Universal Principles of Liberalism and the Politics of Race

Thomas Sowell, the great economist, is not generally well regarded in some parts of the self-described “black community.” They call him an “Uncle Tom,” meaning a traitor to the black race. An anonymous commentator who shares daily quotes from Sowell on social media wrote on Facebook that he sees this “every single day. Multiple times a day.”

They never quote him back. They never cite a book. They never explain what he got wrong. They just say the words [Uncle Tom] and wait for applause.

. . .

Harvard. Columbia. PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. Taught at Cornell and UCLA. Published literally dozens of books. Exposed how the very policies his critics defend have gutted the communities they claim to care about.

And his reward for all of that is two words designed to do one thing: punish a black man for thinking for himself.

One of the reasons Sowell infuriates them is that he draws international comparisons, which they consider to be irrelevant in understanding the problems black people face. They believe their problems are special, and that it is offensive to compare their unique suffering to the suffering of regular human beings. 

Deriving principles that are universally true is central to Sowell’s methodology as an economist. He conducts “cause-and-effect analysis” of problems common to all human beings, to discover “how things have come to be what they are.” In Markets and Minorities, he explains:

In applying the general logic of decision-making to particular social processes, we will examine the peculiarities of these processes but will treat human beings as similar, whether they are in politics or business or schools. We will not assume that public officials are a different breed of creatures, nor treat the government as a deus ex machina, operating without any of the ordinary motives of human beings.

Sowell argues that this approach encourages “deliberation” between people who hold different ideological beliefs. It provides a common framework for debate based on reason and logic, rather than based purely on race loyalty which, as Sowell puts it, “would leave us no way of settling differences other than shouting each other down, or, ultimately, fighting.”

This approach is a common theme in much of his work. For example, in his book Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, he contrasts the experience of affirmative action policies in “India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and the United States.” His book The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective analyzes groups such as “the overseas Chinese” and “European emigrants.”

Sowell argues that “in each of the countries considered, common patterns emerge.” He shows, for example, that preferential programs do not work, and they often cause worse problems than those they set out to solve. This is not just a conclusion relevant to the experience of one group of people, but one that is universally true and demonstrable by reference to many different examples.

The fact that Sowell’s conclusions are objectively substantiated infuriates his critics. They wonder what possible relevance the experience of other races could have in understanding their unique problems. This is what they mean when they describe him as a race traitor. Sowell’s friend and fellow economist, Walter E. Williams, faced much the same hostility for arguing that voluntary exchange based on private property is beneficial to black people in exactly the same way as any other group of people.

On the question of slavery, Sowell describes the black experience in America as unique in the context of America, in that the other minority groups he studies were not held in slavery. But he adds that “slavery has existed for thousands of years, on every continent, with numerous modifications, and encompassing a remarkable range of occupations.” Once again, he universalizes the experience of human servitude and bonded labor to derive lessons that can illuminate the social problems we seek to understand.

For those who use historical grievances to seek preferential treatment and special favors for their group, the last thing they want is to acknowledge that other human beings face the same challenges they do. It is paramount to them that their grievances should be seen as unique. Nothing infuriates them more than seeing their group compared with others. Sowell recounts meeting a Maori social justice activist in New Zealand who insisted that the experience of her people was unique.

But the key concepts she used, her general attitude, the intonations of her voice, her facial expressions and gestures, the body language, the buzzwords, her evasive, accusatory, and retaliatory responses to any serious questions or criticisms, all could have been found in almost any large city in the United States, among the representatives of any of a long list of groups having or seeking preferential treatment.

When analyzed, it turned out that “the arguments and connotations were closer to being universal than unique.” It is this message—the universality of the human condition—that they reject. Comparisons with others are offensive to them because if their grievances are not seen as unique, they would struggle to justify the special treatment they demand. Equality before the law is perceived as a threat that exposes them—with their unique vulnerability—to unique forms of discrimination from those who hate them. That was why Sowell famously observed that, “When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”

The issues that arise when everyone’s problems are unique may be illustrated by the work of the Bradford Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel in West Yorkshire, England. The role of this panel is to scrutinize “hate crime” and for this purpose it is instructed to be “impartial” in relation to all the victim-groups. For context, the population of Bradford is approximately 61 percent white and 31 percent Muslim, the majority from Pakistan.

The chairman of the panel was recently fired for failing the impartiality test after an Islamist attack on a synagogue in Manchester. She was unable to avoid accusations of hate against Muslims in her attempt to police hate against Jews.

Further, she was suspected of having potentially committed a “hate crime,” accused of showing bias against Muslims when she said, “there is one community that this is coming from.” This was seen as “pointing blame at a community as a whole,” which is hate.

One story headline read, “Police sacked hate crime adviser who warned force favoured Muslims over Jews.” The story is illustrated with a photograph captioned, “Protesters gather for the ‘Britain Stands With British Jews’ rally at Downing Street.” Their placards ask the government to “Make Jews Feel Safe Again.” No mention is made of the white British man from Bradford who is still in hiding, together with his family, because he received death threats after offending Muslims. There is no placard asking the government to make white people in Bradford feel safe again.

The great benefit of liberalism in the classical tradition is that it transcends all these types of inter-group disputes—who needs the law to protect them, who is the biggest victim, who is the most vulnerable, who hates whom the most. Instead of fighting each other to win the Victimology Olympics, all citizens are treated as equally deserving of the protection of the law. No group is considered “more equal” than others.