I really do mean it. Author of
5. 0:21such classics as the Vision of the Anointed, Dr. Sowell has most recently published Economic
6. 0:26Facts and Fallacies, several topics from which we will now be discussing. Men and women,
7. 0:34from Economic Facts and Fallacies, I'm quoting you to your self, Tom. "It is widely believed
8. 0:39that the rise of American women in high level occupations since the 1960's has been due
9. 0:43to antidiscrimination laws and that these in turn have been due to the feminist movement.
10. 0:49In reality, the proportion of women in high level occupations was greater during the first
11. 0:54decades of the 20th century than in the middle of the 20th century and all of these was before
12. 1:00the feminist movement." Explain.
13. 1:02Yes, during the first half of the 20th century. For example in 1908, the percentage of women
14. 1:08and who's [inaudible] America was twice what it was in 1950. In various fields, if you
15. 1:14look at the women who got PhDs in economics, chemistry, or got law degrees, other postgraduate
16. 1:21degrees, those were all higher in the '20s and '30s than they were in the '50s, and there
17. 1:25was a very simple reason for it. Women in those days got married later.
18. 1:31In the early years in the century?
19. 1:32In the early years.
20. 1:33Right.
21. 1:34Over time, the age of marriage and the age of beginning to have children began to decline
22. 1:39and the classic of my era was the era of the baby boom and then that's when women hit a
23. 1:45low in their proportion of the post graduate degrees and in the professions which those
24. 1:50degrees would be used. Now around 1956, the age of marriage began rising. And in 1957,
25. 2:00the age of having children rose, strangely enough. And as that rise continued, you saw
26. 2:06women rising again in these various professions. So that one of the professions they reached
27. 2:11in 1972, the same proportion that it had back in 1932. And as the age of marriage kept rising
28. 2:18and as the number of children kept falling, women went on to higher and higher levels.
29. 2:23Now, the people on the other side say the opposite by the simple experience of looking
30. 2:29as if the world began in 1960. They don't, they ignore all the rest of that and they
31. 2:35say it's all due to the feminist movement, to any discrimination laws and so forth.
32. 2:39Well, you're right. I'm gonna quote you again. "Among the many factors which influence male-female
33. 2:43economic differences, the most elusive is employer discrimination."
34. 2:47Yes, that when you correct for all the various factors such as the number of hours worked,
35. 2:53the continuous employment versus taking a few years out to have children and so on,
36. 2:59you take all that into account, the differences between men and women become quite trivial.
37. 3:04If you look at the academic world or as far back in 1969, women who were never married
38. 3:10and earn higher incomes than men would never marry. They became tenure professor at a higher
39. 3:16rate than men who would never marry. And then later on if you look at the general population,
40. 3:21if you take the women who are past the childbearing years and they work continuously, their incomes
41. 3:26were higher than men who would work continuously and so on. So the difference is that not that
42. 3:32the employer is paying them differently, but that they have different characteristics.
43. 3:35So, the central variable and explaining economic differences between men and women is not employer
44. 3:41discrimination, not the rise of feminism, it's that women--it's child rearing, marriage
45. 3:47and child rearing, that's the variable.
46. 3:48Yes.
47. 3:49As that varies, a woman's arrival or participation rate in higher level occupations varies with
48. 3:54that, that's—
49. 3:55Absolutely.
50. 3:56Okay. Now in principle, you note, family responsibilities could be perfectly evenly divided between
51. 4:03fathers and mothers. But that isn't the way it has worked in practice. Quote, I'm quoting
52. 4:08you again. "Since economic consequences follow from practices rather than principles, the
53. 4:14asymmetrical division of domestic responsibilities produces male-female difference in income."
54. 4:21Question, what are the policy implications of that? If we become fixed on eliminating
55. 4:28male-female income differences, is it the case that the only choice, the only route
56. 4:34for doing that is to involve the government in redesigning the very nature of the family?
57. 4:40Well—
58. 4:41Or am I draw--Am I leaping to a melodramatic conclusion?
59. 4:43No, no. Yeah, and logically that's certainly true. However, not all domestic responsibilities
60. 4:48can be shared equally such as having babies, which is not an inconsequential thing since
61. 4:55the existence of human race depends on it. But what it means is that women make choices
62. 5:00that make a lot of sense for them. For example, the choice of occupations that women tend
63. 5:06not to go into occupations in which there's a very high rate of obsolescence. I mean,
64. 5:12if you are a computer engineer and you take 5 years out to have a child and have a child
65. 5:20up to the age where you put him in daycare. Well, my gosh, the world has changed.
66. 5:25The job is gone.
67. 5:26Yeah. You have to start way, way back. On the other hand, if you become a librarian,
68. 5:30you become a teacher, other occupations like that, then you can take your 5 years off,
69. 5:35come back and pick up pretty much where you left off.
70. 5:39Right. Income facts and fallacies, you deal with a number of topics in Economic Facts
71. 5:46and Fallacies about fallacies concerning income, income inequality and so forth. Let's take
72. 5:513, income stagnation, executive pay and social mobility. Income stagnation, you quote disapprovingly
73. 6:01this assertion in the Washington Post. "The incomes in most American households have remained
74. 6:05stubbornly flat over the past 3 decades." And I see you quote that and then you go on
75. 6:11to demolish that, would you demolish it for us please.
76. 6:13[ Laughter ]
77. 6:14That statement as it's made had some semblance of validity, but the problem is you're talking
78. 6:20about households rather than about flesh and blood human beings. One of the real fallacies
79. 6:26that runs through a lot of talk about income is confusing statistical categories with actual
80. 6:32flesh and blood people. Households are of different sizes. They vary over time. They
81. 6:38vary from one group to another. They vary from one income level to another. So for example
82. 6:42there are 39 million people in the bottom 20 percent of household and 64 million in
83. 6:48the top 20 percent. So you're talking--you're saying, yes, 24 million additional people
84. 6:52do tend to have more money. The household thing is really a tip off right there, I think.
85. 6:58When I write and see somebody quoting household income, he's trying to make things look bad.
86. 7:03[ Laughter ]
87. 7:04It's as simple as that. Alright.
88. 7:05Yes.
89. 7:06Alright, there's a rule of life.
90. 7:07Yes. For example over a period about 30 years, household income rose by only 6 percent. Over
91. 7:15those same years, per capita income rose by 51 percent because the number of people per
92. 7:21household was declining all the while.
93. 7:23I see, I see.
94. 7:25And when you're comparing income brackets, the number of working people in the top 20
95. 7:31percent is some multiple of the number of working people in the bottom 20 percent.
96. 7:35I see, I see, I see. So, this notion that society is a layer of cake divided into quintiles
97. 7:40is just--it's even quintiles is just wrong.
98. 7:42You can do it by category, but that's not doing it by people.
99. 7:45Right, okay. Executive pay, "One of the most popular--" I'm quoting you, "One of the most
100. 7:50popular and fallacious explanations of the very high salaries of corporate executives
101. 7:54is greed." Now, why is that a fallacious explanation?
102. 7:58Because you could become the greediest person in the world and it would not raise your income
103. 8:02by 1 dime.
104. 8:04I've tried it actually and it hasn't raised my income.
105. 8:08[ Laughter ]
106. 8:09So, what's the analytical point of--correct analytical point of departure for examining
107. 8:13executive pay then?
108. 8:15The question is not why they accept this money, but why other people are offering you to [inaudible].
109. 8:20Alright.
110. 8:21And that's the matter of competition. Now, some people argue or see that you have these
111. 8:25various boards on the corporation who are very generous and heading out the stockholders'
112. 8:29money to the executives and that's why they get these high salaries.
113. 8:32Right.
114. 8:33Now, if you wanted to actually test that against anything you would say, "Alright, there are
115. 8:37some corporations which are not owned by thousands of stockholders, owned by 2 or 3 huge financial
116. 8:43companies."
117. 8:44Which have highly-paid analysts to monitor exactly what's going on.
118. 8:47Yes.
119. 8:48Alright.
120. 8:49That's where the corporate CEO has got the highest pay of all. These people, you know,
121. 8:54they have billions of dollars of their own money at stake and they're not gonna be penny
122. 8:58wise and pound foolish, but they try to get someone for the lowest price they--The guy
123. 9:02who's gonna protect their billions, they'll throw him a hundred million and consider it's
124. 9:07nothing.
125. 9:08Okay. Social mobility, again this is a passage you quote disapprovingly. It comes from the
126. 9:14New York Times, so it does--they know how to write in an oracular fashion. It does sound—
127. 9:20As if they just come from interviewing God. [ Laughter ]
128. 9:23Yeah.
129. 9:24This is what he told them.
130. 9:25It does sound, it does sort of simply sound true. "Merit has replaced," this is talking
131. 9:30about social mobility class distinctions and so forth. "Merit has replaced the old system
132. 9:35of inherited privilege." We begin with good news. However, it's the New York Times so
133. 9:40we're warned with bad news, but merit it turns out is at least partly class based. Parents
134. 9:45with money, education, and connections cultivate in their children the habits that the meritocracy
135. 9:52rewards. So, even though we've replaced inherited privilege with meritocracy, now we discover
136. 9:58that Merritt is inherited. Now, it does sound plausible. What's wrong with that as a matter
137. 10:03of analysis?
138. 10:04I can't think of a number of [inaudible] and bimbos who would be likely to the contrary
139. 10:11but I won't--they call that rude. First of all, people aren't paid from merit, they're
140. 10:16paid for productivity. You know, someone who had all kinds of handicaps to overcome, you
141. 10:23know, might have a tremendous amount of merit just to end up as a trained carpenter.
142. 10:28Right.
143. 10:29And somebody who was born with a silver spoon is now sent to the finest schools that money
144. 10:34could buy may have no greater merit in becoming a brain surgeon. But that's not--point of
145. 10:40the question is whether the brain surgeon's productivity is greater than that of the carpenter.
146. 10:44So, merit is really not part of it. But the other thing is that the question is what are
147. 10:53you trying to end up with? Are you trying to end up with the best qualified people doing
148. 10:56the job or not? I mean, if I have to have a brain surgery and I'm told that the guy
149. 11:02who's gonna perform their brain surgery is the world's greatest brain surgeon, but he
150. 11:06was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had every privilege, I might say "No,
151. 11:10no, give me somebody, you know, who had to fight his way up and who has just barely made
152. 11:15the cutoff."
153. 11:16Suppose--I don't know what the New York Times writer had in mind, but suppose I argue. Let's
154. 11:23follow the duty of charity and assume that what the New York Times reporter has in mind
155. 11:27is a just society. Maybe that's--let's suppose that what they want is a just society, and
156. 11:33that is simply not useful in analyzing social mobility.
157. 11:36No.
158. 11:37It's not.
159. 11:38No. Not--depending on what notion of justice you have, if you mean by just as treating
160. 11:44everybody alike.
161. 11:45Uhmm.
162. 11:46We can go there. If you mean a society in which everyone has equal probability, not
163. 11:52equal opportunities, equal probability of succeeding, I find that virtually inconceivable.
164. 11:57There are so many thousands of factors at work that I find it hard--You can imagine
165. 12:03how all those factors could work out the same for everybody.
166. 12:05Now, what about equal opportunity?
167. 12:08Equal opportunity, yes. But you see, you can have a society of equal opportunity. One kid's
168. 12:13family sits around at dinner time and talks about sports and the other kid's family sits
169. 12:19around at dinner time and talks about science, and they do that for 20 years and now they
170. 12:25have an equal opportunity to get into Harvard. Who do you think is most likely to make it?
171. 12:31Gotcha. Okay, we return from income facts and fallacies to facts and fallacies--Let
172. 12:38me say that again because I need to get it. Facts and fallacies concerning the academy.
173. 12:46You deal with students and economic finances, but I'd like to deal first with faculties.
174. 12:52First, this kind of overall statement that you make, again, I'm quoting Economic Facts
175. 12:56and Fallacies. "Many people think of nonprofit organizations such as colleges and universities
176. 13:02as free of selfish motives and therefore dedicated to the well being of others, including society
177. 13:08at large." This reminds me of the opening scene in the movie Animal House where the
178. 13:15camera pans across the campus and finds the statue of the founder of the campus and goes
179. 13:19down to the base where the words are inscribed knowledge is good, good for all of us. "That
180. 13:25assumption is seldom subjected to empirical tests nor does it survive such tests very
181. 13:31well when it is." Explain.
182. 13:36Well, one of the advantages--Well, one of the things that happens when you have faculty
183. 13:40tenure is that the faculty can run university for its own best interest regardless of what
184. 13:44that does to students. But one simple thing, the faculty tends to arrange the classes so
185. 13:52they will fit into convenient times with them. I mean, and I don't exempt my self when I
186. 13:57was teaching in the department with secretaries and when do you wanna have your classes. I
187. 14:01would say after the morning rush hour before the evening rush hour. Apparently, I was in
188. 14:06allowance so you have all these classes crammed in between 10 AM and 2 PM, and many students
189. 14:13are unable to get the classes they need in the sequence they need in order to graduate
190. 14:17on time, but the faculty as convenience tramps all that. There was--well, a provost in Stanford
191. 14:23was saying of last year that, you know, we have all kinds of empty classrooms most of
192. 14:29the time because--And then you--and what that means you have to build more buildings in
193. 14:34order to—
194. 14:35In tens of millions of dollars per building.
195. 14:36That's right.
196. 14:37To build the capacity just for between 10 and 2.
197. 14:40That's right. That right.
198. 14:41Right. Now not, however, that you are disdainful of the principle of faculty self governance
199. 14:47which you write essential to the operation of an academic institution. But in areas outside
200. 14:53their expertise including areas in which there is no such thing as expertise, professors
201. 14:58can simply indulge their personal prejudices at no cost to themselves. What do you mean
202. 15:02by expertise at areas in which there is no such thing as expertise?
203. 15:05Well, for example, in chemistry there's obviously expertise. There's no way that even on a small
204. 15:11college where there's any dean or president can know who ought to be teaching chemistry
205. 15:16and what courses, or chemistry, physics, math, economics, et cetera, et cetera. So the only—
206. 15:21That's left to the chemistry department.
207. 15:23Yeah, and the physics and the math and that--and so on. But due to so called faculty self-governance
208. 15:29they also have a decision making power over things in which that--which is just a matter
209. 15:34of personal choice, such as ROTC. I don't know why some professional French literature
210. 15:39should be authority on whether or not they should be ROTC on campus.
211. 15:45Alright, you write about great inflation and faculties, what's the connection?
212. 15:49Oh, it's much easier on the professor if he has soft grades. My goodness, no one to complain,
213. 15:57no one to take up his time, no one to create an unpleasantness and, you know, it makes
214. 16:03the administration happy, it makes the students happy, and the professor doesn't care, it
215. 16:08makes him happy.
216. 16:09So you give every student an A and nobody even bothers to ask for office hours.
217. 16:12That's right. That's right.
218. 16:13Alright. Now, here's the peers kind of the question. Your argument here is regards faculty,
219. 16:19is that endowments, tenure, the continued giving of us from loyal and largely unquestioning
220. 16:26alumni. All of these insulate them from what we might otherwise consider market forces,
221. 16:31the market being, the market place for education and the customers would be the tuition paying
222. 16:36students, right? Okay. And yet as you yourself say, you yourself make a large point of this.
223. 16:42American universities are routinely ranked the best in the world. How can this be?
224. 16:47Oh, they are the best in the world of what they do and what they do is research.
225. 16:52Okay. [ Laughter ]
226. 16:55You know, when I was—
227. 16:58Actually--Oh, go ahead.
228. 16:59When I was at tenure in the faculty, I remember, at UCLA, I used to love these discussions
229. 17:04when someone was up, the upper out decision to make, should be made--promoted to tenure
230. 17:08or should they be let go and so on. And, you know, you'd go around the room as "Oh, that
231. 17:13man is a terrible teacher. He doesn't do this, he doesn't do that." They go on, I'd listen
232. 17:16to all these. And in, they'd vote him tenure. And then conversely, we had a guy who was
233. 17:22really an outstanding teacher. When the vote finally came, and I must tell you that I was
234. 17:29one of those who voted to let him go, because all the while I was convinced that the students
235. 17:33would lose by his going. That was not the decision in my province. My province was to
236. 17:38apply the rules set down by the university and by those rules which I heavily weighted
237. 17:43to and researched. He sure he couldn't be kept there, and so he's off somewhere else
238. 17:48being an excellent teacher to somebody else while the UCLA students have to take potluck.
239. 17:52And so, this is a point that did you make that the large research universities tend
240. 17:58to be in a certain sense over weighted in reputation when kids are going around looking
241. 18:03for undergraduate educations.
242. 18:04Yes-- [ Simultaneous Talking ]
243. 18:05And this is to say maybe you ought to look at the small liberal arts school. It may not
244. 18:09be as famous, it may not have a world ranking, but that's because they're not doing research
245. 18:13in particle physics. They may actually have the best physics department for teaching [simultaneous
246. 18:17talking].
247. 18:18Absolutely.
248. 18:19Right.
249. 18:20Absolutely. In fact the data show that, that if you look at the colleges whose students
250. 18:23go on to receive PhDs the most, you find all kinds of schools you never heard of outdoing
251. 18:29Harvard and Yale. Grinnell for example, higher percentage of people there--Harvey Mudd College
252. 18:35for years has some multiple--Oh, a majority of its students go on to get PhDs. That's
253. 18:42not true at any of the Ivy League schools.
254. 18:44Okay, facts and fallacies concerning the academy. We'll talk about faculty. I'd like to turn
255. 18:48to students and academic finances. Students, "One of the biggest fallacies," I'm quoting
256. 18:53you again, "is that attendance at big name colleges and universities is virtually essential
257. 18:59for reaching the top later in life." Kill your self to get into Harvard because that's
258. 19:06the golden road to the top at Goldman Sachs or General Electric. But it's not true?
259. 19:10Well no. An actual study was done of the CEOs of the top 50 corporations of America. Only
260. 19:17four of them had Ivy League degrees, two of them have no degrees at all.
261. 19:20[ Laughter ]
262. 19:21Somewhat for getting to the top.
263. 19:23So an Ivy League degree is only twice as good as no degree.
264. 19:26[ Laughter ]
265. 19:27That's one way of looking at it.
266. 19:32Alright, academic finances. By the way, this is quite subversive, this one that I'm about
267. 19:38to read here. "Academic institutions often make the argument," and I'm quoting you again,
268. 19:42"that their cost for educating a student are greater than the price they charge as tuition,
269. 19:48which some take as a sign of the altruism of a nonprofit institution. But, since teaching
270. 19:53is one of the joint products of an academic institution along with research and other
271. 19:58activities, the meaning of such statement is elusive."
272. 20:01Yes.
273. 20:04This is one of the routine statements of higher education in America. No matter what we charge
274. 20:09you for tuition, it's only a small portion of the total cost of giving you an education.
275. 20:14Yes.
276. 20:15You're saying it's untrue or you're saying it's simply an incoherent statement.
277. 20:17It's an incoherent statement. It's like saying, what is the average cost of bacon? There is
278. 20:21no average cost of bacon. Bacon is produced jointly with ham, pork chops and pig skin.
279. 20:28There is the cost of a pig and any further division is meaningless. I mean, when I worked
280. 20:34for AT&T, they have a huge book which we broke down the cost of a telephone and they showed
281. 20:40it to me the first thing and I said, "Since there is no such thing as the average cost
282. 20:43of a joint product, I will never have a case, you know, with that book."
283. 20:46[ Laughter ]
284. 20:47And the whole time I was there it sat there and gathered dust.
285. 20:51You have one Mr. Congeniality award throughout your life, haven't you, Tom?
286. 20:54[ Laughter ]
287. 20:55Now query, how is it the case that across the academic scene, landscape in this country,
288. 21:04tuitions have tended to rise faster than any measure of the cost of living. They have risen
289. 21:09faster than inflation. Why is that the case?
290. 21:12Partly it's because the government subsidizes. I remember years ago talking to the president
291. 21:16of a small college who said to me that if we were to keep tuition affordable, we would
292. 21:23lose millions of dollars in government money every year because the government has the
293. 21:27formula, and if the tuition is within your range then you don't get the government help.
294. 21:32But if it's above the range, you do. Well heavens. You know, the presidents of colleges
295. 21:38can do arithmetic and they know that the way to do it is to raise the tuition to unaffordable
296. 21:45levels then the government brings in the millions.
297. 21:48Now, let me try an argument to see how persuasive you find it and that is the rising productivity
298. 21:53of labor. So that a faculty--name the position, teacher in English, Chemistry, Physics as
299. 22:03technology has permitted American labor to become more and more and more and more productive
300. 22:08even though the English teacher is doing the same thing that he or she did today, that
301. 22:12he or she did 20 years ago and 30 years ago and 50 years ago. English is actually a good
302. 22:16example here because it's relatively unchanging. You're teaching Shakespeare today as Shakespeare
303. 22:19was taught a long time ago. Nevertheless, it's a matter of the marketplace. Institutions
304. 22:24have to pay more to hire that labor, that professor precisely because wage rates throughout
305. 22:31the opportunity cost. If they're not an English teacher, they could go to work for Intel presumably.
306. 22:37So, the rising wage rates in the economy drive up cost in the academy.
307. 22:43That's one way.
308. 22:44You wanna buy it?
309. 22:47No.
310. 22:48That one was pretty good.
311. 22:49One of the things that happen is that over time more and more emphasis are put on research.
312. 22:55And for example, when I started teaching back in the 1960's, the average teaching load was
313. 23:01about 12 semester hours. Today, that's considered back breaking work.
314. 23:05That was Cornell when you first—
315. 23:06No, no. It was Douglass College at the Rutgers University. And that was common. Now, today
316. 23:15it's 6 semester hours. You got to hire twice as many professors to teach the same number
317. 23:20of courses. And that may be carried on the books as a teaching expense, is in fact their
318. 23:25research expense 'cause the reason you have to do that is because you expect these guys
319. 23:30to be writing out these articles and books.
320. 23:31Okay. Last comment on the academic--question on academic cost. Senator Obama has proposed
321. 23:37a 4,000 dollar a year refundable tax credit--refundable tuition tax credit for every year of college.
322. 23:44You like that idea?
323. 23:45Not particularly.
324. 23:46Alright, on two.
325. 23:48I wouldn't be surprised if tuition didn't go up by 4,000 dollars.
326. 23:52In the minute that was enacted. Alright.
327. 23:55Or soon thereafter.
328. 23:57Alright.
329. 23:58Facts and fallacies concerning race. The Black family, I'm quoting you again. "Some of the
330. 24:03most basic beliefs and assumptions about the Black family are demonstrably fallacious,
331. 24:09including the assumption that current fatherless families so prevalent among contemporary Blacks
332. 24:14are 'a legacy of slavery'." Explain that one.
333. 24:19Because the proportion of Black kids who are raised in two-parent families was higher under
334. 24:25slavery and for generations thereafter than today. That percentage was--Oh, go back to
335. 24:331930 or 40. They weren't--wasn't half the proportion of Blacks being raised by single
336. 24:38parents as there is today. Now, slavery was the reason why are these generations closer
337. 24:43to slavery and even on the slavery itself. Why were they raising their kids in two-parent
338. 24:48families and then not today?
339. 24:50Okay now. Well, let me--Again, let me try an argument on you. And the notion there is
340. 24:54that what is the legacy of slavery is somewhat weaker, demonstrably weaker of family bonds.
341. 25:03So that yes, the Black family is more intact in past decades than it is today, so was the
342. 25:09White family. And as we get these strange social solvents of the 1960's that seemed
343. 25:14to weaken family bonds, they weaken bonds among the White families but they devastate
344. 25:19family bonds among Blacks precisely because they're weaker in the first place and that
345. 25:24is the legacy of slavery. What do you make of that one?
346. 25:27Not much, the—
347. 25:28I'm trying hard here.
348. 25:30Well, I give you E for effort. [ Laughter ]
349. 25:35It also depends on the level of income, that is you're not gonna be able to--someone who's
350. 25:41in a position to go on to college, you know, and has a very good chance of becoming an
351. 25:48engineer or something of that sort. A girl like that is not likely to get pregnant and
352. 25:52ruin it all, as well as someone who's had a bad time in school, who has very poor prospects
353. 25:59in the job market and going on wealthier is not that big a sacrifice as compared to whatever
354. 26:05the options happen to be.
355. 26:06Alright.
356. 26:07Similarly with crime by the way.
357. 26:08Right. Well, crime let me set this one up for you, again, quoting from Economic Facts
358. 26:13and Fallacies. "Racial discrimination is frequently listed among the prime root causes of riots
359. 26:18and other criminality among Blacks, but crime among Black Americans was declining for years
360. 26:23prior to the decade of the 1960's with its landmark, civil rights laws, and its war on
361. 26:28poverty programs. If it doesn't--if crime is not arising from poverty, what's it arising
362. 26:38from? What happens in the 1960's?
363. 26:40They stop punishing criminals. The chance that a criminal would actually go to jail
364. 26:49for violent crime or any crime was much reduced in the 1960's. You begin to have all these
365. 26:55changes in the law beginning at the supreme court, as which it becomes harder and harder
366. 27:00to convict anybody of anything, and the sentences were shorter and there were more leniency
367. 27:06in terms of parole and that kind of staff. And of course, wherever you've done that in
368. 27:11the world including in Britain for example, you see this huge increase. I mean, Britain
369. 27:16was once one of the most law abiding countries in the world. Today, Britain has a higher
370. 27:21crime rate than the United States in most categories.
371. 27:25You quote former Senator Edward Brooke, an African-American who grew up in the Black
372. 27:30community in Washington, Washington DC during the 1920's and 1930's. This is Edward Brooke.
373. 27:35"Large areas of Washington DC," talking about the Black community, "were truly safe. Family
374. 27:41stayed together, neighbors helped one another, students were encouraged to study and there
375. 27:47were no drugs and no drive-by shootings." Was Edward Brooke's Washington of the '20s
376. 27:53and '30s like Tom Sowell's Harlem of the late '40s, early '50s is that when you were—
377. 28:00[Inaudible] the '40s from the early '40s.
378. 28:04Alright, the '40s, alright. But I've heard you talk about Harlem.
379. 28:07Yes, yes. Yeah, I used to sleep out on the fire escape at Harlem. At midnight, I use
380. 28:12to, if I was awake at midnight, I would go walking out to the nearest newsstand to get
381. 28:16the morning paper to find out what the baseball scores were. I'm sure people don't do that
382. 28:21today.
383. 28:22Harlem felt safe.
384. 28:23Yes.
385. 28:24And what about the schools?
386. 28:26The schools were a lot better. People expected me to meet the same standards the kids on
387. 28:31Park Avenue met. Now, that was undoubtedly unjust. But, as between that injustice and
388. 28:38spending the rest of your life paying back for a poor education to begin with, I'll go
389. 28:44with that injustice.
390. 28:47Alright. So, what has happened in Black America? Part of what's going on is that crime seizes
391. 28:56to be punished. You've already mentioned that. What else is going on? Let me--Excuse me.
392. 29:00Let me put the question the other way around. What can be done if anything, what can be
393. 29:04done to restore to Harlem today or to those same Black neighborhoods, much of these, much
394. 29:09of those, of the geography is still the same, what can be done to make those neighborhoods
395. 29:13in Harlem the way they were for you growing up in the '40s or the way they would for Edward
396. 29:17Brooke in the '20s and '30s? How can Black America be restored?
397. 29:21Mainly, by fighting against all kinds of entrenched special interest who will not give up or budging
398. 29:28in its foot, starting with the teachers [inaudible]. You need to be able to fire teachers who aren't
399. 29:34teaching. You need to be able to have competing schools nowadays because it will take you
400. 29:39forever to be able to fire the teachers. So, you'll give them an incentive to start teaching
401. 29:43again instead of playing games in the schools. And the schools as in the colleges, it is
402. 29:48a lot easier not to teach. I mean, I'm always amazed at all the activities and projects
403. 29:54they have with the schools, you know, all the while and I'm looking at the international
404. 29:58comparison. The American students are way down at or near the bottom in these international
405. 30:03tests. Why are we spending so much time, you know, hugging trees and doing other stuff
406. 30:07like that when our kids can't read?
407. 30:11So if you had to choose one point, one place to begin the restoration of Black America,
408. 30:15it would be with education?
409. 30:16Yes, alright.
410. 30:17Tom, let me end--We've been talking about Economic Facts and Fallacies, let me end with
411. 30:21just a couple of open-ended question to see what's on the mind of Tom Sowell these days.
412. 30:25Over the last 5 years, the Bush administration has spent 18 billion dollars on aids in Africa.
413. 30:31And during President Bush's trip to Africa, which is concluding as you and I speak today,
414. 30:35rock star and aids activist, Bob Geldof praise Bush as having done more for Africa than any
415. 30:41other American President. How does all that strike you?
416. 30:45I'd have to see what the consequences were. Nothing is easier than giving out money, you
417. 30:49get very little resistance. The question is, what is the bottom line result? Has aids gone
418. 30:54down as a result of all these?
419. 30:57Okay. Barack Obama has a serious chance. Polls indicate at the moment an actual likelihood
420. 31:03of becoming the first African-American president. What does that say to you about the United
421. 31:09States?
422. 31:10Well, it makes it hard for the people to keep blaming everything on racism. On the other
423. 31:14hand, I think at the time when Iran may get nuclear weapons which may be passed on to
424. 31:20terrorists, it is incredible that we should even be playing sort of demographic roulette
425. 31:25and saying, "Wouldn't it be nice to have the first Black president or the first woman president
426. 31:29or whatever?" We need whoever can do that job best because the future of the country
427. 31:35depends on it.
428. 31:36Interviewing you a couple of years ago, Fred Barnes asked if you felt pessimistic about
429. 31:40the future. You responded very simply and with distressing speed, yes. Would you like
430. 31:48to amend or expand upon that answer?
431. 31:51Yes, I feel more pessimistic now than I did then.
432. 31:54Oh, Tom. Why? What's happened in the last 2 or 3 years to make you more pessimistic
433. 31:57about the future?
434. 31:58Well, we can start with Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and John McCain.
435. 32:04You've talked about Barack Obama, what's wrong with Hilary Clinton?
436. 32:06Oh my, how many days do we have?
437. 32:09Take the top 2 or 3 characteristics.
438. 32:11Oh my. I know at least cynical person. The whole thing, everything that happened during
439. 32:20the Clinton administration, you can see that time and time again. McCain, he's better than
440. 32:29they are which is—
441. 32:32Is that [inaudible]? That's the stoutest praise you can raise.
442. 32:35That's the highest praise that I can manage.
443. 32:38Alright, last question. You write, "No book can cover all the other nonsense the politicians
444. 32:44speak in an election year." Would you care to name one piece of nonsense that you didn't
445. 32:50get the chance to cover in Economic Facts and Fallacies that you consider especially
446. 32:55dangerous or annoying.
447. 32:56The notion that we cannot afford in terms of medical care is 300 million Americans paying
448. 33:02directly. We can somehow afford sending the same money through the government and paying
449. 33:07for a government bureaucracy on top of all the other cost of medical care.
450. 33:12Dr. Thomas Sowell, thank you very much. For Uncommon Knowledge, I'm Peter Robinson at
451. 33:16the Hoover Institution, thanks for joining us.