Thinking Beyond Competition

Intellectuals and society

Intellectual and Society by Thomas Sowell

A book on the systemic incentives that intellectuals face and how this distorts their view of societal issues and makes them overconfident of social engineering solutions. While it’s quite interesting for those who haven’t read Sowell, I found it mostly a repeat (and rearrangement) of themes already covered in his books Knowledge and Decisions, A Conflict of Visions, and The Vision of the Anointed.

Interviews/author appearances: Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson (has transcript).

Reviews/mentions: David Henderson in Cato’s Regulation Magazine (PDF) (linked to/discussed in this EconLog blog post by the same author), Alan Wolfe in The New Republic (trashed here), David Henderson on EconLog, Arnold Kling at EconLog here and here.

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