- Sowell, Thomas.
Dismantling America.
New York: Basic Books, 2010.
ISBN 978-0-465-02251-9.
-
Thomas Sowell
has been, over his career, an optimist about individual liberty
and economic freedom in the United States and around the
world. Having been born in the segregated South, raised by
a single mother in Harlem in the 1940s, he said that the progress
he had observed in his own lifetime, rising from a high school
dropout to the top of his profession, convinced him that America
ultimately gets it right, and that opportunity for those who wish
to advance through their own merit and hard work is perennial.
In recent years, however, particularly since the rise and election
of Barack Obama, his outlook has darkened considerably, almost
approaching that of
John Derbyshire. Do you think I exaggerate? Consider
this passage from the preface:
No one issue and no one administration in Washington has
been enough to create a perfect storm for a great nation that
has weathered many storms in its more than two centuries of
existence. But the Roman Empire lasted many times longer,
and weathered many storms in its turbulent times—and
yet it ultimately collapsed completely.
It has been estimated that a thousand years passed before
the standard of living in Europe rose again to the level it
had achieved in Roman times. The collapse of civilization is
not just the replacement of rulers or institutions with new
rulers and new institutions. It is the destruction of a whole
way of life and the painful, and sometimes pathetic, attempts
to begin rebuilding amid the ruins.
Is that where America is headed? I believe it is. Our only
saving grace is that we are not there yet—and that nothing
is inevitable until it happens.
Strong stuff! The present volume is a collection of the author's
syndicated columns dating from before the U.S. election of 2008
into the first two years of the Obama administration. In them
he traces how the degeneration and systematic dismantling of the
underpinnings of American society which began in the 1960s
culminated in the election of Obama, opening the doors to
power to radicals hostile to what the U.S. has stood for since its
founding and bent on its “fundamental transformation”
into something very different. Unless checked by the elections
of 2010 and 2012, Sowell fears the U.S. will pass a “point
of no return” where a majority of the electorate will be dependent
upon government largesse funded by a minority who pay taxes.
I agree: I deemed it the
tipping
point almost two years ago.
A common theme in Sowell's writings of the last two decades has
been how
public intellectuals
and leftists (but I repeat myself) attach an almost talismanic
power to words and assume that good intentions, expressed in
phrases that make those speaking them feel good about themselves,
must automatically result in the intended outcomes. Hence the
belief that a “stimulus bill” will stimulate the
economy, a “jobs bill” will create jobs, that “gun
control” will control the use of firearms by criminals,
or that a rise in the minimum wage will increase the income of
entry-level workers rather than price them out of the market
and send their jobs to other countries. Many of the essays here
illustrate how “progressives” believe, with the
conviction of cargo cultists, that their policies will turn the
U.S. from a social Darwinist cowboy capitalist society to a nurturing
nanny state like Sweden or the Netherlands. Now, notwithstanding
that the prospects of those two countries and many
other European welfare states due to
demographic collapse and
Islamisation are dire indeed, the present “transformation”
in the U.S. is more likely, in my opinion, to render it more like
Perón's Argentina than France or Germany.
Another part of the “perfect storm” envisioned by Sowell
is the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, the imperative that
will create for other states in the region to go nuclear, and the
consequent possibility that terrorist groups will gain access to
these weapons. He observes that Japan in 1945 was a much tougher
nation than the U.S. today, yet only two nuclear bombs caused
them to capitulate in a matter of days. How many cities would the
U.S. have to lose? My guess is at least two but no more than five.
People talk about there being no prospect of a battleship
Missouri surrender in the War on Terror (or whatever
they're calling it this week), but the prospect of a U.S. surrender
on the carrier Khomeini in the Potomac is not as far fetched
as you might think.
Sowell dashes off epigrams like others write grocery lists. Here
are a few I noted:
- One of the painful consequences of studying history is
that it makes you realize how long people have been
doing the same foolish things with the same disastrous
results.
- There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can
be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly
monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.
- Do not expect sound judgments in a society where being
“non-judgmental” is an exalted value. As
someone has said, if you don't stand for something, you
will fall for anything.
- Progress in general seems to hold little interest for
people who call themselves “progressives”.
What arouses them are denunciations of social failures
and accusations of wrong-doing.
One wonders what they would do in heaven.
- In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial
intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation
of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves
educators.
- Most people on the left are not opposed to freedom. They
are just in favor of all sorts of things that are incompatible
with freedom.
- Will those who are dismantling this society from within
or those who seek to destroy us from without be the first
to achieve their goal? It is too close to call.
As a collection of columns, you can read this book in any order
you like (there are a few “arcs” of columns, but most are
standalone), and pick it up and put it down whenever you like
without missing anything. There is some duplication among the
columns, but they never become tedious. Being newspaper columns,
there are no source citations or notes, and there is no index.
What are present in abundance are Sowell's acute observations
of the contemporary scene, historical perspective, rigorous logic,
economic common sense, and crystal clear exposition. I had read
probably 80% of these columns when they originally appeared,
but gleaned many new insights revisiting them in this collection.
The author discusses the book, topics raised in it, and
the present scene in an
extended
video interview, for which a
transcript
exists. A shorter
podcast
interview with the author is also available.
October 2010 