This whole notion
that the black family has always been disintegrating,
that is nonsense. His studies go up to 1925. The great bulk
of black families were intact two-parent families
up through 1925 and going all the way back
through the era of slavery. So it is now only
within our own time that we suddenly see
this inevitable tragedy which the welfare system says
it's going to rush in to solve. It's been 40 years
since the show aired, and Thomas Sowell's writings
continue to illuminate. Whether the topic is
race, crime, immigration, or so many other subjects,
his scholarship remains as relevant as ever. Racists may prefer
one race to another, but they prefer themselves
to everybody else. Thomas Sowell
is a trained economist. He's a sociologist
who has written books about virtually every culture
that's ever existed. He is a photographer. He is America's greatest
contemporary living philosopher. I'm Jason Riley. I'm a journalist and author. For more than two decades, I have closely studied the life
and work of Thomas Sowell. His story is both
fascinating and illuminating. Tom makes a very, very good
point that general principles affect everybody, whether
they're black, brown, or purple. Tom is fearless not just
in advancing unpopular opinions, but in venturing into
areas of scholarship that had been untrodden. Tom Sowell
is known for his views on economics, history, race,
and politics. But I've also discovered
some lesser-known aspects of his life -- his research and his writings
about late-talking children, and the fact that he is
a highly regarded world-traveling
photographer. Over the next hour, we'll
examine the life and career of Dr. Thomas Sowell, how he rose from
humble beginnings to attend and teach
at some of the nation's leading institutions and became one of our
foremost social commentators. You were a Marxist
at one time in your life. What was your wake-up
to what was wrong with that line of thinking? Uh, facts. You're about to meet
one of the greatest minds of the past half-century. [ music ] Funding for this program has been provided by... [ music ] Because I was a Marxist
at the time, and they were appalled,
and I thought -- you know, they have very
high intellectual standards, and I'm not going to find
ideological soul mates. I was still a Marxist. I took a summer job
in the government, got an intern in economics. And it was seeing
the government from the inside that turned me around. The vision of the left, and I think many conservatives
underestimate this, is really a more attractive
vision in itself. The only reason
for not believing in it is that it doesn't work. But you don't see that
at the outset if all you're looking at
is just a theory. If the world were the way
the left conceives it to be, it would be a better world than the way the right
conceives it to be. It just happens
that the world is not that way. For me, Thomas Sowell is that rarest of species -- and honest intellectual. He's spent a career putting truth above popularity. He's explored the answers
to questions others were afraid to even ask. He's followed the facts
where they lead and accepted the findings, however unpopular
or politically incorrect. Thomas Sowell
fervently stands by his well-researched beliefs, and he does not hesitate
to let someone know if he thinks they're wrong. I've spent dozens of hours
interviewing Tom and hundreds more
selecting stories he's told over the years
to others to help us understand
what makes Thomas Sowell unique. [ music ] Sowell's body of work
is quite vast. It's covered everything
from economics and history to culture, migration,
and racial inequality. The main thing that
he's done, in my opinion, is to cause people to rethink
their assumptions about all sorts of things. Not just economics, but about race, about politics, about how we get along. Tom is absolutely fearless. I mean, he's forceful
in his opinions. He will not compromise
any of his opinions for the sake
of social politeness. How do you take
the measure of a man, especially if he's someone
who's impacted our thinking about politics and economics
for more than half a century? Do you do it through his deeds
or influence? Or by what he says or writes? Perhaps
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best -- "The ultimate
measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort
and convenience, but where he stands at times
of challenge and controversy." The media -- the television
and the print media, they've wised up. You can't argue with Tom, so you might as well hide
what he's doing. And that's what they're doing. They're just ignoring
what he's written because there's no way that
they can argue with Tom Sowell. [ music ] What distinguishes
Thomas Sowell's scholarship? First, intellectual honesty --
asking the right questions, gathering the relevant data, and following the facts
to their logical conclusion, even if that conclusion
turns out to be unpopular. Second, the importance
of incentives and the reality of trade-offs in addressing
our social problems. Third, the belief
that a group's upward mobility derives primarily from its
development of human capital. And finally, Sowell has
an abiding respect for social processes
and existing institutions and the role they play
in decision-making. So where do Tom Sowell's
ideas come from? What formed the foundation
of a man who would go on to become one of the country's
foremost public intellectuals? That story began 600 miles to the south
of Midtown Manhattan more than eight decades ago. [ music ] Thomas Sowell was born
in Gastonia, North Carolina, on June 30, 1930. The Great Depression
was just getting underway, and like many blacks
in the South at the time, his family had no electricity, no central heating, and no hot running water. Sowell's father died
before Tom was born and his mother, a maid,
died in childbirth just a few years later. He was adopted by
his great aunt and raised by her
and her two daughters. So he was raised by three women. My whole career
would not have been possible without the particular family
in which I was raised, which was not composed
of educated people. I mean, nobody in that family
had ever graduated from high school, and most had not graduated
from grade school. But they were interested
in education and they were interested in me. Tom was raised by a great aunt
and her adult children. The family moved
to New York City's Harlem neighborhood, a migration that exposed him
to better schools and more opportunities than were
available to blacks in the segregated South. "My great fear is that
a black child growing up in Harlem today
will not have as good a chance to rise as people
of my generation did, simply because
they will not receive as solid an education,
in an era when such an education
is even more important." [ music ] [ music ] When Thomas Sowell
was 8 years old, his family moved
from North Carolina to New York City,
and settled here, at 720 St. Nicholas Avenue in the neighborhood of Harlem. [ music ] The building looks
pretty much the same as it did
more than 80 years ago when the Sowells moved in. [ music ] Young Tommy,
as he was called, ventured out
into a big city for the very first time. He rode double-decker buses and learned to cross
busy streets all by himself. [ Train wheels clacking ] We were much poorer
than the people in Harlem or most anywhere else today. It was my last year
or two at home that we finally had a telephone. We had a radio.
We never had a television. But in another sense, in the sense of the things
you need to get ahead, I was enormously more fortunate
than most black kids today. While coming of age
in Harlem, Sowell discovered
the magic of education, thanks to family friend
named Eddie Mapp. [ Children shout playfully ] [ music ] In Harlem, there was
a kid named Eddie that members of the family
had run into before I ever arrived
from North Carolina. [ music ] He came from a highly
educated family, and they immediately
saw the implications if they could get him
to mentor me. [ music ] Eddie brought Tom here,
to the Harlem Public Library, taught him how to find books
that interested him, taught him how
to check them out. And I saw all these books, and I had no idea
why we were there when I don't have any money
to buy one book. And so, what am I gonna do
with all these, you know, hundreds of books
up on the shelf? [ music ] Crossing the threshold
to this new world was the first step on a path Young Tommy might not
otherwise have taken. And he very patiently walked me
through the whole thing. And again, I was very reluctant
to take out a library card 'cause I didn't know
what all this is about, but he talked me into it, then I borrowed
a couple of books. And really, had I
not encountered him, the entire rest of the story could not have been
the way it was. I mean, at some point
I would have learned what a public library was,
but by that point, it would be too late. When you start getting
in the habit of reading when you're eight years old,
that's a different ball game than if you had to wait
till you're a teenager, and it's too late now. Thanks to that
same friend, Eddie, a young Tom Sowell was pointed
in the right direction regarding his schooling. The grade school he attended
in Harlem was a good one. But when it came time
for junior high school, the one in Tom's neighborhood
was not so great. When I finished
elementary school, and they assigned me
to a junior high school in a very bad neighborhood, he told me that
you can get transferred. And I got transferred
to a much better school. Had I gone to that
other school, again, the story would have been
entirely different. He would become a firm believer
in allowing parents to choose the best school
possible for their children, whether it be private schools,
religious schools, or even the option that sparks
intense debate among lawmakers and educators today --
charter schools. [ music ] "There are few things
more dishonorable than misleading the young." The abysmal quality
of education available in the ghettos today is one that I really
don't think the worst possible
private school could match. 40 years ago, I received
a far better education in Harlem than the people who are living
in Harlem today have available to them. [ music ] It's 8:00 a.m.
at the Success Academy school in Harlem, New York. This is a charter school,
an example of educational choice for people trying to
better themselves despite the circumstances
they were born into. For Tom, this is
education done right. Professor Sowell has been
a leader in supporting all forms of school choice,
and I very fundamentally agree that we need
more choices, not fewer. I think we particularly
need that for our most vulnerable
populations. Back in 1978,
when there was a push for a voucher scheme,
the "New Republic" objected. In their words,
"The least educated, the least ambitious,
and the least aware would be left
in the public schools." Professor Sowell
grew up in Harlem. I grew up in Harlem,
and the schools there have been a disaster
for half a century. And so you have
generations of kids who have not gotten
the education that they deserve and are entitled to. [ music ] Charter schools
are public, tuition-free schools that are open to all students, and able to operate
independently from the traditional
school district. They are given the autonomy to design a curriculum tailored
to the needs of their students. But they must also meet
academic standards set by state
and local officials. Unlike traditional
public schools, however, charter schools
that don't meet these standards can actually be shut down. With respect to education,
Tom would say it doesn't make any difference
how much money you put into education, but if there are not
some basic factors that you must
take into account, that is, in order for a kid
to get a good education, somebody must make him
go to bed on time. Somebody must make him
do his homework. Somebody must make him
mind the teacher. Somebody has to get him up
in the morning. And if those things
are not done, I don't care how much money
you put into education, you're not going to get
very good results. And that is precisely
what we see. For decades, Sowell has been
a strong supporter of charters and other education options
for families trapped in
underperforming schools. There are, as you've said,
many blacks today who are still being given totally inadequate education...
Yes. ...and cannot be expected
to get very far for that reason. What would be
your remedy for that? I would allow their parents to have a choice
of where to send them to school, whether that choice is called
a voucher scheme, open enrollment,
tuition tax credit, any kind of scheme of that sort that would put that power
in the hands of their parents, mainly because
that would mean that the schools would have to be
responsive to them. As it is now,
the school is a monopoly. They need not be responsive. It is hard for me to understand
what harm is going to be done by allowing parents
to have a choice as compared to having
self-interested bureaucrats have a monopoly. "The things that they thought
were going to help, did not help. And in many cases
made things much worse." [ music ] Thomas Sowell
is a very private person... [ music ] ...despite having so much of
his work put before the public. He's reluctant
to give interviews, and has been known to
make journalists wait years before sitting down
to talk about his life and work. But a colleague of mine
took the time to get Tom to appear on his show. I'm Dave Rubin. I'm the host
of "The Rubin Report." Set's right back behind me
here in my home. I do a long-form interview show. Everybody was saying, you've got to talk
to Thomas Sowell. You've got to talk to
Thomas Sowell. And we tried for about three
or four years to hunt him down. And finally we were able
to interview him. One of the things
that I found out that was sort of amazing about
your history, you briefly mentioned it
right before we started; you were a Marxist at one time in your life. Most people will find this hard
to believe, but it is true. But it's not that unusual. Most of the leading conservative
thinkers of our time did not start off
as conservative. You've got a couple like
Bill Buckley and George Will. But I mean, Milton Friedman
was a liberal and a Keynesian. Ronald Reagan
was so far left, at one point the FBI
was following him. Do you remember sort of
what you were thinking, what appealed to you
at that time about Marxism? Yes. I mean, there was no
alternative being discussed. I treated my interview with him
as Thomas Sowell 101. I wanted it to be for the new
generation of young people who watch YouTube,
who listen to podcasts. My first job was
as a Western Union messenger. [ music ] I would take
the Fifth Avenue bus. It would go all the way up
Fifth Avenue past all these Lord & Taylor and all these fancy places. And then across 57th Street. Down Riverside Drive. And then, as I
came across this long viaduct that turned into 135th Street, suddenly,
there were the tenements, [ music ] and I'd wonder, why is this? It's so different. And nothing in the schools
or most of the books seemed to deal with that,
and Marx dealt with that. There's an absolutely
beautiful moment where I ask him about
his own political evolution. So then what was your wake-up
to what was wrong with that line of thinking? Uh, facts. [ Laughs ] I love that moment. I mean, I knew
the second he did it, I was like, we got our clip.
That's as good as it gets. And it gets to, what does
this man care about most? Does he care about
how he feels about things? How he wants the world to be?
Or how is the world as it is? Because that's what he's saying,
"I care about facts." The world is a certain way,
and now, using that as the baseline, we can try to figure out
how to make things better. [ music ] Drafted in 1951,
Tom joined the Marines, where he taught pistol shooting
and took photographs. [ Patriotic music plays ] [ music ] In fact, Sowell was part of the Marine Corps
Combat Camera Division. Combat Camera is responsible for the historical
documentation. It may not necessarily
make it out to the local paper, but somewhere down the line, someone might be able
to pull up an image and say, okay, this happened
during this timeframe. The imagery is used
as good reference to anything we may need in the future or something
that's happening right now. [ Camera shutter clicking ] [ music ] Although Thomas Sowell
left the Marines long ago, his legacy lives on today with some members
of the Combat Camera Corps, who as young men discovered
Sowell's work. When I was a young person,
I used to like to stay home from school
occasionally, liked to play hooky or pretend
I was sick and stay home. But unlike most kids
who'd, you know, cut class and do whatever, I would watch
videos of Thomas Sowell on Milton Friedman's show
"Free To Choose," and he would just wipe the floor with people from the other side
of the aisle that didn't seem to know
what they were talking about. These were very smart people,
but Thomas Sowell is so much smarter
and so much more intelligent and so much more articulate that he would just make them
seem like bumbling idiots, and I just thought
that was awesome. When the private sector
fails to create jobs at a fast enough rate, you find that people
are unemployed and drift into needing help. I think it is overly broad
to say that we turn people
into helpless children. I don't remember
talking to anyone who's ever been on welfare
who didn't think they were being treated
like children while they were on it. [ Ticking ]
[ Soft music playing ] The lessons Sowell
learned in the Marines would stay with him
for the rest of his life, especially his love
of photography, which would become Tom's
artistic outlet while he pursued a life filled
with studying facts and data. [ music ] Photography did have
connections to his vision of reality. [ music ] Tom once commented to me
that to be a photographer, you have to master trade-offs. All of the little adjustments
that you fiddle with in the camera never involve making everything better
or everything worse. It's a matter of trading
one thing off to another. If you close down the diaphragm, then you get lots and lots
of stuff in focus near to far. On the other hand,
you're cutting down the amount of light. And a theme
in Tom's work on society is that all policies involve
trade-offs. And Tom often loses patience
at people with sweeping visions. Here's how we
can improve society. Here's a solution to a problem. And Tom points out
in his political writings there are no solutions,
there are only trade-offs. Just like photography. [ music ] [ music ] The University of Chicago
is hallowed ground for Thomas Sowell. Here is where some of
the most influential economic philosophies
of modern times were formed. It's called The Chicago
School of Economics. And it's where Tom would be
mentored by intellectual giants like George Stigler
and Milton Friedman, both of whom would go on to win
the Nobel Prize in Economics. I was a graduate student
here from 1960 to '64. The thing I learned
as a graduate student was economics
is straightforward and simple when you grasp
its underlying logic, and secondly,
that logic can be applied seriously to understand many different things
about the world. At Chicago, if it was true, it was true because
you could prove it was true. It was true because
you had the evidence, you had the logic and so forth. They explored
the specific ways in which the market does
and doesn't work. The idea, you know, that people
are rational on the whole and that if you allow
those people to operate in the marketplace, you will
generally get better results. [ Students chattering ] [ music ] The Chicago School of Economics
is where Tom says he understood
the importance of discipline and the importance
of getting hard data. In fact, he talks more
positively about his experience at University of Chicago
than at Harvard, where he says
a lot of people, in his opinion, went on emotion. Tom was a Marxist
when he took a course with Milton Friedman,
and at the end of the course, he remained a Marxist. But what he appreciated
was that at the University of Chicago, economics was
a full-contact sport where you had to defend your
position rigorously, otherwise you got wasted. And so at least Tom Sowell
said he came out understanding the importance of hard data. I was still a Marxist after
taking Milton Friedman's course. But I --
Did you -- But one summer
in the government was enough to let me say, now, this -- government
is really not the answer. I mean, that is...
[ Laughs ] Milton Friedman
didn't cure you, but the federal government did. The federal government did. Never say the federal government
doesn't do anything. [ music ] My first professional job, I was a summer intern
at the U.S. Department of Labor. One of my biggest concerns
was about minimum wages. At first, I thought,
well, this is good because all these
people are poor and they'll get
a little higher income, and so that'll be helpful. And then as I studied economics, I began to see,
well, there's a downside. They may lose
their jobs completely. So that is that. When I was at
the Labor Department, I tried to talk about
that to them and eventually I came up
with some test of it. And when I came up
with how we might test this, I was waiting to hear
congratulations, you see, that I had this,
and I could see these people were stunned, they said,
oh, this idiot has stumbled on something
that will ruin us all. [ music ] And I realized
the U.S. Department of Labor had its own agenda
and interests, and that did not
necessarily mean that whether poor people lost
their jobs for minimum wage or got higher pay
was their highest priority. [ music ] Tom Sowell looked at the data,
and the data found that minimum wage hikes cause people
who are unskilled to lose jobs. He found out that people
in the government didn't give a rip whether or not
it worked or didn't work. They were simply implementing
the policy. And that's what shocked him
and caused him to begin to rethink
lots of his assumptions. So it wasn't academia
that caused him to become more conservative. It was real life
working for the government. [ music ] I was now beginning
to understand things that I hadn't understood before. [ music ] Tom, they said,
got his PhD here in 1968. He actually taught in the years
leading up to that at Cornell, which feeds back also to this just tumultuous times
in the 1960s in the country. Huge
demonstrations at Cornell actually shut down
the university for some time. [ music ] In 1965, Thomas Sowell took
a teaching position at Cornell. Like many other colleges,
it became a focal point for anti-war
and anti-discrimination protests and demonstrations. When armed black students
took over a building on campus, Sowell had little sympathy
for school administrators. Blacks had been recruited
to Cornell under lower standards to diversify the student body,
and Sowell observed that many of these same students
were now causing trouble and feeding
racial divisions. For Sowell, it was an example
of the unintended consequences of affirmative action. Tom's tenure at Cornell had a very profound impact
on him, particularly surrounding
the campus protests. I think it left a very,
very bitter taste in his mouth. Yes, I think it did. He discovered that many
black students at Cornell, their SAT scores
were above the average but they are having
problems at Cornell. And that's when he first
came up with the idea of people being mismatched. That is, black students
who would do very well at other schools, but were recruited in the name
of affirmative action to schools where they were
in over their heads. The average black student
at MIT is in the bottom 10%
of MIT students in math. But he is in the top 90% of
all American students in math. Something like 1/4 of all
the black students going to MIT do not graduate. You're talking about
a pool of people whom you are artificially
turning into failures by mismatching them
with the school. Tom had moved to UCLA to escape the turmoil
at Cornell, and then jumped into
the turmoil at UCLA. I was sitting in my office
at UCLA one day when the Black Student
Association Delegation marched into his office. I heard all of this. And one of them said,
"Well, how you doing, brother?" Tom... "Just a minute. I am not your brother. I am Mr. Sowell, and you will address me
that way." Boy, was that a shock
to those folks. Here was their natural ally
laying down the law. "You're going to treat me the way I'm going to treat you as another human being
face-to-face, and if you don't like that,
you can leave." [ music ] I first met Tom in 1969
when I was a student at UCLA. I just walked in his office
one day and I said that,
"I understand that you and I have similar ideas
on matters of economics." And we started talk from there. You and Sowell used to joke
about how few black conservatives there were
in the country back in the '70s and '80s. Has much changed since then,
and what was it like back then? There were relatively few
blacks that we knew of that were kind of free-market,
limited government. It was Bill Buckley
who made the suggestion that the EPA does not allow Tom Sowell and I had to fly
on one plane together because we're an
endangered species. Tom's done something
in his career that one of his mentors,
Milton Friedman, felt was important to do also, and that is share his knowledge
of economics with non-economists,
with non-intellectuals. The true test of whether
someone understands a subject -- the true test comes
when he can explain it to someone who does not know
a darn thing about it. And Tom has the gift
of being able to do that, to be able to explain
potentially complex ideas in economics
to the ordinary person. I haven't been able to find
a single country in the world where the policies that
are being advocated for blacks in the United States have lifted
any people out of poverty. I've seen many examples
around the world of people who began in poverty
and ended in affluence. Not one of them has followed
any pattern at all like what is being advocated
for blacks in the United States. Many groups have
remained in poverty for a very long time
trying to follow those patterns. At one time, black
Americans did not have the constitutional guarantees
as everybody else. Now we do, but because
the civil rights struggle is over and won, and we're
not facing the kind of gross racial discrimination
of the past does not mean that
there are not major problems. I'm fairly sure
that Tom would say that the 75% rate of illegitimacy among blacks
is a devastating problem, but it's not a racial problem. It's not a legacy
of slavery. The crime that -- I believe
Tom would say as well -- that the crime we see
in many black communities is a devastating problem, but it has nothing to do
with racial discrimination. "If you have always believed
that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged
by the same standards, that would have gotten you
labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago,
and a racist today." [ music ] Thomas Sowell may be
an intellectual, but it would be a mistake to believe that only academics
and economists believe in what Tom has to say. I've never heard,
never damaged I am most certainly
handed single... In a small recording studio just outside of downtown Dallas,
a young rapper hones his craft. It feels good to be back
in his booth And shout out to you You backin' me
then you backin' the truth You actually knew,
and I ain't have to tell you So sit back,
let it soothe... [ Continues rapping ] Eric July is
a man on a mission. Handed singly, top tier,
meaning you not... Eric is out to make
great music and to educate people
like himself about his hero. And I'm something
like a great howl Anywhere Thomas Sowell is, he's the smartest person
in the room. [ Rap metal music playing ] I would most definitely
just tell him that he's been my biggest
inspiration, hands down. I see you standing
with your hand out What you sayin' now
and are you hearin this? You need to look at
your affiliates. Eric fronts the rap metal
band BackWordz, and uses his music
to get a message across with politically charged lyrics, many of them inspired
by Thomas Sowell. He has emerged
as an influential young voice who is outspoken in his support
for individual freedom and less government
intervention. [ Rapping indistinctly ] You see somebody like Sowell
who has been doing what he has been doing,
getting out there and speaking what he has
been speaking, overcoming the odds that he had
to certainly overcome, and his growth, and you also feel like you
can conquer the world. It just goes to show
from a generational standpoint how he's been able to influence
somebody, you know, like me. People are probably tired
of hearing me talk about it because I'm always referencing
Thomas Sowell. People ask me,
"Well, you used to be this. What happened?" I'm like, well,
that enlightenment period, it had to do with
Thomas Sowell. Most people have not
recognized the fact that if you go back
into the '20s... ...you find that
married couple families were much more prevalent
among blacks then than today. As late as 1930,
blacks had lower unemployment rates than whites. So all these things
that we complain about and attribute
to the era of slavery, those things should have
been worse in the past than in the present,
but in fact, they're worse in the present
than in the past. And I think if you want to look
for a turning point, it would be since the 1960s. [ Indistinct conversations ] And what happened
in the 1960s? [ music ] You began to have not only
the welfare state, you began to have the mind-set
that goes with the welfare state so that there was no stigma
any longer attached, for example,
to being on relief or welfare. Those types are welfarism
and how they have affected black, you know, communities
and black families, it's tough. It's a hard pill to swallow. Just how welfarism does
incentivize people to fail. It's the state saying that,
so as long as you fail, you know, you'll get this money. You'll get this money,
we'll take care of you, housing, whatever you need. But the minute
you get above this line, you know, the minute you get,
you see this amount of success, we're going to strip it
all away from you. [ Children shouting playfully ] [ music ] [ music ] In 1980, Thomas Sowell
came here the Hoover Institution
at Stanford University. Upon accepting the offer,
his teaching days were over. [ music ] Thousands of students would
miss out on having Professor Sowell as a teacher, but millions of intellectually
curious readers would benefit from
Thomas Sowell's work here. [ music ] I don't think Tom Sowell ever
really liked being a teacher. I don't think I ever like
standing in front of people and being a professor. When Hoover offered him
the opportunity to basically pay him
to be Tom Sowell, he took it, and he can write
what he wants to write when he wants to write,
as much or as little, but he's always been
very, very productive. And I think the independence and
the freedom is what he liked. So you're good friends
with Thomas Sowell. Yeah. Have been for a while. How would you describe Tom
to someone who's never met him before? I'd say Tom is an empiricist. And by that,
I mean Tom looks at evidence and then he makes a diagnosis and then he offers a therapy
for the perceived problem. And then he offers a prognosis,
and he's not interested as much, if at all, on how people
interpret that or what are the ramifications in contemporary political terms
of his argument. You point out that depending on where you come from
in a foreign country also makes a considerable
difference because you carry your ethos
on your back, don't you? Yes, that if you look
at the Chinese who came to the United States,
let's say, before World War II, a very large percentage of those
came from one district in one province
in Southern China. The people who have come in
since World War II have largely not come
from that same area. They've come in with a different
set of experiences and backgrounds
and values. Many of them are
the poverty-stricken Chinese that you see in the Chinatowns
of New York and San Francisco working the very long hours,
getting the very low pay, living in the slums,
packed into the rooms, you know, several people
to a room and so on, again, it would be hard
to make the argument that this is simply a
matter of the way the American employer sees it. The American employer
is probably totally unaware that there are two
different kinds of Chinese. It's only the people
who work with the data who make those separations. "It takes
considerable knowledge just to realize the extent
of your own ignorance." [ music ] Thomas Sowell may be
an academic by training, but he is not one
to rely solely on books. To gather material
for his extensive writings on culture and migrations,
for example, he became a boots-on-
the-ground researcher who traveled the world. As an amateur photographer, he often documented these trips
through the lens of his camera. [ Camera shutter clicking ] [ music ] His purpose was to try
and understand the role of cultural differences both within nations
and between them, and not only today,
but throughout history. [ Camera shutter clicks ] [ music ] Sowell's travels led
to pioneering studies and several books that detail the cultural patterns
and development of different groups
around the world. He went around the world
and analyzed virtually every culture
present and past to find out their strengths
and weaknesses -- why some survived,
why some perished. One of Tom's discoveries
was that much about the fate
of different human civilizations and cultures can be explained
ultimately by their geography. Too often the influence
of geography on wealth is thought of narrowly,
in terms of natural resources that translate directly
into wealth, such as oil in the Middle East
or gold in South Africa. But important
as such differences are, geography influences even more profound
cultural differences among the peoples themselves. Why did Europe conquer Africa
instead of vice versa? Well, there are a number
of ways in which civilizations become complex, primarily
through the aggregation and exchange of ideas. Sophisticated cultures
are ones that sit in the middle
of a catchment area where innovations from
other cultures can be aggregated and kind of greatest hits
collections, and so geography
that allows movement of people and ideas with rivers, with highways, intersections
of highways, port cities tend to become more
culturally sophisticated. A lot of his research,
as you mentioned, has focused on why
some groups excel and others do not. But that curiosity
is not necessarily appreciated by a lot of people who seem to to approach it
from the standpoint that if a culture isn't rising, it's someone else's fault. Yes. Someone else is keeping them
down, or, you know, if America is up here, it is
at the expense of this group or this country
or this region. He doesn't take that approach. What Tom did when he talked
about comparative cultures, he went to this quite narrow
and unheralded group of scholars that talked about economics, and then he took that data, superimposed it onto
history questions. So when people who were
critical of Tom would say, "Well, he hasn't read this
particular historical work," or, "He wasn't quite
appreciative of this great novel or this great history
or this." They didn't understand
that what he lost as being an economic historian, he gained in really
trying to explain how cultures were successful or how much dominance
they had in trade by actually looking
at economics. And most historians, you know, they think that economics
is a dismal science, and they're not
trained to do that. "The first lesson
of economics is scarcity: there is never enough
of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard
the first lesson of economics." [ music ] I wanted to explore how
Sowell’s concepts on free markets have influenced business leaders today. A perfect example can be found in Salt
Lake City, Utah, at Overstock.com. One of the most successful
online retailers in the world. Aaron Hunsaker, an Overstock
employee, has been heavily influenced by Thomas Sowell’s ideas. He credits much it’s success to
the free-market economic principles championed by Thomas Sowell. I discovered Thomas Sowell like every
good thinker discovers things in the modern-day, on YouTube. I was watching a Milton Friedman
video, and I see Thomas Sowell speaking with Milton Friedman,
and I was like, wow, this guy is really, really smart. And he gave a real rigorous, as
rigorous as you could be on TV, but a real rigorous answer to a question,
and I really appreciated that. And I just kind of went down the
YouTube wormhole with Thomas Sowell, and then I saw that he’d written like,
you know, ten or a thousand books or something like that,
he has tons of books. And I just started to explore him, and
the more I explored Thomas Sowell, he talked a lot about incentives in
institutions, government institutions. I come from kind of a punk rock
hardcore background, and I had an incentive to be more left and
angry because it makes better music. You don't hear a whole lot of music
about, oh, well, if I work really hard, and we base it off
meritocracy, things will be great. But upon kind of digging into Thomas
Sowell’s thought process, I realized that it is far more punk rock to
base things off of individual freedoms and thought. I see him as someone who has
constantly strived to be consistent. And to those that want to be
consistent, you have to study geography; you have to study
history; you have to study political philosophy; you have to study
journalism; you have to study all of these subjects as a whole and see how
you can put together a view that makes them consistent with each other. That’s why I think Thomas Sowell
is so well-versed and such a Renaissance man. I grew up in an era when
people, particularly blacks, were a lot poorer than today, faced a lot
more discrimination than today, and in which the teenage
pregnancy rate was a lot lower than today. I don't believe there is
a predestined amount of teenage pregnancy, a predestined amount
of husband desertion. Gutman has done a study
of the black family showing that this whole notion
that the black family has always been disintegrating,
that is nonsense. "Some things are believed because they are
demonstrably true, but many other things
are believed simply because they have been
asserted repeatedly." [ music ] In the 1990s, Sowell took up
a new area of research the phenomenon
of late-talking children. For Tom, it was personal. I met Tom Sowell
through language. I am a cognitive scientist.
I study language. I wrote a book on language, and I got a letter out of the
blue from Professor Sowell. His son was a late talker, but contrary
to some of the diagnosis that he got
from so-called experts, he didn't believe that his son
was retarded or autistic, just that his language
was late in developing. He just did not talk. This meshed
with my own understanding of the relationship
between language and thought, namely
they're not the same thing. So I wrote to Tom saying,
"Your intuition about your son is consistent
with my understanding." Tom Sowell sought out answers. Eventually, his son John
not only began to speak, but to excel. Sowell wrote about
this remarkable journey in his landmark book,
"Late-Talking Children." Tom discovered
that there was a syndrome, that many famous scientists,
engineers, mathematicians would also have
acute spatial ability and numerical ability, but were late in developing
the ability to speak. One of those impacted
was Los Angeles-based writer Jennifer Van Laar,
whose own young son, Sam, wasn't talking at all. When Sam was about
18 months old, he wasn't really talking. He -- just babbling. No word that we could make out
to be an English word. So I started looking online
and saw late-talking children, and then Dr. Thomas
Sowell, and said, oh, I definitely want to read
what he has to say because I respect him
as an intellectual. I had already noticed in Sam that he would build different
block towers with different patterns
repeating over and over. He would have movies
that he just loved watching over and over, and one of them
was "Charlotte's Web." Another one was "Shrek." And so I would come and find
ABC blocks on the floor or on the refrigerator
spelling out -- and he'd even write out
"Lucasfilm." [ Laughs ] Which is pretty big for
a three-year-old to be able to do. So the fact that Sowell's book
talked about bright children, I thought, I don't
think he's dumb. Let's look into this. So went to go see Dr. Camarata,
to get an evaluation. And they gave us a full plan
of what we could do to help him to be able to acquire language
and be successful in school. [ music ] When Sam started piano
and he had been so advanced in that first year,
at the end of the year they had a recital,
and he still wasn't talking in more
than one sentence, maybe two, but he got up
and he introduced his piece, and it was
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." [ "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"
playing ] It made me cry. [ music ] I sent the video of that
to the Camaratas and said how proud I was of him
and thanked them for the help they had given us,
and they asked if they could send it
to Dr. Sowell. [ music ] Said, go ahead,
and then they e-mailed back and said that Sowell had
really loved watching the video of Sam. [ music ] [ Song ends ] [ Applause ] Just the fact that he would care
about this five-year-old said a lot to me
about who he sees himself as. "The course of history
is determined by what people do
with their opportunities." [ music ] Sowell has written a great deal about the importance
of human capital in a group's advancement. The development of skills
and habits and attitudes in advancing
a group economically. And a good example
of what he's talking about can be found on Sixth Avenue
in Manhattan at the Steinway piano company. [ Playing classical piece ] [ music ] President and CEO
Ron Losby explains how
the history of Steinway aligns with
Thomas Sowell's theories. We still follow the tenet
that Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg started the company with, and that is to build
the best piano possible. They were living in Seesen in the Harz Mountain area
of Northern Germany. At that time, there was a lot of
political upheaval in Germany, and they had the guild system. I think you would call it
the apprentice system today. And it had really strict rules. And Heinrich
was just so full of ideas on how to build the best piano
that he possibly could that he was impatient,
and he didn't want to wait until he graduated
from this system. On his own, Heinrich
created a few pianos. And while they were
favorably received, the economic restrictions
in Germany at the time made him realize
that if he was to succeed, he would have to take
his skills elsewhere. [ music ] It gave him the impetus to come to the New World,
New York City, where there was
less restriction, there was less,
you know, regulation. [ music ] Heinrich changed
the family's last name to the more American-sounding
Steinway. They created an instrument
that within 10 years, they became the most successful,
most profitable, the best piano company
built in America. Very often people talk as if some group has taken
control of some industry and they wonder,
how did that happen? And in most cases,
they created the industry. The industry didn't exist
before they got there. That's how they took
control of it. [ music ] Heinrich's decision
to relocate to America is a good example of one of
Thomas Sowells core beliefs -- that individuals carry
with them their skills no matter where they go,
and can succeed if permitted to do so without cumbersome
government regulations. "It's amazing how much panic
one honest man can spread among a multitude
of hypocrites." [ music ] Listen to this list. "The Thomas Sowell Reader,"
2011. "Intellectuals and Race," 2013. A new edition
of your classic work "Basic Economics," in 2014. "Wealth, Poverty
and Politics," 2015. And now, 2018, "Discrimination
and Disparities." And do you know what I just did? I just listed the books
you've published since turning 80. [ Laughs ] [ music ] Thomas Sowell's
essays and weekly columns have appeared in more than
300 newspapers and periodicals, including "The New York Times,"
"The Wall Street Journal," "Forbes," and "Fortune"
magazines. While many found Sowell's
empirically based arguments insightful, oftentimes
they created a backlash, especially among those
in academia. You once told me
that Tom's not interested in making people
happy or angry. He's interested in telling
people what the data show. What the data shows,
and he is counter -- He can be a contrarian
in the sense that often areas
that are unpopular or they're plagued with false
knowledge or misconceptions, he gravitates toward those because that intrigues
him to see if that's actually the popular
opinion, is actually true. And often it's not
he finds it's not. And then the results tend
to bother people that he's so
dispassionate about it. And then, as an African-American
intellectual, he is supposed to fit
a preconceived intellectual, academic,
ideological position, and it's not that he doesn't,
he's just on interested in it. He doesn't make friends
or enemies based on tribal considerations
or popular consensus. On December 27, 2016, Thomas Sowell published
his weekly newspaper column. I'd read his column for decades
and always look forward to it, but this one was different. Thomas Sowell
was saying goodbye. [ music ] Within minutes,
the internet lit up with thousands of comments about Tom retiring
from writing his column. most of the postings were along
the lines of, Say it isn't so. [ music ] I did that
after spending some time in Yosemite with
a couple of photo buddies, and I realized
that in those four days we hadn't watched
a single news program. We hadn't seen
a single newspaper. I said, this is the life. I don't need to be watching -- Because most of
the foolish things that are said on these programs were said 20 and 30
and 40 years ago and refuted 20 and 30
and 40 years ago. By you quite often. But you're happier when you're
not reading the news. Absolutely. But at the same time, you're also happier
when you're working on a book. Yes, when I can go out there
and get the hard data and find out
what's really happening. In dozens of books and numerous
television appearances and thousands of columns, Sowell has championed
his philosophy of free markets and personal responsibility, while weathering the storms
of challenge and controversy. Sowell has spent
his adult life proudly sharing his political
and economic beliefs. For some, he's a clear thinker
full of common sense. Others say he lacks empathy. What no one can doubt
is the courage of this maverick intellectual. If you could offer one sentence
of counsel to some sophomore or junior who's watching
this today... It's not over till it's over,
as Yogi Berra said. And I would say to
this young person, if we, through some miracle,
get through this, please take to heart
the lesson of what happens when you vote on the basis
of rhetoric and symbolism instead of using your mind. It doesn't matter
how smart you are unless you stop and think. In your early days at Harvard, you were either going to make it
or not going to make it, and you shut yourself up
and made yourself make it. Many people in trying
to insulate young people from adversity, insulate them from the things that
give them strength. "Thomas Sowell: Common Sense
in a Senseless World" is now available on DVD. For more information,
or to order a DVD of this program, call 1-800-876-8930, or visit www.freetochoose.net. Funding for this program has been provided by...
