Tag Archives: Constrained Vision

Videos

Five videos on Thomas Sowell’s most difficult book

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“A Conflict of Visions” is the most difficult Thomas Sowell book I ever read. So I hope these five videos from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University will give you all of the benefits without so much of the hard work.

Here’s a little written summary to get you started.

Excerpt:

In “A Conflict of Visions”, Thomas Sowell proposed that the fundamental difference between the policies of the left and the right derive from their respective views of human nature.

The left sees man in general as perfectly malleable. It sees every individual’s problems as being caused by society as a whole. Criminal behavior under this theory is merely a response to injustice; poverty is a condition brought on by greed; depression, drunkenness and illness are all seen as a fault of the medical system or our general “awareness”. Since individual problems are the fault of the whole of society, the solution must be to fix society by massive government intervention.

People on the right take an inverse view of the situation. Conservatives believe in individual responsibility. This means, if someone commits murder, he is bad. If someone is poor he has declined to take advantage of opportunities manifest within a free market system. If someone is uneducated, he has not worked hard enough to secure education for himself. This attitude among conservatives means that the perceived solution is not to change society in a general way but to get government out of the business of regulating the people in mass and making them take responsibility for their actions in particular. Social man then is not malleable, but the individual can be guided by market forces.

And here are the videos.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

If you’re interested in learning how the world really works, you can’t do much better than Tom Sowell.

News

Evaluating Sarah Palin’s speech in Hong Kong

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Sarah Palin giving a speech on economic policy
Sarah Palin giving a speech on economic policy

Story from the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Caffeinated Thoughts, Muddling Towards Maturity)

Let’s take a look at her speech.

Somebody has been reading Thomas Sowell’s book “A Conflict of Visions”, in which he talks about “the constrained vision” and “the unconstrained vision”.

We don’t believe that human nature is perfectible; we’re suspicious of government efforts to fix problems because often what it’s trying to fix is human nature, and that is impossible. It is what it is.

Here’s her defense of the free market.

Lack of government wasn’t the problem. Government policies were the problem. The marketplace didn’t fail. It became exactly as common sense would expect it to. The government ordered the loosening of lending standards. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. The government forced lending institutions to give loans to people who, as I say, couldn’t afford them. Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks.

The speech also discusses cap-and-trade, free trade, and more.

Critical acclaim

Caffeinated Thoughts did a great job of linking some of the reactions from the left.

The New York Times:

A number of people who heard the speech in a packed hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling.

“The speech was wide-ranging, very balanced, and she beat all expectations,” said Doug A. Coulter, head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners…

[…]Mr. Goodé, a New Yorker who said he would never vote for Mrs. Palin, said she acquitted herself well.

“They really prepared her well,” he said. “She was articulate and she held her own. I give her credit. They’ve tried to categorize her as not being bright. She’s bright.”

My view? I say that Thomas Sowell prepared her. She probably ordered all his books from Amazon.com. Then she read them all at the kitchen table, with her glasses on and a laptop in front of her for her notes.

I am becoming more and more comfortable with her as a solid advocate for my point of view.

Check out her Facebook page where she’s been writing lately.

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