Thomas Sowell is often a smart guy. But not always.

You shouldn’t discuss inequality, he says.

[Added: I know that title might not have been written by him and I know that he doesn’t tell you in so many words not to discuss inequality in outcomes, but that is the tendency of this piece and several others on the subject he’s written. All inequalities of outcome are not the result of inequalities of opportunity, he says. Fine. Then he cites basketball-playing and university entrance tests. Well, those are specific areas where native abilities can be shown to play a dominating role. However, what Sowell – and many libertarians – then do is to broaden this argument to a generalization that all unequal outcomes must then be the result of differing capacities, and not of other, sometimes malign, factors.
If you read LRC consistently and see when they trot out Tom Sowell , it’s invariably on race-related issues, when the fact that he is a black man gives the argument more weight.

Sowell would prefer people NOT to look at diversities of outcome but to focus on equality of opportunity. But, if malign social factors come into play, attention to opportunity equality is beside the point and Sowell’s argument becomes diversionary and tool used to keep people looking away from what is indeed often (not always) a very powerful indicator of something amiss.

Well, a philosophy of radical egalitarianism is one thing. Discussing inequalities is another.

Apparently Sowell cannot see the difference between natural distributions of wealth and power and unnatural distributions.

And he doesn’t want you to talk about either of them.

Now,there are people who grow taller than others, because of genes.

And then there are others who are wearing 10 inch high boots.

And still others are actually standing on the second floor of the house.

Sowell thinks that differentiating between these people is counter-productive to wealth creation.

Oh really?

How much wealth has Thomas Sowell created, as a think-tank book-writer?