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The Soul of Academia: Thomas Sowell

Without all of the knowledge and wisdom espoused by Dr. Sowell, business would have suffered in America even more for more than half a century.

By Skyler SaundersPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Some of the brightest people, including Dr. Yaron Brook, Dr. Walter E Williams, and Dr. Leonard Peikoff held views early in life that changed dramatically with age and experience. Dr. Thomas Sowell is no exception. For decades, he encouraged his students to think critically, and value free markets, and later, in retirement, he wrote prolifically in defense of the same, but he wasn’t always this way....

Humble beginnings

Dr. Sowell was born into poverty in Gastonia, North Carolina. He was raised by his great aunt, who moved the family up north to Harlem, New York, where he studied at the well-reputed Stuyvesant High School. Unfortunately, due to financial difficulties in the family, he dropped out at 17 to help the family by working odd jobs. In 1951, during the Korean War, he was drafted into the United States Marine Corps, where he became a photographer.

Upon discharge, Sowell worked days as a civil servant while attending high school at Howard University simultaneously. Thanks to stellar test scores and recommendations, he earned acceptance at Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude. This propelled him to study at Columbia University and the University of Chicago where he achieved his doctorate, respectively. At no times during his scholarship did he show any signs of believing he was inferior, because of the color of his skin. On the contrary. He moved up in academia, ultimately as a professor, by successfully publishing papers and books. Throughout his twenties, though, he says, he considered himself a Marxist. It was only after he went to work in the government, at the Labor Department, that he changed his views and became a passionate defender of free markets.

A Rise through the ranks of academia

Dr. Sowell was driven to teach after that. He knew if he taught at a variety of schools about privatization and the relationship between intervention by the state and wages, he would be able to communicate the benefits of the free market. He was so concerned about the damage Marxism could do, he wrote a book entitled Marxism: Philosophy and Economics, perhaps to repent for his own prior support of this ideology while educating others at the same time.

Thomas Sowell’s scholarship brought him to opportunity’s door, and he proudly walked through it. Using the power of his mind, he has elevated discussions of race, politics, economics, and political ideology.

A mentee of Milton Friedman, Dr. Sowell explains economics, in speeches and in writings, with just as much clarity and aplomb as his mentor. He makes sound, rational arguments in favor of capitalism, despite what he admits were errors in his own youthful thinking.

The consummate gentleman and teacher

He has become a towering intellectual force for good in America, consistently defending the rights of the individual by extolling the economic virtue inherent in leaving men and women free to use their skills to pursue their own goals. He makes clear how and why families can have a “better life” in America.

Thomas Sowell lives his creed, too. After many years, he retired from writing his long-running syndicated column to focus on his photography, something that would have been impossible without the opportunities afforded to him his entire life by the free market he spent his life defending.

However, even in retirement, Dr. Sowell continues to follow and comment on events of the day, including the recent ascendence of Joe Biden to the Presidency, which he considers a harbinger of demise, akin to the fall of Rome.

Carrying the torch of freedom

Just as passionate at ninety as he was at twenty, Dr. Sowell hasn’t lost any of his clarity of vision or voice. He speaks plainly, drawing on the strength of his own resolve. His decades in the fields of sociology and race theory make him a true expert, unlike his modern-day competition. He’s fearless, and despite all the hardships he’s faced in his life, displays no sentimentality or acrimony towards less enlightened America. His self-esteem launched his career, and kept him on track to becoming one of the greatest American minds in this nation’s history.

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