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Economist
Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author.

He writes as an advocate of the free market system; his political views vary between Conservative and Libertarian.

Thomas Sowell has won several awards for his books and essays in economics and is currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

In the short video above, Thomas Sowell explains his thoughts on Government Economic Intervention.

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Biography

Thomas Sowell was born June 30, 1930 in Gastonia, North Carolina.

His father died before he was born, leaving behind Sowell's mother, a housemaid who already had four children. A great-aunt and her two grown daughters adopted Sowell and raised him.

When Sowell was eight, his family moved from North Carolina to a neighborhood in Harlem, New York. He became the first in his family to have an education beyond sixth grade by attending high school.

However, due to a deteriorating home environment and financial problems, he was forced to drop out of high school at age seventeen.

Shortly after leaving high school, he tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He did not do so well; he did so poorly fielding in the tryout that they sent him home without letting him hit.

At the age of 21, Sowell got drafted into the Korean War and was assigned to be a photographer in the US Marine Corps.

After he received his honorably discharge from the Marines, he attended night classes at Harvard University.

photo courtesy of dreamstime

Thomas Sowell graduated from Harvard University in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.

In addition, he received a Master of Arts in economics from Columbia University in 1959 and a PhD. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

In the video to the left, Thomas Sowell talks about growing up in Harlem and his time in College.

Thomas Sowell has taught economics at Howard University, Cornell, Amherst College, and UCLA.

Since 1980, he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman, his mentor.

The Free Markets

Early in his writing career, Thomas Sowell stated that he was a Marxist and approved of Marxian economics.

These beliefs changed after he worked as an intern for the federal government in the summer of 1960. He rejected the Marxist views of economics in favor of free market economics and principles.

During his work as a government intern, Sowell discovered a correlation between the rise of mandated minimum wages for workers in the sugar industry and the rise of unemployment in that industry.

Studying the patterns led him to theorize that the politicians who passed the minimum wage laws cared more about their jobs than the plight of the poor.

In the video to the right, Mr. Sowell describes the fallacies in today's government statistics.

Among his many works advocating the Free Market he wrote in a 2002 article in Capitalism Magazine: Titled - "From Marxism to Free Market"

"Anyone who saw the contrast between East Berlin and West Berlin, back in the days when half the city was controlled by the Communists, can have no doubts as to which system produces more economic benefits for ordinary people.

Even though the people in both parts of the city were of the same race, culture and history, those living under the Communists were painfully poorer, in addition to having less freedom."

Thomas Sowell's website : www.tsowell.com