Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be «cured» against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
«The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment» by C. S. Lewis
Thomas Sowell did write a very interesting book on Social Justice, or rather, their fallacies («Social Justice Fallacies»). There are some very interesting concepts in it, among others, the notions of «reciprocal inequalities», «consequential knowledge» and much, much more. But to be honest, the book if full of paragraphs or sentences that are devastatingly precise and clear — and well-needed beams of light in an age of endarkenment:
At the heart of the social justice vision is the assumption that, because economic and other disparities among human beings greatly exceed any differences in their innate capacities, these disparities are evidence or proof of the effects of such human vices as exploitation and discrimination.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Because of reciprocal inequalities, the more narrowly defined the endeavor, the less likely are different groups to be comparably represented. Yet crusaders for social justice often decry uneven representation of groups in an individual company, as evidence or proof of employer discrimination in that particular company.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
We might agree that “equal chances for all” would be desirable. But that in no way guarantees that we have either the knowledge or the power required to make that goal attainable, without ruinous sacrifices of other desirable goals, ranging from freedom to survival. Do we want the mixture of students who are going to be trained to do advanced medical research to be representative of the demographic make-up of the population as a whole — or do we want whatever students, from whatever background, who have track records demonstrating a mastery of medical science that gives them the highest probability of finding cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s and other devastating diseases? Endeavors have purposes. Is indulging ideological visions more important than ending cancer and Alzheimer’s?
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Do you want airlines to have pilots chosen for demographic representation of various groups, or would you prefer to fly on planes whose pilots were chosen for their mastery of all the complex things that increase your chances of arriving safely at your destination? Once we recognize the many factors that can create different developed capabilities, “equal chances for all” becomes very different in its consequences from “equal opportunity.” And consequences matter — or should matter — more so than some attractive or fashionable theory. More fundamentally, do we want a society in which some babies are born into the world as heirs of pre-packaged grievances against other babies born the same day — blighting both their lives or do we want to at least leave them the option to work things out better in their lives than we have in ours?
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Racial and ethnic issues have often produced vehement assertions in various times and places around the world. These assertions have ranged from the genetic determinism of early twentieth-century America— which proclaimed that “race is everything”! as an explanation of group differences in economic and social outcomes — to the opposite view at the end of that century that racism was the primary explanation of such group differences. That different people have different beliefs is hardly unusual in the history of human beings. What is unusual — and dangerous is (1) the extent to which such beliefs prevail without being subjected to tests of either facts or logic, and (2) the extent to which people who present empirical evidence counter to prevailing beliefs are met with ad hominem denunciations and with efforts to suppress their evidence, by means ranging from censorship to violence, especially on academic campuses.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Nevertheless, economic differences between different groups are a special concern when discussing different rates of poverty. For example, the poverty rate among black American families as a whole has long been higher than the poverty rate among white American families as a whole. But, over a span of more than a quarter of a century since 1994, in no year has the annual poverty rate of black married-couple families been as high as 10 percent. And in no year in more than half a century since 1959 has the national poverty rate of Americans as a whole been as low as 10 percent. If black family poverty is caused by “systemic racism,” do racists make an exception for blacks who are married? Do racists either know or care whether blacks are married?
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
In politics, the goal is not truth but votes. If most voters believe what is said, that rhetoric is a success, as far as politicians are concerned. But, from the standpoint of the public, the claim that the cost of government giveaways will be paid for by taxes collected from “millionaires and billionaires” is a proposition that very much requires empirical examination, since “millionaires and billionaires” are not always cooperative. People who imagine that the benefits they receive “free” from government will be paid for by others may discover that they themselves end up paying for those benefits, as a result of inflation.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
It costs government discriminators nothing to discriminate, because the costs are paid by the taxpayers. Similarly for discriminators in non-profit institutions, where employers are likewise spending other people’s money. The situation in government-regulated public utilities is somewhat more complicated, but the net result is that these public utilities’ costs of discrimination can be passed on to their customers, who have no choice but to pay, when dealing with a government-regulated monopoly. Each of these three kinds of institutions has had a long history of especially discriminatory policies against minority workers, as compared to policies in institutions operating in competitive markets, with employers’ own money being at risk. Prior to World War II, for example, black professors were virtually non-existent in white, non-profit colleges and universities. But there were hundreds of black chemists employed in profit-based businesses in competitive industries during that same era. Such patterns were not confined to the United States or to blacks.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
How much knowledge there is in a given society, and how it is distributed, depends crucially on how knowledge is conceived and defined. When a social justice advocate like Professor John Rawls of Harvard referred to how “society” should “arrange” certain out comes, he was clearly referring to collective decisions of a kind that a government makes, using knowledge available to surrogate decision-makers, more so than the kind of knowledge known and used by individuals in the population at large, when making their own decisions about their own lives. As an old saying expressed it: “A fool can put on his coat better than a wise man can do it for him.”
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Given the conception of knowledge prevalent among many elite intellectuals, and the distribution of such knowledge implied by that conception, it is hardly surprising that they reach the kinds of conclusions that they do. Indeed, to make the opposite assumption — that one’s own great achievements and competence are confined to a narrow band, out of the vast spectrum of human concerns — could be a major impediment to promoting social crusades that preempt the decisions of others, who are supposedly to be the beneficiaries of such crusades as the quest for social justice.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Fact-free moralizing is a common pattern among social justice advocates. But the fundamental problem is an institutional problem, when laws allow third-party surrogates to preempt other people’s decisions and pay no price for being wrong, no matter how high the price paid by others, whom they are supposedly helping.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Among the poorest of the European immigrants at that time were Eastern European Jews. Their men often began working as peddlers on the streets, while the women and children worked at home — for long hours at low piecework pay, on consignments of clothing production in the slum apartments where they lived. They were often trying to save up enough money to be able to eventually open up some small shop or grocery store, in hopes of being able to earn a better living that way, or at least not having their men be peddlers working outdoors on the streets in all kinds of weather. Many of these Jewish immigrants had family members back in Eastern Europe, where they were being attacked by anti-Semitic mobs. The money being saved was also used to pay the fares of those family members who desperately needed to escape. During these years, most of the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who came to America had their fares paid by family members already living in America, even though many Jews at that time were still poor and living in slums.
[…]
These and other urgent reasons for needing to save money were part of the consequential knowledge keenly felt by family members living in the slums, but less likely to be known by surrogate decision-makers with great confidence in their own supposedly superior knowledge and understanding. Early Progressive-era writer Walter E. Weyl said that “a tenement house law increases the liberty of tenement dwellers.” The resistance of slum dwellers who had to be forced out by police suggests that they saw things differently.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
A high IQ and low information can be a very dangerous combination, as a basis for preempting other people’s decisions especially when this preemption takes place in circumstances where there is no price for surrogate decision-makers to pay for being wrong.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
The fact that we cannot do everything does not mean that we should do nothing. But it does suggest that we need to make very sure that we have our facts straight, so that we do not make things worse, while trying to make them better. In a world of ever-changing facts and inherently fallible human beings, that means leaving everything we say or do be open to criticism. Dogmatic certitudes and intolerance of dissent have often led to major catastrophes, and nowhere more so than in the twentieth century. The continuation and escalation of such practices in the twenty-first century is by no means a hopeful sign.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Back in the eighteenth century, Edmund Burke made a fundamental distinction between his ideals and his policy advocacies. “Preserving my principles unshaken,” he said, “I reserve my activity for rational endeavours.” In other words, having high ideals did not imply carrying idealism to the extreme of trying to impose those ideals at all costs and oblivious to all dangers.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
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.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
The advantages that some people have, in a given endeavor, are not just disadvantages to everyone else. These advantages also benefit all the people who pay for the product or service provided by that endeavor. It is not a zero-sum situation. Mutual benefit is the only way the endeavor can continue, in a competitive market, with vast numbers of people free to decide what they are willing to pay for. The losers are the much smaller number of people who wanted to supply the same product or service. But the losers were unable to match what the successful producers offered, regardless of whether the winners’ success was due to skills developed at great sacrifice or skills that came their way from just happening to be in the right place at the right time.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
This is not an incidental subtlety. It matters greatly whether people with high incomes are adding to, or subtracting from, the incomes of the rest of the population. Insinuations are a weak basis for making decisions about a serious issue. It is too important to have that issue decided — or obfuscated — by artful words. In plain English: Is the average American’s income higher or lower because of the products created and sold by some multi-billionaire?
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Today it is possible, even in our most prestigious educational institutions at all levels, to go literally from kindergarten to a Ph.D., without ever having read a single article — much less a book — by someone who advocates free-market economies or who opposes gun control laws. Whether you would agree with them or disagree with them, if you read what they said, is not the issue. The far larger issue is why education has so often become indoctrination and for whose benefit.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
None of this suggests that businesses have never done anything wrong. Sainthood is not the norm in business, any more than in politics, in the media or on academic campuses. That is why we have laws. But it is not a reason to create ever more numerous and sweeping laws to put ever more power in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong, regardless of how high a price is paid by others who are subject to their power.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
With social justice advocates supposedly concerned with the fate of the poor, it may seem strange that they seem to have paid remarkably little attention to places where the poor have risen out of poverty at a dramatic rate and on a massive scale. That at least raises the question whether the social justice advocates’ priorities are the poor themselves or the social justice advocates’ own vision of the world and their own role in that vision.
Sowell (2023) «Social Justice Fallacies»
Like written, there are countless of these paragraphs. Both interesting and … well, «emotionally involving» to read. Especially the relevance of intellectual humility, free speech, and the need for oppositional collaboration.
Highly recommended.
Reference: Sowell, T. (2023). Social Justice Fallacies. Basic Books.
