Discrimination and disparities

For decades, Sowell (Hoover Institution, Stanford) has been speaking statistical and historical truth to the hegemonic power of cultural and intellectual liberal elites in the US. This wide-ranging primer explores the vast disparities between groups whether they be nation-states, races, or religious sub-cultures. Barring now-discredited genetic explanations, the prevailing assumption is "that these disparities would not exist without corresponding disparities ... in the way they are treated by other people." But because people spontaneously sort in all manner of interconnected ways, attempts to coercively manipulate these differences in pursuit of the "invincible fallacy" of equal outcomes not only fail but also cause unacknowledged harm to both supposed victims and perpetrators. The repeated failures of school reforms, rent controls, and minimum wage laws to mitigate group disparities are mocked by the unaccountable and extraordinary success of maligned minority groups such as Mormons, Asians, and Jews in the US and overseas Chinese almost everywhere: "disparities do not imply discrimination." An obverse complement to Sowell's analysis is the political response to liberal social engineering in Salena Zito and Brad Todd, The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics (Crown, 2018). Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Eldon John Eisenach, emeritus, University of Tulsa