Twenty-six years ago, Economist and social commentator Thomas Sowell published The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, in which he discusses “the vision prevailing among the intellectual and political elite of our time … , a prevailing vision—which means that its assumptions are so much taken for granted by so many … thinking people … that neither those assumptions nor their corollaries are generally confronted with demands for empirical evidence, [which] itself may be viewed as suspect insofar as it is inconsistent with that vision.”
Think for a moment about the hubris of leftists running the country (California for a generation) and its impact upon ordinary people and the future it portends. Leftists envision a “great big beautiful tomorrow,” to steal a line from a ride taken at the 1964 World’s Fair. The reality for most Americans, should the vision of the left be enacted, is very dark in a future impoverished America.
Of course the elite will be little affected, as they never are, with separate sets of rules for living: They fly charter jets to Earth conferences, and we don’t fly at all. If current economic trends continue with California leading the way, the very wealthy will live in gated enclaves, guarded by a security class, with a host of servants in support, and a large group at the bottom of the economic scale. Somebody, after all, has to mow the lawns, wash dishes, and perform myriad tasks beneath those gifted with “anointed status.”
Our political discourse today, deeply divided between the “woke/anointed” and us pickup-truck-driving plebes is best exemplified by the editorial pages of most publications dominated by the left, which almost never admits error. Sowell described the divide, asserting that the leftist “vision of themselves and their moral role in the world. Problems exist because others are not as wise or as virtuous as the anointed.”
The moral crusades championed by the self-appointed anointed hold elements in common:
“Assertions of a great danger to society (with the masses oblivious).”
“An urgent need for action to avert catastrophe.”
“A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many.”
“A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible or motivated by unworthy purposes.”
One need look no further than the alarmist climate crusade, which dominates nearly all economic policy, regardless of some empirical evidence that underlying assumptions about climate change aren’t necessarily supported and totally ignores unintended consequences of bad policy.
For instance, Biden’s war on fossil fuels, pipelines, and disfavored industries overnight cost thousands of union pay-scale jobs, caused significant increases in gas prices (which hurts those least able to afford it), undermines national security, and aids our enemies. Biden encouraged Russia and Saudi Arabia to pump more oil even though oil sales are the mainstay of Putin’s economy, enabling a greater Russian military buildup. We’re deeply enmeshed in Middle Eastern politics and military expeditions due to past dependence upon oil imports, primarily from the Saudis who now supply a substantial portion of California’s oil. California sits on an ocean of oil, which is not to be drilled/refine; major refineries are shuttered; and we pay nearly 50 percent more for gas than the rest of the country. Under Trump, America was briefly energy independent for the first time in a generation. Biden’s policies ended it.
The anointed have mandated we transition to “renewables,” end fossil fuel use in cars by 2035, go all-electric. It matters not that electrical generation to power 10 million electric cars doesn’t exist in California nor will it by 2035. Democrats forced the dismantling of four hydroelectric power dams in Oregon\California along with numerous natural-gas-fired plants with no replacement. Where will the electricity come from? Why not encourage shifting to hybrid vehicles instead of forcing mass conversion to all-electric cars based upon an arbitrary political date? Crickets are chirping.
Solar/wind renewables are subsidized even though every component of both involves prodigious use of fossil fuels in production and operation, not to mention required base load backup power. Wind turbine blades can’t be recycled, and the batteries used in electric vehicles require massive movement of rare earth ore in China and the Congo, not exactly human-rights/environmentally conscious regimes. Wind and solar pose their own problems. Wind turbine blades use polyester and vinyl ester resins derived from petrochemicals such as ethylene, fabricated in two halves, bonded using more than 900 pounds of epoxy or modified acrylic adhesive made from propylene. Solar panels use silicon layers in the panels often made from copolymer ethylene-vinyl acetate (according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency).
China infamously uses massive slave labor in its concentration camps to mine rare earth metals used in electric car batteries; the Congo uses child labor on a massive scale with many children subjected to an early death or crippling disease and injuries, just so the anointed can tell themselves, “I’m a good person” when they look in the mirror in the morning. I think not. Δ
Al Fonzi had a 35-year military career, serving in both the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Respond with a letter to the editor emailed toletters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jul 15-22, 2021.
More griping from Al. Maybe one day he could offer something positive and productive instead of trying to blame others for his frustrations about life in our blessed United States. Al Fonzie doesnt seem to appreciate all the great things about our nation. Hes too busy bitching and waiting for others to fix things. If he ever does anything worthwhile, that would be news.
I AGREE with Mr. Al Fonzi!
The woke” left just cant get over their sanctimonious selfs, and it is amazing to see how they know better than the rest of us. As President, Mr. Biden has snatched defeat from the arms of victory, and Americas path to becoming energy independent has been stopped by a president consumed with placating his alt-left base. Under previous presidents, America focused on developing the energy to fuel the worlds largest economy, but this president is intent on seeing wind energy and other unproven technologies receive the focus of attention. Sad.
I think Mr. Bidens attempt to sabotage American energy independence is just another instance of Biden/Harris overseeing American Decline, some on the extreme left do not want to see America succeed, they prefer a future where China is the main superpower and our leadership declines. Biden cancelled the XL pipeline as soon as he took office, and like it or not, petroleum is still a major fuel for our economy. The left is in too big of hurry to hoist their green energy scheme onto the rest of us.
In 2024, lets find real presidential leadership which promotes American energy independence. We do not need leadership which insist on America becoming more dependent on overseas dictators, and lets hope the American people will insist on leaders who put America first, we deserve it.
Thank you, Mr. Fonzi.
Stop Biden/Harris American Decline
Joe Biden is doing a good job as president of the United States, far better than we could expect from Al Fonzi or Steve Edwards who continually attack the best efforts to fix the problems of our world, and continually look backwards, promoting regressive policies that have created the problems that they complain about. And lets not forget that it was Donald Trump who courted the favor and gave aid and comfort to our worlds worst dictators. Steve Edwards and Al Fonzi are literally promoting policies that are killing Americans and fueling climate change and its horrible consequences. Remember their names when the next huge wildfire erupts.
“Assertions of a great danger to society (with the masses oblivious).”
“An urgent need for action to avert catastrophe.”
“A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many.”
“A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible or motivated by unworthy purposes.”
Al, let me tell you about this radical leftist plot called Critical Race Theory that is a great danger to society which me must urgently stop from spreading to the kids.
I hope Mr. Fonzi understood the irony of opening his piece with a quote from Stanford economics professor Thomas Sowell while at the same time ranting about elites and gated communities. For over 40 years, Sowell has been the darling of the wealthiest of elites, analyzing the world from his ivory tower at one of the most expensive universities in the nation.
You see, the good professor has long posited that the poor, especially blacks, are poor because they simply want to be. They can’t or won’t produce. He has railed for many years against government for providing things like social security, a minimum wage or subsidized health insurance, in order to help the poor rise from their poverty.
Sowell has many fans among the top 1% of Americans who would rather not pay the taxes that are used to help the poor. In fact, one of Sowell’s books is prominent on billionaire libertarian industrialist Charles Koch’s list of recommended books, right next to Von Mises and Hayek. Not surprising, since these economists have often apologized for the detrimental accumulation of so much wealth in the hands of so few over the last 40 years.
Let’s look at a few facts: since Professor Sowell began writing in the 1970’s, the income inequality in the U.S. has grown by leaps and bounds. In 2015, the top 1% received, on average, nearly 30 times more in income than the other 99%. Studies show that between the years 1945-1973, income growth was much faster among the bottom 99% of Americans with the top 1% making only about 5%. Since then, a whopping 58% of income growth has occurred among the wealthiest of elites. Jeff Bezos has so much money that he can afford to unilaterally launch himself into space.
So, Mr. Fonzi, I’ll call your Thomas Sowell, and raise you a Paul Krugman and Richard Wolff, economists that we should be listening to.
Nnnnnñnnnnnn
Sorry Keith, but we do not need American Marxism. Try selling it to Russia.
Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Sowell has taught economics at Howard University, Rutgers, Cornell, Brandeis University, Amherst College, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1980, he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman, his mentor.
Sowell grew up in Harlem, New York. Wikipedia
Born: June 30, 1930 (age 91 years), Gastonia, NC , Sowell grew up in Harlem, New York.
School or tradition: Chicago School
Education: Stuyvesant High School, Howard University, The University of Chicago, Columbia University, Harvard University
Books
Discrimination and Disparities (2018)
Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005)
Intellectuals and Society (2009)
Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy (2000)
Quotes
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.”
“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
THINK ABOUT IT.
Since 1980, Thomas Sowell has held the position of senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, where his career as an author, columnist, and public intellectual took off and reached its zenith.
The book he published that year, “Knowledge and Decisions”, won the Law and Economics Centre Prize. The book details the gap between knowledge and decision making, especially among individuals and government agencies.
Sowell maintains that while individuals and governments make rational choices consistent with their respective interests, when the government does so, it often limits the freedom of its citizens.
Sowell concludes that
“freedom is the right of ordinary people to find elbow room for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their betters.”
These “betters” are the subject of what has been considered Sowell’s seminal work, “The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Public Policy” (1996) in which he argues that members of society’s liberal elite class don’t actually argue and advance their ideas; rather they evade, obfuscate, and appeal to their own authority.
Sowell writes that these elites frequently frame issues and events as crises—which only they can solve, regardless of the costs they might impose on society.
Instead, he advocates for a more cautious and practical approach to public policy based on what he called a “tragic” or “constrained” vision, which is that humans face limited choices and the costs of their decisions are consequential.
In “The Quest for Cosmic Justice” (2002), Sowell argues that America’s liberal elites do not just try to establish equality under the law, they seek to abolish inequalities that are innately constituted in nature.
Consequently, Sowell maintains, the elites have accrued significant power for themselves through insulated bureaucracies and the court system. He holds that the application of their costly ideas will cause immeasurable damage to the rule of law and society at large.
In a more recent book “Discrimination and Disparities” (2018), Sowell takes on what he calls the “invincible fallacy,” that outcomes for individuals in a society would be the same if not for negative factors such as discrimination and genetic defects. He argues that empirical data prove that there are many different reasons for disparities of success and
“to single out one reason a priori is just madness.”
True to his intellectual discipline and his commitment to broad education, Sowell has written five editions of his textbook, Basic Economics, which was intended to be a clear and concise citizen’s guide to “the dismal science.”
“Through its various editions, the fundamental idea of Basic Economics remains the same,”
Sowell writes.
“Learning economics should be as uncomplicated as it is informative.”
Other major works by Sowell include
“A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles” (1987),
“Economic Facts and Fallacies” (2008),
” Intellectuals and Society” (2009),
“Intellectuals and Race” (2013), and
“Wealth, Poverty, and Politics” (2015).
After producing several thousand essays for his weekly Creator’s Syndicate column, Sowell put down his pen to focus on his passion for photography.
“Even the best things come to an end,”
Sowell wrote in his final piece, entitled “Farewell,” in December 2016.
“Age 86 is well past the usual retirement age, so the question is not why I am quitting, but why I kept at it so long.”
In 2020, Sowell returned from retirement to write a new best seller, “Charter Schools and Their Enemies”, which argues that educational achievements made by Black and other minority students undermine educational dogmas about cultural bias in testing and negative outcomes based on those students’ socioeconomic status.
He also explains how traditional public schools, backed by powerful teachers’ unions and their enabler politicians, behave as monopolies in the domain of education and have skewed the learning gap between White and minority students.
Furthermore, Sowell maintains, these special interests, in order to maintain their monopoly, have worked to curtail the growth of charter schools despite the evidence that such schools have improved the educational and economic potential of Blacks and other minorities.
“Understanding why and how educational success had been such unwelcome news to so many people and institutions is the purpose of this book,”
Sowell writes.
“With growing political threats to charter schools across the country, the stakes could not be higher for poor and minority youngsters, for whom a good education is their biggest opportunity in life.”
Watch a new documentary, “Common Sense in a Senseless World”, about Sowell’s intellectual journey:
The objective of the liberal is to do what appears noble and feels good, not that which creates an objective, substantive improvement. With their love of imagery and narrative, and disconnect from everyday life and the effects of their policy, it is no wonder that most of the Hollywood elite are committed liberals.
Ending slavery in America was not an improvement? I think it most definitely was an improvement.