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This whole notion
that the black family

has always been disintegrating,
that is nonsense.

His studies go up to 1925.

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

The great bulk
of black families were intact

two-parent families
up through 1925

and going all the way back
through the era of slavery.

So it is now only
within our own time

that we suddenly see
this inevitable tragedy

which the welfare system says
it's going to rush in to solve.

It's been 40 years
since the show aired,

and Thomas Sowell's writings
continue to illuminate.

Whether the topic is
race, crime, immigration,

or so many other subjects,
his scholarship

remains as relevant as ever.

Racists may prefer
one race to another,

but they prefer themselves
to everybody else.

Thomas Sowell
is a trained economist.

He's a sociologist
who has written books

about virtually every culture
that's ever existed.

He is a photographer.

He is America's greatest
contemporary living philosopher.

I'm Jason Riley.

I'm a journalist and author.

For more than two decades,

I have closely studied the life
and work of Thomas Sowell.

His story is both
fascinating and illuminating.

Tom makes a very, very good
point that general principles

affect everybody, whether
they're black, brown, or purple.

Tom is fearless not just
in advancing unpopular opinions,

but in venturing into
areas of scholarship

that had been untrodden.

Tom Sowell
is known for his views

on economics, history, race,
and politics.

But I've also discovered
some lesser-known

aspects of his life --

his research and his writings
about late-talking children,

and the fact that he is
a highly regarded

world-traveling
photographer.

Over the next hour, we'll
examine the life and career

of Dr. Thomas Sowell,

how he rose from
humble beginnings

to attend and teach
at some of the nation's

leading institutions

and became one of our
foremost social commentators.

You were a Marxist
at one time in your life.

What was your wake-up
to what was wrong

with that line of thinking?

Uh, facts.

You're about to meet
one of the greatest minds

of the past half-century.

[ music ]

Funding for this program

has been provided by...

[ music ]

Because I was a Marxist
at the time,

and they were appalled,
and I thought --

you know, they have very
high intellectual standards,

and I'm not going to find
ideological soul mates.

I was still a Marxist.

I took a summer job
in the government,

got an intern in economics.

And it was seeing
the government from the inside

that turned me around.

The vision of the left,

and I think many conservatives
underestimate this,

is really a more attractive
vision in itself.

The only reason
for not believing in it

is that it doesn't work.

But you don't see that
at the outset

if all you're looking at
is just a theory.

If the world were the way
the left conceives it to be,

it would be a better world

than the way the right
conceives it to be.

It just happens
that the world is not that way.

For me, Thomas Sowell

is that rarest of species --

and honest intellectual.

He's spent a career

putting truth above popularity.

He's explored the answers
to questions

others were afraid to even ask.

He's followed the facts
where they lead

and accepted the findings,

however unpopular
or politically incorrect.

Thomas Sowell
fervently stands

by his well-researched beliefs,

and he does not hesitate
to let someone know

if he thinks they're wrong.

I've spent dozens of hours
interviewing Tom

and hundreds more
selecting stories

he's told over the years
to others

to help us understand
what makes Thomas Sowell unique.

[ music ]

Sowell's body of work
is quite vast.

It's covered everything
from economics and history

to culture, migration,
and racial inequality.

The main thing that
he's done, in my opinion,

is to cause people to rethink
their assumptions

about all sorts of things.

Not just economics,

but about race, about politics,

about how we get along.

Tom is absolutely fearless.

I mean, he's forceful
in his opinions.

He will not compromise
any of his opinions

for the sake
of social politeness.

How do you take
the measure of a man,

especially if he's someone
who's impacted our thinking

about politics and economics
for more than half a century?

Do you do it through his deeds
or influence?

Or by what he says or writes?

Perhaps
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

said it best --

"The ultimate
measure of a man

is not where he stands

in moments of comfort
and convenience,

but where he stands at times
of challenge and controversy."

The media -- the television
and the print media,

they've wised up.

You can't argue with Tom,

so you might as well hide
what he's doing.

And that's what they're doing.

They're just ignoring
what he's written

because there's no way that
they can argue with Tom Sowell.

[ music ]

What distinguishes
Thomas Sowell's scholarship?

First, intellectual honesty --
asking the right questions,

gathering the relevant data,

and following the facts
to their logical conclusion,

even if that conclusion
turns out to be unpopular.

Second, the importance
of incentives

and the reality of trade-offs

in addressing
our social problems.

Third, the belief
that a group's upward mobility

derives primarily from its
development of human capital.

And finally, Sowell has
an abiding respect

for social processes
and existing institutions

and the role they play
in decision-making.

So where do Tom Sowell's
ideas come from?

What formed the foundation
of a man who would go on

to become one of the country's
foremost public intellectuals?

That story began

600 miles to the south
of Midtown Manhattan

more than eight decades ago.

[ music ]

Thomas Sowell was born
in Gastonia, North Carolina,

on June 30, 1930.

The Great Depression
was just getting underway,

and like many blacks
in the South at the time,

his family had no electricity,

no central heating,

and no hot running water.

Sowell's father died
before Tom was born

and his mother, a maid,
died in childbirth

just a few years later.

He was adopted by
his great aunt

and raised by her
and her two daughters.

So he was raised by three women.

My whole career
would not have been possible

without the particular family
in which I was raised,

which was not composed
of educated people.

I mean, nobody in that family
had ever graduated

from high school,

and most had not graduated
from grade school.

But they were interested
in education

and they were interested in me.

Tom was raised by a great aunt
and her adult children.

The family moved
to New York City's

Harlem neighborhood,

a migration that exposed him
to better schools

and more opportunities than were
available to blacks

in the segregated South.

"My great fear is that
a black child

growing up in Harlem today
will not have as good a chance

to rise as people
of my generation did,

simply because
they will not receive

as solid an education,
in an era

when such an education
is even more important."

[ music ]

[ music ]

When Thomas Sowell
was 8 years old,

his family moved
from North Carolina

to New York City,
and settled here,

at 720 St. Nicholas Avenue

in the neighborhood of Harlem.

[ music ]

The building looks
pretty much the same

as it did
more than 80 years ago

when the Sowells moved in.

[ music ]

Young Tommy,
as he was called,

ventured out
into a big city

for the very first time.

He rode double-decker buses

and learned to cross
busy streets all by himself.

[ Train wheels clacking ]

We were much poorer
than the people in Harlem

or most anywhere else today.

It was my last year
or two at home

that we finally had a telephone.

We had a radio.
We never had a television.

But in another sense,

in the sense of the things
you need to get ahead,

I was enormously more fortunate
than most black kids today.

While coming of age
in Harlem,

Sowell discovered
the magic of education,

thanks to family friend
named Eddie Mapp.

[ Children shout playfully ]

[ music ]

In Harlem, there was
a kid named Eddie

that members of the family
had run into

before I ever arrived
from North Carolina.

[ music ]

He came from a highly
educated family,

and they immediately
saw the implications

if they could get him
to mentor me.

[ music ]

Eddie brought Tom here,
to the Harlem Public Library,

taught him how to find books
that interested him,

taught him how
to check them out.

And I saw all these books,

and I had no idea
why we were there

when I don't have any money
to buy one book.

And so, what am I gonna do
with all these, you know,

hundreds of books
up on the shelf?

[ music ]

Crossing the threshold
to this new world

was the first step on a path

Young Tommy might not
otherwise have taken.

And he very patiently walked me
through the whole thing.

And again, I was very reluctant
to take out a library card

'cause I didn't know
what all this is about,

but he talked me into it,

then I borrowed
a couple of books.

And really, had I
not encountered him,

the entire rest of the story

could not have been
the way it was.

I mean, at some point
I would have learned

what a public library was,
but by that point,

it would be too late.

When you start getting
in the habit of reading

when you're eight years old,
that's a different ball game

than if you had to wait
till you're a teenager,

and it's too late now.

Thanks to that
same friend, Eddie,

a young Tom Sowell was pointed
in the right direction

regarding his schooling.

The grade school he attended
in Harlem was a good one.

But when it came time
for junior high school,

the one in Tom's neighborhood
was not so great.

When I finished
elementary school,

and they assigned me
to a junior high school

in a very bad neighborhood,

he told me that
you can get transferred.

And I got transferred
to a much better school.

Had I gone to that
other school, again,

the story would have been
entirely different.

He would become a firm believer
in allowing parents

to choose the best school
possible for their children,

whether it be private schools,
religious schools,

or even the option that sparks
intense debate among lawmakers

and educators today --
charter schools.

[ music ]

"There are few things
more dishonorable

than misleading the young."

The abysmal quality
of education

available in the ghettos today

is one that I really
don't think

the worst possible
private school could match.

40 years ago, I received
a far better education in Harlem

than the people who are living
in Harlem today

have available to them.

[ music ]

It's 8:00 a.m.
at the Success Academy school

in Harlem, New York.

This is a charter school,
an example of educational choice

for people trying to
better themselves

despite the circumstances
they were born into.

For Tom, this is
education done right.

Professor Sowell has been
a leader in supporting

all forms of school choice,
and I very fundamentally agree

that we need
more choices, not fewer.

I think we particularly
need that

for our most vulnerable
populations.

Back in 1978,
when there was a push

for a voucher scheme,
the "New Republic" objected.

In their words,
"The least educated,

the least ambitious,
and the least aware

would be left
in the public schools."

Professor Sowell
grew up in Harlem.

I grew up in Harlem,
and the schools there

have been a disaster
for half a century.

And so you have
generations of kids

who have not gotten
the education that they deserve

and are entitled to.

[ music ]

Charter schools
are public, tuition-free schools

that are open to all students,

and able to operate
independently

from the traditional
school district.

They are given the autonomy

to design a curriculum tailored
to the needs of their students.

But they must also meet
academic standards

set by state
and local officials.

Unlike traditional
public schools, however,

charter schools
that don't meet these standards

can actually be shut down.

With respect to education,
Tom would say

it doesn't make any difference
how much money

you put into education,

but if there are not
some basic factors

that you must
take into account,

that is, in order for a kid
to get a good education,

somebody must make him
go to bed on time.

Somebody must make him
do his homework.

Somebody must make him
mind the teacher.

Somebody has to get him up
in the morning.

And if those things
are not done,

I don't care how much money
you put into education,

you're not going to get
very good results.

And that is precisely
what we see.

For decades, Sowell has been
a strong supporter of charters

and other education options
for families

trapped in
underperforming schools.

There are, as you've said,
many blacks today

who are still being given

totally inadequate education...
Yes.

...and cannot be expected
to get very far for that reason.

What would be
your remedy for that?

I would allow their parents

to have a choice
of where to send them to school,

whether that choice is called
a voucher scheme,

open enrollment,
tuition tax credit,

any kind of scheme of that sort

that would put that power
in the hands of their parents,

mainly because
that would mean that

the schools would have to be
responsive to them.

As it is now,
the school is a monopoly.

They need not be responsive.

It is hard for me to understand
what harm is going to be done

by allowing parents
to have a choice

as compared to having
self-interested bureaucrats

have a monopoly.

"The things that they thought
were going to help,

did not help.

And in many cases
made things much worse."

[ music ]

Thomas Sowell
is a very private person...

[ music ]

...despite having so much of
his work put before the public.

He's reluctant
to give interviews,

and has been known to
make journalists wait years

before sitting down
to talk about his life and work.

But a colleague of mine
took the time to get Tom

to appear on his show.

I'm Dave Rubin. I'm the host
of "The Rubin Report."

Set's right back behind me
here in my home.

I do a long-form interview show.

Everybody was saying,

you've got to talk
to Thomas Sowell.

You've got to talk to
Thomas Sowell.

And we tried for about three
or four years to hunt him down.

And finally we were able
to interview him.

One of the things
that I found out that was

sort of amazing about
your history,

you briefly mentioned it
right before we started;

you were a Marxist

at one time in your life.

Most people will find this hard
to believe, but it is true.

But it's not that unusual.

Most of the leading conservative
thinkers of our time

did not start off
as conservative.

You've got a couple like
Bill Buckley and George Will.

But I mean, Milton Friedman
was a liberal and a Keynesian.

Ronald Reagan
was so far left,

at one point the FBI
was following him.

Do you remember sort of
what you were thinking,

what appealed to you
at that time about Marxism?

Yes. I mean, there was no
alternative being discussed.

I treated my interview with him
as Thomas Sowell 101.

I wanted it to be for the new
generation of young people

who watch YouTube,
who listen to podcasts.

My first job was
as a Western Union messenger.

[ music ]

I would take
the Fifth Avenue bus.

It would go all the way up
Fifth Avenue

past all these Lord & Taylor

and all these fancy places.

And then across 57th Street.

Down Riverside Drive.

And then, as I
came across this long viaduct

that turned into 135th Street,

suddenly,
there were the tenements,

[ music ]

and I'd wonder, why is this?

It's so different.

And nothing in the schools
or most of the books

seemed to deal with that,
and Marx dealt with that.

There's an absolutely
beautiful moment

where I ask him about
his own political evolution.

So then what was your wake-up
to what was wrong

with that line of thinking?

Uh, facts.

[ Laughs ]

I love that moment.

I mean, I knew
the second he did it,

I was like, we got our clip.
That's as good as it gets.

And it gets to, what does
this man care about most?

Does he care about
how he feels about things?

How he wants the world to be?
Or how is the world as it is?

Because that's what he's saying,
"I care about facts."

The world is a certain way,
and now,

using that as the baseline,

we can try to figure out
how to make things better.

[ music ]

Drafted in 1951,
Tom joined the Marines,

where he taught pistol shooting
and took photographs.

[ Patriotic music plays ]

[ music ]

In fact, Sowell was part

of the Marine Corps
Combat Camera Division.

Combat Camera is responsible

for the historical
documentation.

It may not necessarily
make it out to the local paper,

but somewhere down the line,

someone might be able
to pull up an image

and say, okay, this happened
during this timeframe.

The imagery is used
as good reference to anything

we may need in the future

or something
that's happening right now.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

[ music ]

Although Thomas Sowell
left the Marines long ago,

his legacy lives on today

with some members
of the Combat Camera Corps,

who as young men discovered
Sowell's work.

When I was a young person,
I used to like to

stay home from school
occasionally,

liked to play hooky or pretend
I was sick and stay home.

But unlike most kids
who'd, you know, cut class

and do whatever, I would watch
videos of Thomas Sowell

on Milton Friedman's show
"Free To Choose,"

and he would just wipe the floor

with people from the other side
of the aisle

that didn't seem to know
what they were talking about.

These were very smart people,
but Thomas Sowell

is so much smarter
and so much more intelligent

and so much more articulate

that he would just make them
seem like bumbling idiots,

and I just thought
that was awesome.

When the private sector
fails to create jobs

at a fast enough rate,

you find that people
are unemployed

and drift into needing help.

I think it is overly broad
to say

that we turn people
into helpless children.

I don't remember
talking to anyone who's ever

been on welfare
who didn't think

they were being treated
like children

while they were on it.

[ Ticking ]
[ Soft music playing ]

The lessons Sowell
learned in the Marines

would stay with him
for the rest of his life,

especially his love
of photography,

which would become Tom's
artistic outlet

while he pursued a life filled
with studying facts and data.

[ music ]

Photography did have
connections

to his vision of reality.

[ music ]

Tom once commented to me
that to be a photographer,

you have to master trade-offs.

All of the little adjustments
that you fiddle with

in the camera never involve

making everything better
or everything worse.

It's a matter of trading
one thing off to another.

If you close down the diaphragm,

then you get lots and lots
of stuff in focus near to far.

On the other hand,
you're cutting down

the amount of light.

And a theme
in Tom's work on society

is that all policies involve
trade-offs.

And Tom often loses patience
at people with sweeping visions.

Here's how we
can improve society.

Here's a solution to a problem.

And Tom points out
in his political writings

there are no solutions,
there are only trade-offs.

Just like photography.

[ music ]

[ music ]

The University of Chicago
is hallowed ground

for Thomas Sowell.

Here is where some of
the most influential

economic philosophies
of modern times were formed.

It's called The Chicago
School of Economics.

And it's where Tom would be
mentored by intellectual giants

like George Stigler
and Milton Friedman,

both of whom would go on to win
the Nobel Prize in Economics.

I was a graduate student
here from 1960 to '64.

The thing I learned
as a graduate student

was economics
is straightforward

and simple when you grasp
its underlying logic,

and secondly,
that logic can be applied

seriously to understand

many different things
about the world.

At Chicago, if it was true,

it was true because
you could prove it was true.

It was true because
you had the evidence,

you had the logic and so forth.

They explored
the specific ways

in which the market does
and doesn't work.

The idea, you know, that people
are rational on the whole

and that if you allow
those people to operate

in the marketplace, you will
generally get better results.

[ Students chattering ]

[ music ]

The Chicago School of Economics
is where Tom says

he understood
the importance of discipline

and the importance
of getting hard data.

In fact, he talks more
positively about his experience

at University of Chicago
than at Harvard,

where he says
a lot of people, in his opinion,

went on emotion.

Tom was a Marxist
when he took a course

with Milton Friedman,
and at the end of the course,

he remained a Marxist.

But what he appreciated
was that

at the University of Chicago,

economics was
a full-contact sport

where you had to defend your
position rigorously,

otherwise you got wasted.

And so at least Tom Sowell
said he came out understanding

the importance of hard data.

I was still a Marxist after
taking Milton Friedman's course.

But I --
Did you --

But one summer
in the government

was enough to let me say,

now, this -- government
is really not the answer.

I mean, that is...
[ Laughs ]

Milton Friedman
didn't cure you,

but the federal government did.

The federal government did.

Never say the federal government
doesn't do anything.

[ music ]

My first professional job,

I was a summer intern
at the U.S. Department of Labor.

One of my biggest concerns
was about minimum wages.

At first, I thought,
well, this is good

because all these
people are poor

and they'll get
a little higher income,

and so that'll be helpful.

And then as I studied economics,

I began to see,
well, there's a downside.

They may lose
their jobs completely.

So that is that.

When I was at
the Labor Department,

I tried to talk about
that to them

and eventually I came up
with some test of it.

And when I came up
with how we might test this,

I was waiting to hear
congratulations,

you see, that I had this,
and I could see these people

were stunned, they said,
oh, this idiot has stumbled

on something
that will ruin us all.

[ music ]

And I realized
the U.S. Department of Labor

had its own agenda
and interests,

and that did not
necessarily mean

that whether poor people lost
their jobs for minimum wage

or got higher pay
was their highest priority.

[ music ]

Tom Sowell looked at the data,
and the data found that

minimum wage hikes cause people
who are unskilled to lose jobs.

He found out that people
in the government

didn't give a rip whether or not
it worked or didn't work.

They were simply implementing
the policy.

And that's what shocked him
and caused him

to begin to rethink
lots of his assumptions.

So it wasn't academia
that caused him

to become more conservative.

It was real life
working for the government.

[ music ]

I was now beginning
to understand things

that I hadn't understood before.

[ music ]

Tom, they said,
got his PhD here in 1968.

He actually taught in the years
leading up to that at Cornell,

which feeds back also to this

just tumultuous times
in the 1960s

in the country. Huge
demonstrations at Cornell

actually shut down
the university for some time.

[ music ]

In 1965, Thomas Sowell took
a teaching position at Cornell.

Like many other colleges,
it became a focal point

for anti-war
and anti-discrimination

protests and demonstrations.

When armed black students
took over a building on campus,

Sowell had little sympathy
for school administrators.

Blacks had been recruited
to Cornell under lower standards

to diversify the student body,
and Sowell observed

that many of these same students
were now causing trouble

and feeding
racial divisions.

For Sowell, it was an example
of the unintended consequences

of affirmative action.

Tom's tenure at Cornell

had a very profound impact
on him,

particularly surrounding
the campus protests.

I think it left a very,
very bitter taste in his mouth.

Yes, I think it did.

He discovered that many
black students at Cornell,

their SAT scores
were above the average

but they are having
problems at Cornell.

And that's when he first
came up with the idea

of people being mismatched.

That is, black students
who would do very well

at other schools,

but were recruited in the name
of affirmative action

to schools where they were
in over their heads.

The average black student
at MIT

is in the bottom 10%
of MIT students in math.

But he is in the top 90% of
all American students in math.

Something like 1/4 of all
the black students going to MIT

do not graduate.

You're talking about
a pool of people

whom you are artificially
turning into failures

by mismatching them
with the school.

Tom had moved to UCLA

to escape the turmoil
at Cornell,

and then jumped into
the turmoil at UCLA.

I was sitting in my office
at UCLA one day

when the Black Student
Association Delegation

marched into his office.

I heard all of this.

And one of them said,
"Well, how you doing, brother?"

Tom...

"Just a minute.

I am not your brother.

I am Mr. Sowell,

and you will address me
that way."

Boy, was that a shock
to those folks.

Here was their natural ally
laying down the law.

"You're going to treat me

the way I'm going to treat you

as another human being
face-to-face,

and if you don't like that,
you can leave."

[ music ]

I first met Tom in 1969
when I was a student at UCLA.

I just walked in his office
one day

and I said that,
"I understand that

you and I have similar ideas
on matters of economics."

And we started talk from there.

You and Sowell used to joke
about how few

black conservatives there were
in the country

back in the '70s and '80s.

Has much changed since then,
and what was it like back then?

There were relatively few
blacks that we knew of

that were kind of free-market,
limited government.

It was Bill Buckley
who made the suggestion

that the EPA does not allow

Tom Sowell and I had to fly
on one plane together

because we're an
endangered species.

Tom's done something
in his career

that one of his mentors,
Milton Friedman,

felt was important to do also,

and that is share his knowledge
of economics

with non-economists,
with non-intellectuals.

The true test of whether
someone understands

a subject -- the true test comes
when he can explain it

to someone who does not know
a darn thing about it.

And Tom has the gift
of being able to do that,

to be able to explain
potentially complex ideas

in economics
to the ordinary person.

I haven't been able to find
a single country in the world

where the policies that
are being advocated for blacks

in the United States have lifted
any people out of poverty.

I've seen many examples
around the world of people

who began in poverty
and ended in affluence.

Not one of them has followed
any pattern at all

like what is being advocated
for blacks in the United States.

Many groups have
remained in poverty

for a very long time
trying to follow those patterns.

At one time, black
Americans did not have

the constitutional guarantees
as everybody else.

Now we do, but because
the civil rights struggle

is over and won, and we're
not facing the kind of

gross racial discrimination
of the past

does not mean that
there are not major problems.

I'm fairly sure
that Tom would say

that the 75% rate

of illegitimacy among blacks
is a devastating problem,

but it's not a racial problem.

It's not a legacy
of slavery.

The crime that -- I believe
Tom would say as well --

that the crime we see
in many black communities

is a devastating problem,

but it has nothing to do
with racial discrimination.

"If you have always believed
that everyone should play

by the same rules

and be judged
by the same standards,

that would have gotten you
labeled a radical 50 years ago,

a liberal 25 years ago,
and a racist today."

[ music ]

Thomas Sowell may be
an intellectual,

but it would be a mistake

to believe that only academics
and economists

believe in what Tom has to say.

I've never heard,
never damaged

I am most certainly
handed single...

In a small recording studio

just outside of downtown Dallas,
a young rapper hones his craft.

It feels good to be back
in his booth

And shout out to you

You backin' me
then you backin' the truth

You actually knew,
and I ain't have to tell you

So sit back,
let it soothe...

[ Continues rapping ]

Eric July is
a man on a mission.

Handed singly, top tier,
meaning you not...

Eric is out to make
great music

and to educate people
like himself about his hero.

And I'm something
like a great howl

Anywhere Thomas Sowell is,

he's the smartest person
in the room.

[ Rap metal music playing ]

I would most definitely
just tell him

that he's been my biggest
inspiration, hands down.

I see you standing
with your hand out

What you sayin' now
and are you hearin this?

You need to look at
your affiliates.

Eric fronts the rap metal
band BackWordz,

and uses his music
to get a message across

with politically charged lyrics,

many of them inspired
by Thomas Sowell.

He has emerged
as an influential young voice

who is outspoken in his support
for individual freedom

and less government
intervention.

[ Rapping indistinctly ]

You see somebody like Sowell
who has been doing

what he has been doing,
getting out there

and speaking what he has
been speaking,

overcoming the odds that he had
to certainly overcome,

and his growth,

and you also feel like you
can conquer the world.

It just goes to show
from a generational standpoint

how he's been able to influence
somebody, you know, like me.

People are probably tired
of hearing me talk about it

because I'm always referencing
Thomas Sowell.

People ask me,
"Well, you used to be this.

What happened?"

I'm like, well,
that enlightenment period,

it had to do with
Thomas Sowell.

Most people have not
recognized the fact

that if you go back
into the '20s...

...you find that
married couple families

were much more prevalent
among blacks then than today.

As late as 1930,
blacks had lower

unemployment rates than whites.

So all these things
that we complain about

and attribute
to the era of slavery,

those things should have
been worse in the past

than in the present,
but in fact,

they're worse in the present
than in the past.

And I think if you want to look
for a turning point,

it would be since the 1960s.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

And what happened
in the 1960s?

[ music ]

You began to have not only
the welfare state,

you began to have the mind-set
that goes with the welfare state

so that there was no stigma
any longer attached,

for example,
to being on relief

or welfare.

Those types are welfarism
and how they have affected

black, you know, communities
and black families,

it's tough.

It's a hard pill to swallow.

Just how welfarism does
incentivize people to fail.

It's the state saying that,
so as long as you fail,

you know, you'll get this money.

You'll get this money,
we'll take care of you,

housing, whatever you need.

But the minute
you get above this line,

you know, the minute you get,
you see this amount of success,

we're going to strip it
all away from you.

[ Children shouting playfully ]

[ music ]

[ music ]

In 1980, Thomas Sowell
came here

the Hoover Institution
at Stanford University.

Upon accepting the offer,
his teaching days were over.

[ music ]

Thousands of students would
miss out on having

Professor Sowell as a teacher,

but millions of intellectually
curious readers

would benefit from
Thomas Sowell's work here.

[ music ]

I don't think Tom Sowell ever
really liked being a teacher.

I don't think I ever like
standing in front of people

and being a professor.

When Hoover offered him
the opportunity

to basically pay him
to be Tom Sowell,

he took it, and he can write
what he wants to write

when he wants to write,
as much or as little,

but he's always been
very, very productive.

And I think the independence and
the freedom is what he liked.

So you're good friends
with Thomas Sowell.

Yeah.

Have been for a while.

How would you describe Tom
to someone

who's never met him before?

I'd say Tom is an empiricist.

And by that,
I mean Tom looks at evidence

and then he makes a diagnosis

and then he offers a therapy
for the perceived problem.

And then he offers a prognosis,
and he's not interested as much,

if at all, on how people
interpret that

or what are the ramifications

in contemporary political terms
of his argument.

You point out that depending on

where you come from
in a foreign country

also makes a considerable
difference

because you carry your ethos
on your back, don't you?

Yes, that if you look
at the Chinese

who came to the United States,
let's say, before World War II,

a very large percentage of those
came from one district

in one province
in Southern China.

The people who have come in
since World War II

have largely not come
from that same area.

They've come in with a different
set of experiences

and backgrounds
and values.

Many of them are
the poverty-stricken Chinese

that you see in the Chinatowns
of New York and San Francisco

working the very long hours,
getting the very low pay,

living in the slums,
packed into the rooms,

you know, several people
to a room and so on,

again, it would be hard
to make the argument

that this is simply a
matter of the way

the American employer sees it.

The American employer
is probably totally unaware

that there are two
different kinds of Chinese.

It's only the people
who work with the data

who make those separations.

"It takes
considerable knowledge

just to realize the extent
of your own ignorance."

[ music ]

Thomas Sowell may be
an academic by training,

but he is not one
to rely solely on books.

To gather material
for his extensive writings

on culture and migrations,
for example,

he became a boots-on-
the-ground researcher

who traveled the world.

As an amateur photographer,

he often documented these trips
through the lens of his camera.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

[ music ]

His purpose was to try
and understand

the role of cultural differences

both within nations
and between them,

and not only today,
but throughout history.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

[ music ]

Sowell's travels led
to pioneering studies

and several books that detail

the cultural patterns
and development

of different groups
around the world.

He went around the world
and analyzed

virtually every culture
present and past

to find out their strengths
and weaknesses --

why some survived,
why some perished.

One of Tom's discoveries
was that

much about the fate
of different human civilizations

and cultures can be explained
ultimately by their geography.

Too often the influence
of geography on wealth

is thought of narrowly,
in terms of natural resources

that translate directly
into wealth,

such as oil in the Middle East
or gold in South Africa.

But important
as such differences are,

geography influences

even more profound
cultural differences

among the peoples themselves.

Why did Europe conquer Africa
instead of vice versa?

Well, there are a number
of ways in which civilizations

become complex, primarily
through the aggregation

and exchange of ideas.

Sophisticated cultures
are ones that sit

in the middle
of a catchment area

where innovations from
other cultures can be aggregated

and kind of greatest hits
collections,

and so geography
that allows movement of people

and ideas with rivers,

with highways, intersections
of highways, port cities

tend to become more
culturally sophisticated.

A lot of his research,
as you mentioned,

has focused on why
some groups excel

and others do not.

But that curiosity
is not necessarily appreciated

by a lot of people

who seem to to approach it
from the standpoint

that if a culture isn't rising,

it's someone else's fault.

Yes.

Someone else is keeping them
down, or, you know,

if America is up here, it is
at the expense of this group

or this country
or this region.

He doesn't take that approach.

What Tom did when he talked
about comparative cultures,

he went to this quite narrow
and unheralded group of scholars

that talked about economics,

and then he took that data,

superimposed it onto
history questions.

So when people who were
critical of Tom would say,

"Well, he hasn't read this
particular historical work,"

or, "He wasn't quite
appreciative of this great novel

or this great history
or this."

They didn't understand
that what he lost

as being an economic historian,

he gained in really
trying to explain

how cultures were successful

or how much dominance
they had in trade

by actually looking
at economics.

And most historians, you know,

they think that economics
is a dismal science,

and they're not
trained to do that.

"The first lesson
of economics is scarcity:

there is never enough
of anything to fully satisfy

all those who want it.

The first lesson of politics

is to disregard
the first lesson of economics."

[ music ]

I wanted to explore how
Sowell’s concepts on free markets have

influenced business leaders today.

A perfect example can be found in Salt
Lake City, Utah, at Overstock.com.

One of the most successful
online retailers in the world.

Aaron Hunsaker, an Overstock
employee, has been heavily influenced

by Thomas Sowell’s ideas.

He credits much it’s success to
the free-market economic principles

championed by Thomas Sowell.

I discovered Thomas Sowell like every
good thinker discovers things in the

modern-day, on YouTube.

I was watching a Milton Friedman
video, and I see Thomas Sowell

speaking with Milton Friedman,
and I was like, wow, this guy

is really, really smart.

And he gave a real rigorous, as
rigorous as you could be on TV, but a

real rigorous answer to a question,
and I really appreciated that.

And I just kind of went down the
YouTube wormhole with Thomas Sowell,

and then I saw that he’d written like,
you know, ten or a thousand books or

something like that,
he has tons of books.

And I just started to explore him, and
the more I explored Thomas Sowell, he

talked a lot about incentives in
institutions, government institutions.

I come from kind of a punk rock
hardcore background, and I had an

incentive to be more left and
angry because it makes better music.

You don't hear a whole lot of music
about, oh, well, if I work really

hard, and we base it off
meritocracy, things will be great.

But upon kind of digging into Thomas
Sowell’s thought process, I realized

that it is far more punk rock to
base things off of individual

freedoms and thought.

I see him as someone who has
constantly strived to be consistent.

And to those that want to be
consistent, you have to study

geography; you have to study
history; you have to study political

philosophy; you have to study
journalism; you have to study all of

these subjects as a whole and see how
you can put together a view that makes

them consistent with each other.

That’s why I think Thomas Sowell
is so well-versed and such

a Renaissance man.

I grew up in an era when
people, particularly blacks,

were a lot poorer than today,

faced a lot
more discrimination than today,

and in which the teenage
pregnancy rate

was a lot lower than today.

I don't believe there is
a predestined amount

of teenage pregnancy,

a predestined amount
of husband desertion.

Gutman has done a study
of the black family

showing that this whole notion
that the black family

has always been disintegrating,
that is nonsense.

"Some things are believed

because they are
demonstrably true,

but many other things
are believed

simply because they have been
asserted repeatedly."

[ music ]

In the 1990s, Sowell took up
a new area of research

the phenomenon
of late-talking children.

For Tom, it was personal.

I met Tom Sowell
through language.

I am a cognitive scientist.
I study language.

I wrote a book on language,

and I got a letter out of the
blue from Professor Sowell.

His son was a late talker,

but contrary
to some of the diagnosis

that he got
from so-called experts,

he didn't believe that his son
was retarded or autistic,

just that his language
was late in developing.

He just did not talk.

This meshed
with my own understanding

of the relationship
between language and thought,

namely
they're not the same thing.

So I wrote to Tom saying,
"Your intuition about your son

is consistent
with my understanding."

Tom Sowell sought out answers.

Eventually, his son John
not only began to speak,

but to excel.

Sowell wrote about
this remarkable journey

in his landmark book,
"Late-Talking Children."

Tom discovered
that there was a syndrome,

that many famous scientists,
engineers, mathematicians

would also have
acute spatial ability

and numerical ability,

but were late in developing
the ability to speak.

One of those impacted
was Los Angeles-based writer

Jennifer Van Laar,
whose own young son, Sam,

wasn't talking at all.

When Sam was about
18 months old,

he wasn't really talking.

He -- just babbling.

No word that we could make out
to be an English word.

So I started looking online
and saw late-talking children,

and then Dr. Thomas
Sowell, and said,

oh, I definitely want to read
what he has to say

because I respect him
as an intellectual.

I had already noticed in Sam

that he would build different
block towers

with different patterns
repeating over and over.

He would have movies
that he just loved watching

over and over, and one of them
was "Charlotte's Web."

Another one was "Shrek."

And so I would come and find
ABC blocks on the floor

or on the refrigerator
spelling out --

and he'd even write out
"Lucasfilm."

[ Laughs ]

Which is pretty big for
a three-year-old to be able to do.

So the fact that Sowell's book
talked about bright children,

I thought, I don't
think he's dumb.

Let's look into this.

So went to go see Dr. Camarata,
to get an evaluation.

And they gave us a full plan
of what we could do to help him

to be able to acquire language
and be successful in school.

[ music ]

When Sam started piano
and he had been so advanced

in that first year,
at the end of the year

they had a recital,
and he still wasn't talking

in more
than one sentence,

maybe two, but he got up
and he introduced his piece,

and it was
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

[ "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"
playing ]

It made me cry.

[ music ]

I sent the video of that
to the Camaratas

and said how proud I was of him
and thanked them for the help

they had given us,
and they asked

if they could send it
to Dr. Sowell.

[ music ]

Said, go ahead,
and then they e-mailed back

and said that Sowell had
really loved

watching the video of Sam.

[ music ]

[ Song ends ]

[ Applause ]

Just the fact that he would care
about this five-year-old

said a lot to me
about who he sees himself as.

"The course of history
is determined

by what people do
with their opportunities."

[ music ]

Sowell has written a great deal

about the importance
of human capital

in a group's advancement.

The development of skills
and habits

and attitudes in advancing
a group economically.

And a good example
of what he's talking about

can be found on Sixth Avenue
in Manhattan

at the Steinway piano company.

[ Playing classical piece ]

[ music ]

President and CEO
Ron Losby

explains how
the history of Steinway

aligns with
Thomas Sowell's theories.

We still follow the tenet
that Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg

started the company with,

and that is to build
the best piano possible.

They were living in Seesen

in the Harz Mountain area
of Northern Germany.

At that time, there was a lot of
political upheaval in Germany,

and they had the guild system.

I think you would call it
the apprentice system today.

And it had really strict rules.

And Heinrich
was just so full of ideas

on how to build the best piano
that he possibly could

that he was impatient,
and he didn't want to wait

until he graduated
from this system.

On his own, Heinrich
created a few pianos.

And while they were
favorably received,

the economic restrictions
in Germany at the time

made him realize
that if he was to succeed,

he would have to take
his skills elsewhere.

[ music ]

It gave him the impetus

to come to the New World,
New York City,

where there was
less restriction,

there was less,
you know, regulation.

[ music ]

Heinrich changed
the family's last name

to the more American-sounding
Steinway.

They created an instrument
that within 10 years,

they became the most successful,
most profitable,

the best piano company
built in America.

Very often people talk

as if some group has taken
control of some industry

and they wonder,
how did that happen?

And in most cases,
they created the industry.

The industry didn't exist
before they got there.

That's how they took
control of it.

[ music ]

Heinrich's decision
to relocate to America

is a good example of one of
Thomas Sowells core beliefs --

that individuals carry
with them their skills

no matter where they go,
and can succeed

if permitted to do so

without cumbersome
government regulations.

"It's amazing how much panic
one honest man can spread

among a multitude
of hypocrites."

[ music ]

Listen to this list.

"The Thomas Sowell Reader,"
2011.

"Intellectuals and Race," 2013.

A new edition
of your classic work

"Basic Economics," in 2014.

"Wealth, Poverty
and Politics," 2015.

And now, 2018, "Discrimination
and Disparities."

And do you know what I just did?

I just listed the books
you've published

since turning 80.

[ Laughs ]

[ music ]

Thomas Sowell's
essays and weekly columns

have appeared in more than
300 newspapers and periodicals,

including "The New York Times,"
"The Wall Street Journal,"

"Forbes," and "Fortune"
magazines.

While many found Sowell's
empirically based arguments

insightful, oftentimes
they created a backlash,

especially among those
in academia.

You once told me
that Tom's not interested

in making people
happy or angry.

He's interested in telling
people what the data show.

What the data shows,
and he is counter --

He can be a contrarian
in the sense

that often areas
that are unpopular

or they're plagued with false
knowledge or misconceptions,

he gravitates toward those

because that intrigues
him to see

if that's actually the popular
opinion, is actually true.

And often it's not
he finds it's not.

And then the results tend
to bother people

that he's so
dispassionate about it.

And then, as an African-American
intellectual,

he is supposed to fit
a preconceived

intellectual, academic,
ideological position,

and it's not that he doesn't,
he's just on interested in it.

He doesn't make friends
or enemies

based on tribal considerations
or popular consensus.

On December 27, 2016,

Thomas Sowell published
his weekly newspaper column.

I'd read his column for decades
and always look forward to it,

but this one was different.

Thomas Sowell
was saying goodbye.

[ music ]

Within minutes,
the internet lit up

with thousands of comments

about Tom retiring
from writing his column.

most of the postings were along
the lines of,

Say it isn't so.

[ music ]

I did that
after spending some time

in Yosemite with
a couple of photo buddies,

and I realized
that in those four days

we hadn't watched
a single news program.

We hadn't seen
a single newspaper.

I said, this is the life.

I don't need to be watching --

Because most of
the foolish things

that are said on these programs

were said 20 and 30
and 40 years ago

and refuted 20 and 30
and 40 years ago.

By you quite often.

But you're happier when you're
not reading the news.

Absolutely.

But at the same time,

you're also happier
when you're working on a book.

Yes, when I can go out there
and get the hard data

and find out
what's really happening.

In dozens of books and numerous
television appearances

and thousands of columns,

Sowell has championed
his philosophy of free markets

and personal responsibility,

while weathering the storms
of challenge and controversy.

Sowell has spent
his adult life proudly sharing

his political
and economic beliefs.

For some, he's a clear thinker
full of common sense.

Others say he lacks empathy.

What no one can doubt
is the courage

of this maverick intellectual.

If you could offer one sentence
of counsel to some sophomore

or junior who's watching
this today...

It's not over till it's over,
as Yogi Berra said.

And I would say to
this young person,

if we, through some miracle,
get through this,

please take to heart
the lesson of what happens

when you vote on the basis
of rhetoric and symbolism

instead of using your mind.

It doesn't matter
how smart you are

unless you stop and think.

In your early days at Harvard,

you were either going to make it
or not going to make it,

and you shut yourself up
and made yourself make it.

Many people in trying
to insulate young people

from adversity, insulate them

from the things that
give them strength.

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