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Jeremy
May 03, 2009Jeremy rated it really liked it
Shelves: econ
“A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcomes – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.” Milton Friedman
“In short, traditional justice is about impartial processes rather than either results or prospects.”
“The challenge of determining the net balance of numerous windfall advantage and disadvantages for one individual at one given time is sufficiently daunting. To attempt the same for whole broad-brush categories of people, each in differing stages of their individual life cycles, in a complex and changing society, suggest hubris.”
“Even those who proclaim the principles of justice, and call these principles more important than other benefits, as Professor Rawls does, seem unlikely to act on such principles in real life, given the costs of doing so. Imagine that a ship is sinking in the ocean with 300 passengers on board and only 200 life-preservers. The only just solution is that everyone drown. But most of us would probably prefer the unjust solution, that 200 lives be saved, even if they are no more deserving than those who perish.”
“We can, of course, create new injustices among our flesh-and-blood contemporaries for the sake of symbolic expiation, so that the son or daughter of a black doctor or executive can get into an elite college ahead of the son or daughter of a white factory worker or farmer, but only believers in the vision of cosmic justice are likely to take moral solace from that.”
“Recognizing that many people “through no fault of their own” have windfall losses, while those same people – and others – also have windfall gains, the time is long overdue to recognize also that taxpayers through no fault of their own have been forced to subsidize the moral adventures which exalt self-anointed social philosophers.”
“The abstract desirability of equality, like the abstract desirability of immortality, is beside the point when choosing what practical course of action to follow. What matters is what we are prepared to do, to risk, or to sacrifice, in pursuit of what can turn out to be a mirage.”
“However, most income cannot be redistributed because it was not distributed in the first place. It is paid directly for services rendered and how much is paid is determined jointly by those individuals rendering the service and those to whom it is rendered.”
“But to invoke the blanket slogan ‘Question Authority’ is to raise the question: By what authority do you tell us to question authority?”
“Virtually no one seriously questions the principle of equal regard for human beings as human beings…It is the fatal step from equal regard to equal performance – or presumptively equal performance in the absence of social barriers – that opens the door to disaster.”
“On issue after issue, the morally self-anointed visionaries have for centuries argued as if no honest disagreement were possible, as if those who opposed them were not merely in error but in sin. This has long been a hallmark of those with a cosmic vision of the world and of themselves as saviors of the world, whether they are saving it from war, overpopulation, capitalism, genetic degradation, environmental destruction, or whatever the crisis du jour might be.”
“The British, American, and other Allied soldiers who paid with their lives in the early years of the war for the quantitatively inadequate and qualitatively obsolete military equipment that was a legacy of interwar pacifism were among the most tragic of the many third parties who have paid the price of other people’s exalted visions and self-congratulation.”
“…it is necessary to explore what purposes are served by these visions, by their evasions of particular evidence, and – especially in the case of the humanities – by their denigration of the very concepts of evidence and cognitive meaning.”
“Desperately ingenious efforts to evade particular evidence, or to denigrate objective facts in general, are all consistent with the heavy emotional investment in their vision, which is ostensibly about the well-being of others but is ultimately about themselves.”
“The prerequisites of civilization are not an interesting subject to those who concentrate on its shortcomings – that is, on the extent to which what currently exists as the fruits of centuries of efforts and sacrifices is inferior to what they can produce in their imagination immediately at zero cost, in the comfort and security provided by the society they disdain.”
“It may easily be seen that almost all the able and ambitious members of a democratic community will labor unceasingly to extend the powers of government, because they all hope at some time or other to wield those powers themselves.” Alexis de Tocqueville
“As Aristotle said, ‘things that are true and things that are better are almost always easier to believe in.’ In short, the truth often seems ‘simplistic’ by comparison with elaborate attempts to evade the truth.”
“There is no way to specify in precise general rules, known beforehand, what might be necessary to achieve results that would meet the standards of cosmic justice.”
“Just as freedom of the press does not exist for the sake of that tiny minority of the population who are journalists, so property rights do not exist for the sake of those people with substantial property holdings.”
“The inefficiency of political control of an economy has been demonstrated more often, in more places, and under more varied conditions, than almost anything outside the realm of pure science.”
“For the courts to strike like a bolt from the blue hitting an unsuspecting citizen, who was disobeying no law that he could have known about beforehand, is the essence of judicial tyranny, however moral or just the judges may imagine their innovation to be.”
“In other words, the federal government may do only what it is specifically authorized to do, while the people or the individual states may do whatever they are not specifically forbidden to do.” (Referring to the 10th amendment)
“Schemes to extend federal power into the nooks and crannies of local and even private activities are never publicly advertised as expansions of federal power, much less erosions of the Tenth Amendment, but always in terms of the wonderful goals they are said to achieve – ‘universal health care, ‘investing in our children’s futures,’ ‘insuring a level playing field for all,’ etc.”
“The much-vaunted ‘complexity’ of constitutional law comes in most cases not from the Constitution itself but from clever attempts to evade the limits on government power set by the Constitution.”
“The rise of American society to pre-eminence as an economic, political, and military power in the world was thus the triumph of the common man and a slap across the face to the presumptions of the arrogant, whether an elite of blood or books.” (less)
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Nico Alba
May 06, 2018Nico Alba rated it it was amazing
Finally read my first Thomas Sowell book; picked this one up based on a recommendation by @jimmy__delacruz. To put it simply, Sowell is a giant who is way ahead of his time. His story is a remarkable one--Southern-born and Harlem-raised, Sowell's father died before he was born and he was raised in poverty by his aunt. As the first person in his family to study beyond the 6th grade, Sowell dropped out of high school to provide for his family but eventually went on to receive his PhD in Economics from Univ of Chicago.
In The Quest for Cosmic Justice, Sowell shows how misguided notions of equality and justice end up producing inequality and injustice. He shows how the tyranny of visions produces self-exalting "solutions" to social problems that not only ignore contrary empirical evidence, but ignore the actual consequences of enforced policies on the ostensible beneficiaries and on 3rd parties. He discusses the difference between cosmic justice and traditional justice—a terribly important distinction—with incredible clarity. His input is data, and his output is facts—facts that tend to crush the souls of the "morally anointed". The man is 87 years old and has written 30+ books, but he's still kicking and I'm incredibly excited to read more. (less)
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Terrence D.
Apr 17, 2018Terrence D. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I am utterly "Sowelled out" at this point, after reading three other Sowell books before this one, but I have to say something about this magnificent work. Contrary to what one reviewer stated, Sowell is not obsessed with economics. Rather, he is obsessed with facts and data that run contrary to the prevailing "vision" (narrative) in controlling society. I appreciate his works for this reason alone; Sowell cares about making distinctions and he cares about logic and facts when combating fallacies. He is meticulous, perspicuous, and intelligent without being condescending.
Despite his erroneous views on "libertarianism" as being too atomistic (an error often made by people who misidentify libertarianism as a Randian philosophy despite its origins in Murray Rothbard and ongoing work in Hans Hermann-Hoppe), the book was overall an excellent indictment against self-anointed authoritarians with their vain pursuits to correct "cosmic injustices" via the State. (less)
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Kris
Sep 13, 2020Kris rated it it was amazing
Shelves: politics, audiobooks
A fantastic exploration of the meaning of justice. He focuses on the consequences of trying to implement a kind of social justice (and the tradeoffs for freedom). He touches on lots of areas like war, gender equality, pacifist movements, educational funding, affirmative action, racial disparities, income inequality, and taxes. Sowell is very well spoken and obviously experienced, and I loved listening to his opinions. This is the first time I've read him, and I look forward to picking up more of his work in the future.
Also on my list: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (less)
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Matthew
Jan 15, 2013Matthew rated it it was ok
It took me a decent while to figure out what was so strange about this book.
I was reading it, would be like "Yeah, that makes sense -- good point. Good argument. Valid idea." Then I'd put it down and immediately think "something seems fishy here."
Eventually I determined what was bothering me: there was a distinct lack of a sufficient counter-argument. The information and argument were presented in such a way that anyone who denied them was someone ridiculous, someone who is blind, someone who won't listen no matter what. A lot of ad hominem, a lot of whining. This is not to say that I didn't find a lot of his arguments fascinating -- I thought what was presented neatly was very well done -- but some of it (I'd argue a majority) was just sloppy. Many of the arguments that Sowell presents are very hard to counter until you realize that his claims are sometimes riddled with the same "cherry-picking" holes that he accuses his "intelligentsia" opponents to have.
Bottom line: It's a good book to read to see an interesting view of justice, but don't expect it to do justice to the whole argument. (less)
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Toe
Jun 12, 2009Toe rated it really liked it
Shelves: nonfiction
Sowell discusses two very different conceptions of justice in this thoughtful and important book. The traditional conception is that the rules or standards are known to all participants and applied equally. Rewards and punishments are doled out based on these widely known, equally applicable rules. Sowell argues that this is the conception known to the founding fathers and the one that works best in practice. The amount of knowledge required to implement this form of justice is manageable—one need only know the rules and whether these rules have been violated in a given situation. This consistent principle allows people to behave and plan with reasonable certainty, which leads to economic growth and relative societal harmony.
Cosmic justice, on the other hand, is the idea that humans should be judged based on all factors that impact their lives, including the circumstances and events over which they had no control. This latter conception of justice is part of what is meant by "social justice" and seeks to take into account literally everything; it seeks to equalize nature, which is inherently unequal. For example, when a man named Richard Allen Davis in 1996 brutally murdered a 12 year old girl named Polly Klaas, his difficult childhood was brought into consideration even though the victim, the girl, did not cause his past difficulties. Only cosmic justice would consider Davis's past relevant. Another illustration: those born with physical or mental handicaps obviously did not choose these disabilities. But, in the quest for cosmic justice, some attempt to force others to hire these disabled people no matter what additional costs must be borne by th
e employer. The law requires "reasonable" accommodations, but the employer is better positioned than anyone to know the costs of their business. Cosmic justice is much more difficult for humans to sift through and tally. Sowell is correct when he argues that it is beyond the capabilities of humans to know or implement cosmic justice. Those who advocate it do so out of a sense of self-righteous moral superiority. They never consider the additional costs that others must bear, the perverse incentives it creates, the uncertainty it generates, and the trampling of some people’s freedoms that invariably ensues.
After introducing these two different views of justice, the rest of this work exposes how these two competing visions are mutually exclusive, why the traditional conception is better and the cosmic conception is impossible and undesirable, the motivations of those supporting cosmic justice, and specific examples of the harm brought about in the attempt to implement cosmic justice. Sowell specifically discusses:
1. Equal processes are replaced by an attempt to generate equal results that those with the cosmic vision of justice mistakenly believe would occur naturally, despite a complete lack of evidence for this belief;
2. Property rights are infringed to the detriment of all;
3. Judicial activism and all its related uncertainty arises;
4. Burdens of proof are shifted to the accused in cases such as anti-trust law, employment discrimination, environmental law, tort liability, sexual harassment, and others; and
5. The erosion of the Constitution.
As always, Sowell peppers his general analysis with relevant data to support his claims. The following are specific examples from this book, many of which are unfortunately drawn from Sowell's earlier efforts.
Sowell points out that slavery is not the cause of many of the social problems faced by modern blacks. The data does not support this simplistic and incorrect causal explanation. For instance, many try to argue that it is the legacy of slavery that has created such large numbers of illegitimate black children. But the marriage rates of blacks living chronologically closer to slavery (the late 1800's and early 1900's) were on par with and sometimes higher than whites living at the same time. It wasn't until the 1960's, when so many of America's problems first arose, that black illegitimacy rates skyrocketed. Stated a different way: If slavery is indeed the explanation for or cause of illegitimacy, then it only makes sense that blacks actually living under slavery or those living closer to it would have higher illegitimacy rates, much like the damage from a volcano or hurricane is greatest at the epicenter and dissipates as the distance from the epicenter increases. The data, however, do not support this explanation.
Sowell blasts the concept of proportional representation here as he has done elsewhere. Many legal rulings and pieces of legislation operate under the assumption that in the absence of discrimination, the demographics of any profession or subset of the population will be distributed in a manner equal to the demographic makeup of society as a whole. So, for instance, if blacks make up 13% of the American population, then they should make up 13% of the PhD's, medical doctors, engineers, software engineers, etc. Women, constituting half of the population, should make up half of every profession. Cubans should make up their proportion, Asians, etc. Many courts, operating under this assumption, have reversed the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" in these cases. In other words, the plaintiffs are often not required to actually prove discrimination, but the defendants must prove they are NOT discriminating given the racial breakdown of their employees. Of course, one can never prove a negative, so many companies take the economically rational route and just settle, which activists then cite as evidence of discriminatory practices. Sowell does what so many refuse to do when considering this argument: he looks at the facts. Nowhere throughout human history has there been this equal proportional distribution. In different places and in different times across the globe, various groups of people have excelled in certain areas or professions. Here are some examples Sowell gives:
1. More than 80% of doughnut shops in California are owned by people of Cambodian ancestry.
2. During the 1900s, over 80% of the world's sugar-processing machinery was made in Scotland.
3. As of 1909, Italians in Buenos Aires owned more than twice as many food and drinking establishments as the native Argentines, more than three times as many shoe stores, and more than ten times as many barbershops.
4. During the decade of the 1960s, the Chinese minority in Malaysia supplied between 80 and 90 percent of all university students in medicine, science, and engineering.
5. In the early twentieth century all the firms in all the industries producing the following products were owned by people of German ancestry in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul: trunks, stoves, paper, hats, neckties, leather, soap, glass, watches, beer, confections, and carriages.
There are many more examples, but all have the same theme: none of these extraordinarily overrepresented people were themselves in a position to discriminate. They were minorities who simply out-competed others in their various industries. I would add to Sowell's list the overrepresentation of blacks in modern professional American sports. No one argues that these athletes are discriminating against whites, Hispanics, or Asians. Everyone just accepts that Kobe Bryant is a better basketball player than John Doe, Juan Doe, or Jian Doe, who didn't make the cut for the L.A. Lakers. Why then is it so difficult to accept that some groups are simply better at taking the MCAT, LSAT, SAT, or firefighters' exams in Connecticut?
Society benefits most when the rules are known by all and apply equally to all. America is about putting the best person in the job regardless of ethnicity, religious affiliation, age, gender, income level, childhood advantages or disadvantages, and all the other innumerable factors that impact a person's life and skills. Sowell maintains that disregarding standards, lowering standards, or shifting standards to meet some elusive conception of cosmic justice is detrimental to human progress and peaceful coexistence in a heterogeneous society. We should celebrate our strengths and abilities--from whatever source derived--and enjoy the fruits of other people's skill. We can all watch Kobe Bryant or Tiger Woods compete at the highest level of sport on a TV made by Sony's engineers while sipping a Shiner Bock distilled from centuries of German brewing knowledge. We acquire the means to pay for these products, the best humankind has to offer, by marketing whatever particular skills we have.
Freedom is a higher ideal than equality. They are also incompatible. Despite the self-congratulatory desires of some to make a name for themselves regardless of the costs or harm they impose upon others, it's neither possible nor meaningful nor desirable to have equality in any sense other than opportunity. The quest for cosmic justice, a world devoid of any “unfairness,” is a Quixotic and dangerous one.
Memorable Quotes:
"We better start doing something about our defenses. We are not going to be lucky enough to fight some Central American country forever. Build all we can, and take care of nothing but our own business, and we will never have to use it. Our world heavy-weight champion hasn't been insulted since he won the title." - Will Rogers
"Nature can be neither just nor unjust. Only if we mean to blame a personal creator does it make sense to describe it as unjust that somebody has been born with a physical defect, or been stricken with a disease, or has suffered the loss of a loved one." - Friedrich Hayek
"A society that puts equality--in the sense of equality of outcome--ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests." - Milton Friedman
"You do not take a man who, for years, has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, and bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, 'You are free to compete with all others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." - Lyndon Johnson
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread.” – Anatole France
"We must begin with the universe that we were born into and weigh the costs of making any specific change in it to achieve a specific end. We cannot simply 'do something' whenever we are morally indignant, while disdaining to consider the costs entailed."
"Such a conception of justice [cosmic justice:] seeks to correct, not only biased or discriminatory acts by individuals or by social institutions, but unmerited disadvantages in general, from whatever source they may arise."
"Cosmic justice is not about the rules of the game. It is about putting particular segments of society in the position they would have been in but for some undeserved misfortune. This conception of fairness requires that third parties must wield the power to control outcomes, over-riding rules, standards, or the preferences of other people."
"Implicit in much discussion of a need to rectify social inequities is the notion that some segments of society, through no fault of their own, lack things which others receive as windfall gains, through no virtue of their own. True as this may be, the knowledge required to sort this out intellectually, much less rectify it politically, is staggering and superhuman."
“What the American Constitution established was not simply a particular system but a process for changing systems, practices, and leaders, together with a method of constraining whoever or whatever was ascendant at any given time. Viewed positively, what the American revolution did was to give to the common man a voice, a veto, elbow room, and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of his "betters".”
“James FitzJames Stephen pointed out in 1873 that every law and every moral rule, being general propositions, ‘must affect indiscriminately rather than equally.’”
“Too often this confusion has been made a virtue with claims that the “complexity” of the issues precluded a “simplistic” choice. But irreconcilability [between traditional and cosmic justice:] is not complexity. Nor are attempts to square the circle signs of deeper insight. More generally, there is no a priori reason to prefer complex resolutions over simpler ones for, as Aristotle said, ‘things that are true and things that are better are almost always easier to believe in.’ In short, the truth often seems “simplistic” by comparison with elaborate attempts to evade the truth.”
“Judge-made innovations are, in effect, ex post facto laws, which are expressly forbidden by the Constitution and abhorrent to the very concept of the rule of law. For the courts to strike like a bolt from the blue hitting an unsuspecting citizen, who was disobeying no law that he could have known about beforehand, is the essence of judicial tyranny, however moral or just the judges may imagine their innovation to be. The harm is not limited to the particular damage this may do in the particular case, great as this may sometimes be, but makes all other laws into murky storm clouds, potential sources of other bolts from the blue, contrary to the whole notion of ‘a government of laws and not of men.’” (less)
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Ross David Bayer
Nov 06, 2014Ross David Bayer rated it liked it
For me, the book had two main counterpoints:
1) THE GOOD
The book presents a very interesting core hypothesis, one I'd never actually encountered before, which is that when people casually use the words "justice" and "equality", there are actually two fundamentally different meanings for these words - and amazingly, not just different but also *incompatible* with each other. The consequences of this range from the lesser, like friends talking past each other in an argument at a complete loss as to how the other person can have such a different worldview (assuming of course that they have the same hidden meaning of the word "justice"), to the greater, like split decisions and multiple rounds of repeals of decisions in local, state, federal, and ultimately Supreme Courts for both as judges use different conceptions of justice. I found this very compelling and I think it will actually very concretely change how I approach conversations about justice and equality, and stories about such legal questions in the news.
2) THE BAD
After making this initial point very well, the author proceeds to set about essentially arguing that attempts to enforce "cosmic justice", one of the two main types, has inevitably led to undesirable consequences. His point is generally fair, but he goes about trying to prove it by bringing up case after case of historical incident in which the underlying context is explained poorly (so often I felt like I just didn't understand enough to even get his point, and didn't feel like researching every single case he goes through), and then he makes very broad pronouncements/judgements about complex cases without citing real evidence, oftentimes without even citing a reference! It left the skeptic in me often just responding, "ok, well that's a bold claim without anything backing it up - guess I'll ignore that". This tendency, together with a clearly libertarian bias (which would be perfectly fine *if* the arguments were actually presented in well-a argued-with-clear-evidence-and-logic form), made the second half of the book really drag on and even grate for me a bit.
Overall, I feel mixed. I think the core concept is well worth understanding and a real eye-opener for me, and probably would be for many others who care about issues like this. But the actual book is not particularly enjoyable to read. I think that if someone were to read just the first chapter (of the four chapters in the book), they would get almost all of the value of it. And I think even more ideal would be a concise article just summarizing the main idea. Nonetheless, the book must get some chops for actually changing the way I will think about core issues of justice, and how many books can claim a tall order like that. So overall, I come out mixed and give it a 3/5. (less)
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Tristan
Sep 04, 2019Tristan rated it really liked it
Sowell is the best exponent of the principles of conservatism that I’ve come across. Progressivism takes risks, throwing prudence and tradition to the wind when something seems amiss. In contrast, conservatism sticks to time-tested principles, always wary of unintended consequences. This tension is what much of The Quest for Cosmic Justice is about (with Sowell siding almost exclusively with the conservative camp).
Even though I disagree with much of his politics, it’s always a treat reading his take on the dangers of left-wing progressive thought. He is a beautiful writer and his rhetorical skills are unmatched in the world of non-fiction writing. That said, he often fails to assess the more moderate strands of left-wing thought, which makes conservatism seem like the only sane stance (eg. instead of a mixed economy vs. a more free market state, he looks at old-fashioned socialism vs. capitalism).
Progressives and conservatives alike should read Sowell. The former, so that they can better appreciate that not all conservatives are evil, and the latter, so they can rediscover the respectable basis that’s been lost in modern conservative politics. (For those who’ve never read Sowell, I’d recommend starting here. It reads less academic than some of his other stuff.) (less)
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Bryan
Mar 29, 2019Bryan rated it it was amazing
Another great work by Thomas Sowell. He covers a combination of economics, history, and politics, and is surely one of the most significant economic authors of our time. This book is no exception. This is a good book for those who want to hear a rational response to why "social justice" and "equality of outcome," while sounding noble, have very significant flaws.
The quest for cosmic justice, or social justice, tends to occur with a corresponding loss of freedom. Historically countries that have the most freedom are among the most prosperous. A greater amount of growth occurs, and a significant amount of the population will rise in their living standards. He warns about the dangers of pursuing equality of outcome, and echoes Milton Friedman, that people who give up freedom to obtain equality end up with neither. Freedom leads to prosperity, but that prosperity often comes about unequally. The poor in the US today enjoy a standard of living far above all but the very richest at the start of the 20th century. The inefficiency of political control of the economy has lead to many middle class citizens of those countries still have a lower standard of living than the poor in free countries. This may be best showed in the difference between East and West Germany, and North and South Korea. In these cases similar populations have followed two very different political and economic structures, and the result has been night and day.
One example he gives drives home the point with the sinking of the Titanic. Some lifeboats were launched from the Titanic, but not nearly enough for everyone onboard. Some people got on lifeboats while others did not. The most equitable solution in this case would have been having nobody get on a lifeboat (and resulting in a greater tragedy). However, rational people will clearly say that the having some people saved through lifeboats was the better outcome, despite it being a clearly unequal outcome.
He addressed some other common used phrases like "through no fault of their own" that have made their made their way into political discourse, and points out the flaws and inconsistencies they hold.
I would recommend this book to anyone, and easily give it a 5 star rating. (less)
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Bob Nichols
Dec 08, 2021Bob Nichols rated it liked it
The (1999) book foreshadows the contemporary American political divide. Sowell contrasts two forms of justice. In one – and one that he vigorously subscribes to – “traditional justice is about impartial process rather than either results or prospects.” This is closely aligned with equality: Everyone plays by the same rules and you either make it or not on your own. This view is contrasted with those who believe that government’s role is to “mitigate and make more just the undeserved misfortunes arising from the cosmos, as well as from society. It seeks to produce cosmic justice, going beyond strictly social justice, which becomes just one aspect of cosmic justice.”
Cosmic/social justice types not only give preference to those down on their luck but they also seek to redistribute benefits from those who have to those who don’t. Thus, equality becomes equity. For Sowell, this ostensible an effort to give everyone a fair opportunity to compete is the argument for victimhood, entitlement, free riders and the welfare state; and it’s the argument for punishing those who have taken responsibility for their lives and have done well. These advocates want to make everyone the same (same results) even if, in Sowell’s mind, they didn’t work for or deserve it, and regardless of the cost on the rest of society. The cosmic justice mentality extends to foreign affairs. The peace and harmony that can be imagined becomes peace at any price. And defense expenditures are morally wrong. The money should be used to help the poor. For these advocates, “the quest for peace, like the quest for cosmic justice…exalts them morally.” It becomes “the vision of morally anointed visionaries.
This is the politics of today in the USA. On the one (and Sowell's) side, it’s the survival of the fittest mentality. You make it or you don’t; few excuses are allowed. On the other, it’s to rectify grievance. Sowell’s argument is enlightening, though it comes across as a near rant that I found distracting. Just as he sees the quest for cosmic justice as extreme, the same could be said for his point of view. It ignores these fundamentals: (a) one can’t compete fairly when the odds are stacked against one from the start; (b) unequal power leads to the slanting of rules, including for electoral success, that leads to further inequality of power and inevitably to greater and intolerable Hobbesian-like division; (c) racial discrimination continues and his white social Darwinism justifies doing not much about it; and (d) in this country’s polarized extremes, we’ve lost our common sense.
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مُهنا
Oct 26, 2020مُهنا rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: favorites
This made me think hard on what justice really is. How justice to some is sometimes injustice to others, how trying to do justice by some people will only cause them harm since we are applying our own definitions of justice disregarding the beliefs of those we are trying to help and what they want.
I think this is an important book for anyone heavily involved in social justice (whatever side of it you think you are) as it could identify issues with some of their ideologies that they might not have considered. (less)
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Kim M
Nov 18, 2021Kim M rated it it was ok
Shelves: listened-to-audiobook, nonfiction, poc-authors
We as humans (myself included) excel at pointing out flaws in the values and logic of those who oppose us, but we are not so good at recognizing those exact same flaws in our own logic and values. I’m currently trying to read more books with a conservative lean to them to broaden my perspective, and thus far, that fact is the biggest takeaway. As I read conservative thinkers attacking progressives for some of the very same reasons that I myself criticize conservatives, it helps me realize that I can be just as blind as “the other side.”
In this book in particular, one of the main points that keeps coming back is the idea that those pursuing social justice are clinging to a vision with no regard for facts, and Sowell presents these people as having self-aggrandizing moral superiority and caring more about their vision than about actual people.
I have a lot to say about this.
First of all, this is a large generalization. Sowell does bring up some isolated cases that show specific progressive individuals caring more about their vision than facts and real people, and if the book were about the problematic nature of any one of these specific cases, I could be on Sowell’s side. However, he uses these isolated cases to create swooping claims about anyone fighting for social justice, and that just doesn’t sit well with me.
Secondly, there are people on all sides who cling to a vision with no regard for facts. The progressive leaning books I’ve read (which is, admittedly, not a lot) tend to focus on a specific issue and then dive deeply into the issue. They’ve all had deep, nuanced arguments that are rooted in academic literature with long works cited sections at the end. I’m sure there are plenty of conservative-leaning books like this, too, though I haven’t read them yet, and I’m also sure that you can find books by progressives that are as divisive and shallow as Candace Owens’s Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation. So the fact that Sowell is using this critique against ALL progressives and NO conservatives is deeply flawed.
Take, for example, the housing crisis. This was an example Sowell used to show that progressives care about the vision more than the people, and that they fight for their vision with no regard for facts. Just this year I read the book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, which does a fantastic job of painting the personal nature of the housing crisis in the USA as well as presenting a research-based discussion of what can be done about it with an analysis of consequences. I suppose the book leans left, if only because our divisive two-party system (and books like The Quest for Cosmic Justice) tells us that only Democrats are allowed to care about social justice. But the point is that it’s an example of someone who leans left using research and analysis to make a case for social justice in the very area that Sowell is trying to use to discredit all who fight for social justice.
And thirdly, Sowell spends most of the book condemning progressives as being self-righteous and of caring about their vision first and logic/data second. Interestingly, this is essentially the premise of another book I read this year called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. However, Haidt’s book is a far less biased discussion of how this flaw is part of ALL humanity, not just one side of the USA political system. So if you’re interested in learning more about human self-righteousness and retroactive reasoning in a much less biased, offensive, and hypocritical manner, THAT is the book I recommend that you read.
Overall, I was less impressed than I thought I could be. Sowell spends most of the book in a blindly hypocritical attack against progressives as well as reminding us that it’s too hard to achieve cosmic justice so we shouldn’t even try. I would’ve been much more interested if the book had been focused on the negative consequences that a blind, well-meaning quest for cosmic justice can bring about if the discussion hadn’t turned into a broadly generalized “party vs party,” “good guys vs bad guys,” “progressives are self-righteous and dumb” kind of argument. He had some decent points to make, but instead of trying to communicate them in a way that would make a progressive individual think, he presents them in a self-righteous, lemme-just-pat-myself-on-the-back kind of way. (less)
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