• Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Society, New York: Basic Books, 416 pages, 2010, $29.95.

In Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell explains the relationship between ideas, those who create them, those who sell them, and those who use them. He summarizes the conflicts of ideologies that dominate the headlines. Instead of generating honest conflicts, Sowell says, the prevailing viewpoint articulated by the idea brokers — what he calls “the vision of the anointed” — is insulated from any criticism.

Sowell initially described the vision of the anointed in 1996 book with that title. In it, he argued that, for many contemporary liberals, “The relationship between theory and evidence [is] simply not discussed.” If a highfalutin theory does not work in practice, its proponents often suffer no loss of reputation among those who popularize their disastrous work. Mistakes are repeated if not compounded.

To Sowell, intellectuals are those who create new ideas, as opposed to the intelligentsia, who merely broker them. True intellectuals are few and far between. It’s members of the intelligentsia who filter the information and shape the debate of issues, propping up their arguments and hiding their downfalls.

In such fields as science and engineering, ideas and theories can be tested. If a bridge does not hold, or a waveform is not observed, the theory is corrected or abandoned. However, theories of the intelligentsia seemingly are immune from empirical evidence. For example, the minimum wage has been shown, through decades of research, to decrease available jobs for the poor, contrary to its intentions.

Sowell’s chronicles of the war against poverty show just how those who have led us into disaster still are regaled. When Lyndon Johnson first mobilized federal funds against poverty, the rate of people escaping this lower income bracket was increasing. Yet after a more than half a century of throwing billions of dollars at the situation, dependency on federal aid actually has made the plight of the poor worse. This has created a welfare crisis, which the government must “solve” yet again.

Even intellectuals who fail spectacularly are held accountable rarely for their errors.

The best example was Paul Ehrlich, author of the popular 1968 book The Population Bomb. Ehrlich predicted that population growth would create massive starvation in the 1970s and ‘80s, a crisis that never materialized.

Instead, actors in the marketplace innovated and created more efficient ways to use resources, leading to greater abundance even as the population rose. Yet people continue to parrot Ehrlich’s fear. In fact, Ehrlich stands behind his book to this day, ignoring that his apocalyptic predictions failed.

The economist F. A. Hayek influences Sowell’s view of knowledge heavily. Knowledge is not concentrated in a caste of “experts,” but is distributed among the general population. What we might consider “knowledgeable” often is far removed from the issues the current intelligentsia find important.

Sowell also makes a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. We might not consider a blue-collar worker as knowledgeable as an academic, but the wisdom the line worker possesses might actually be useful to the public at large.

Intellectuals and Society serves as a handbook for understanding current events. Using mainstream media and top-shelf journals, Sowell cites examples showing how biased mind-sets can pollute research and poison public discussion.

Experts should be considered knowledgeable only in the areas of their expertise, he says, and they should be criticized when their ideas fail.

Sowell’s clear language allows even the layman to see how crusted layers of bureaucracy and regulation limit our freedom and exacerbate the problems the bureaucrats claim to solve. He offers more then just a “government is bad” message, presenting one case study after another of the failure of intellectuals to shape the world to their vision. CJ