Discrimination and Disparities

An excellent discussion of the misuse of statistics in current political discourse. This book is essential reading for anyone exposed to current political rhetoric which, of course, is everyone. As an added bonus the book is short. This means anyone who reads it will quickly be able to recognize how ubiquitous misleading statements are. Indeed, misleading statements seem to be the rule rather than the exception these days. After reading this book you will likely think "I knew the situation was bad but it is even worse than I imagined!" Indeed, one even gets to the point of looking at a statement by the media or a politician and thinking "what is the worst case scenario that would make the statement technically true when the reality is close to the opposite of the impression trying to be conveyed."Sowell is excellent at providing examples to show common problems in the presentation of statistics. For instance, crime statistics are often presented as "black people make up 13% of the population but are many times more than 13% of those stopped/arrested/incarcerated. The shows racism at work.". Sowell compares this to concluding that since NBA referees call fouls on black players much more than 13% of the time the reason must be racial prejudice. Sowell shows that it is not nearly that simple. For example the average age of the populations matters since younger people are more likely to engage in crime than older ones. The amount of crime actually being committed matters as well. Sowell mentions, as an example, experiments with radar cameras showing the black people, in fact, are more likely to speed.Sowell's writing is not only concise but also very clear and well organized. For example, to head off any ambiguity he clearly distinguishes three types of discrimination and labels them separately. One type of discrimination is good: discernment between individuals based on their individual characteristics and not race. One type is the bad kind: prejudicial attitudes toward a group based on false beliefs about them. A third type is in between: attitudes towards a group based on things statistically true about some but not all members. Sowell uses the example of criminal background checks to show how not allowing the good type of discrimination leads to some unexpected consequences. Employers will then use the statistical type of discrimination and end up hiring fewer members of the group than if background checks are allowed. Think disparate impact laws can be added to prevent that? Employers will just locate to places where there are fewer members of the group. Similarly, Sowell shows how the presence of a particularly problematic subset of a group can cause businesses to increase the price of their product which is then misinterpreted as a "tax" on the all members of the group including those who do not engage in the behavior. The business may even decide not to do business in certain areas at all. This is highly timely given all the businesses shutting down recently due to increased shoplifting and "smash and grab" attacks.This books contains bits of history which caused me to rethink others books I have read. For example, black incomes did rise after the Civil War until 1900 faster than those of whites. This is not something you are going to hear about in books which treat post-Reconstruction as a virtual reset to slavery. For all its statistical detail The Republic for Which it Stands did not discuss it. Neither did The Black Tax which explicitly counts the period from Reconstruction until the Civil Rights era as equivalent to another 100 years of slavery when figuring how big "the black tax" has been over the years. Sowell also mentions that school desegregation was already happening in the North, was welcome and was being enforced by courts until southern black immigrants who were more prone to crime arrived.Sowell also mentions the rather remarkable phenomena of survey data being used as a key component in decrying wealth inequality. For example asking lower paid worker how many hours they work compared to higher paid workers and treating lower paid workers' self reporting as fact, which then turned out to be false. Although Sowell does not mention it, self reporting statistics are often key in claims about disparate rates of arrest and incarceration during the war of drugs.Beyond racial disparities there is also a good discussion of how statistics regarding income disparities involving "the bottom 20%", "the top 20%" or the "the top 1%" are highly misleading given how fluid who is in these groups is.I could only find a few minor flaws with the book. For example when comparing the United States to other nations when calling Marxists' claims into question Sowell says that other nations are not doing as well as the United States despite all the capitalists there. Any Marxist worth his salt would, of course, instantly point out that perhaps the United States is doing so well because of its capitalists exploitation of the globe. Similarly, attacking the Soviet Union as a Marxist state is a straw-man. Just because the Soviet Union said they were Marxists does not mean they actually were. Finally, Sowell's belief is that the rise in crime starting in the 1960's was due to leftist ideologies being more tolerant of undesirable types of behavior. This is possible but the consensus is that the exact causes are not well known other than there being an explosion of young people, those most likely to be involved in crime, due to the baby boom.

Thomas Sowell is a national treasure and one of the top five public intellectuals in America. He began as a Marxist but eventually saw the light and became what most would call 'conservative'; he might simply say 'realist'. In DISCRIMINATION AND DISPARITIES he returns to familiar subjects. His purpose is to dispel what the seventeenth century might have termed 'vulgar errors'—things that are widely believed even if they are not so. His chief instruments are empirical. He offers hard facts and common sense and notes that many accepted dogmas are simply untrue. They continue to exist and even thrive because politicians are invested in them and because they constitute key elements in political/historical narratives that appeal to the politicians' bases. Unless and until we move beyond them and begin our discussions and formulations of policy with that which is actually the case we are unlikely to make much progress.One of the principal ways in which vulgar errors are perpetuated is by casting them in statistical terms which subtly distort reality. One example: 'poverty' is a construct, not a reality. If one divides the citizens of a country into quintiles you will always have 'rich' and 'poor' (if that is the way you seek to categorize them). However, it is possible to have a country of billionaires in which the millionaires in the lowest quintile are still categorized as 'poor'. Hence the phenomenon that, e.g., the 'poor' in the U.S. are comparable to the upper middle class in many other countries. Moreover, when we speak of quintiles we are not speaking about living/breathing human beings. We are speaking of statistical exemplars, because actual human beings rise from the lowest quintile regularly and fall from the highest quintile regularly. If you do not distinguish between salaries and capital gains, e.g., you find individuals with very high 'incomes' who only have those incomes within limited time frames. In the year that a farmer sells the family farm his 'income' is very high, but that does not mean that he is rich in the way that orthopedic surgeons are rich.One very nice extended point in this regard concerns the use of 'household income' rather than individual income. Consider the case of two individuals with incomes of $20,000 each. They share an apartment because they cannot, individually, afford the rent. Statistically they are a 'household' with $40,000 of income. If each takes a new job and gets a promotion to $30,000 and then move out, taking their own apartments, we suddenly have two 'households' with household incomes of $30,000 each rather than one of $40,000. Unless you drill down into the statistics it appears that poverty (as measured by household income) is increasing.In addition to the hard facts/common sense arguments there are a number of simple bludgeons. In the course of discussing the politics and economics of a 'minimum wage', e.g., he reminds us that fast food jobs are not 'dead end jobs'. They are first jobs in which we learn some basic skills and behaviors and prepare ourselves for greater responsibilities and higher incomes. He gives the example of young people working in grocery stores; their average time in such jobs is 97 days. Obviously, these are not 'dead ends'; they are points through which one transitions.Since Dr. Sowell is now 87 years old we should cherish every work that issues from his desk. DISCRIMINATION AND DISPARITIES is a gem. How many writers can open our eyes to persistent economic errors and do so this clearly and lucidly?

"Why are there such disparities? In some cases, we can trace the reasons, but in other cases we cannot. A more fundamental question, however, is: Why should anyone have ever expected equality in the first place? Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that not only every racial or ethnic group, but even every single individual in the entire world, has identical genetic potential. If it is possible to be even more extreme, let us assume that we all behave like saints toward one another. Would that produce equality of results? Of course not. Real income consists of output and output depends on inputs. These inputs are almost never equal-- or even close to being equal."Race, Culture and Equality by Thomas SowellOne of the biggest issues of our time across nearly every discipline and/or political/social issue is that of presupposing a cause based solely on statistical outcomes or polls. It turns out these presuppositions are massively unreliable and can result in agendas and policy decisions that hurt the very people who are trying to be helped. "Potential" and "opportunity" do not result in outcomes. They only provide the ABILITY for an outcome to be achieved not a guarantee of an outcome itself.I appreciate the books candor and the author's detachment from the emotion of these issues. You can see that he is genuinely interested in getting to the bottom of the disparities that plague our society. The evidence is sweeping and nearly universal across nature, history, countries, races, religions, and any other group you can define. To expect "equality" in outcome is to not expect any semblance of reality.To gain the most from this book you will need to approach it with humility. There is something to be learned from both sides of many of these issues. With that can come cooperation and true change that will genuinely help people. It far too easy to victimize people or create groups and labels without any regard to what is REALLY going on. What we ought to work to address is what is really going on behind the issues not just the superficial headline driven outcomes.

A fascinating look at factors of discrimination and the reality of disparities. Thomas Sowell is one of the most undervalued intellectuals of our time and is a massive inspiration to common sense and clarity of complex issues. Politics is simply war without direct violent action- it is still violent but far more indirect and deceptive. Issues such as discrimination and disparities are realities in some sense, but true weapons of this war on a more fundamental sense. Where would politicians be if they did not have discrimination and disparities to throw at the masses and claim self-righteous virtue? Sowell brings in the facts and figures that shows a truth many do not wish to acknowledge or accept. If you are on a hard political side, this book will never be read or purchased so nothing can be said that would persuade or convince its merits. If you are on the other end, it will simply affirm beliefs that are generally already held. If you are in the middle (which is most of us) it gives a great deal of insights and is essentially a launch pad to get up and validate and verify some basic truths. You may not agree with things Sowell claims, but you can check them for yourself; and if you are intellectually honest admit that many of the things taught to us is public school and university are suspect at best and criminally dishonest at worst. But hey... its just politics.......

There has never been a shortage of people eager to draw up blueprints for running other people’s lives. This is about the power to preempt other people’s decisions. Before you go and trade your freedom for equality, read this book.Relating past social-justice visions to their contemporary opposites, Sowell compares the scholarly failure of Eugenics to contemporary Discrimination theories, showing how dangerous it is for society, to incessantly depict outcome differences as evidence or proof of malevolent actions. Dr. Sowell eviscerates a jungle of misinformation and misconceptions by the intelligentsia, government and social-activists with factual evidence. The intellectual group "Leaders" that brought us Eugenics in the 1st half of the twentieth century, which Hitler used as a basis for Mein Kampf and the Holocaust are now at polar opposites but still espousing Social-Justice malinformation with no scientific basis.Against this backdrop, it seems especially important to re-examine these views, lest we become a people easily stampeded by rhetoric. Sowell shows among other things how the Social-Activists have skewed history, particularly with respect to slavery, Social-Activists would have us believe that America was the only country to ever have slavery, yet white European slaves were more numerous than the African slaves brought to the United States and to the American colonies from which it was formed. Many of the other social dogmas have also been revealed for their deficiencies and can be liberating, as well as a revelation, for many Americans. Slavery isn't an American or Black issue. That dogma is a liberal agenda which incites racial acrimony and division.Sowell explores such things as Birth Order, I.Q., Athletics, geography, language and parents as influences for success. He reveals several peoples that have excelled under great discrimination, such as the Jews, who received 22% of Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, 32% in medicine and 32% in physics 1950 - 2000. Chinese in Southeast Asia, Jews in Eastern Europe, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Huguenots in France, Germans in Brazil, Japanese in Peru, Chettiars in Burma, Italians in Argentina, and both Jains from India and Hasidic Jews in Antwerp’s diamond industry.Sowell pierces the bubble of Culture that seems to be so taboo for the intelligentsia, political and Social-Justice Leadership. Social Activist attack, ignore, dismiss or demonize opposing views, but in this book, Sowell provides a path of light into their darkness, along the way, revealing the intellectual faults of most all Social-Justice Theories.A given man is not even equal to himself at different stages of life—sometimes not even on different days— so how can we hope to achieve equality across millions or billions of peoples? If you think it's possible, call me about some swampland I want to sale in Arizona.

Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell is another well researched and put together material by the author. The book outlines two types of discrimination, why people discriminate against their own actions and against others, how others have aimed as a third-party to intervene in a discriminatory process , and the disparities between intended outcomes and the desire for acting for, or against particular kinds of discrimination.The author starts out by defining discrimination in two ways; discrimination 1, is the rational separating of things, circumstances, and individuals based on particular needs or particular outcome needed. For example, choosing between two separate pairs of shoes as to the one that would lead to the best outcome for the purpose of wearing. While discrimination 2, is a more general aggregate characterization of particular circumstances, situation, persons, or things based on group criteria. For example, saying that a particular pair of shoes will not fit your need because the group of shoes that it falls under generally does not.What I find compelling about this book is the fact that the author went into an understanding of why people choose to discriminate or not discriminate against particular groups or individuals. The main thing that he highlighted that may lead to either discrimination one or two when dealing with individuals and society is, The Cost of Discrimination. I find this point to be quite important. If the cost of discriminating is high then there would be less discrimination, whether it is discrimination 1 or 2. The converse is true, if the cost of discrimination is low then they’ll be more discrimination. Examples were given about discriminating against black workers in the south during the Jim Crow era, and how southern companies, given the laws supporting discrimination in choosing white workers, many still defied the laws and hire black workers, when the cost of discrimination was too high. When they had to choose between whites and blacks to hire they end up choosing both when the cost of the process of discrimination was too high. When the government enforce the laws and the cost of not discriminating then became higher than the cost of discriminating through government prosecutions and fines, then they did what cost least, they discriminate. The argument here is that if companies are left on their own , they will discriminate or not discriminate based on the cost. Given the free market society we live in companies will choose not to discriminate, since the cost of discrimination is high.Another major point of the book is that politicians and the media sometimes look at data and interpret and present them in a mistaken way, either deliberately or by accident. They are looking at the same data and coming to different conclusions based on particular agendas. The author highlights the destructive nature of this behavior. I personally believe that this is particularly dangerous as the average person do not read the facts for themselves, or analyze the data thoroughly for themselves. Therefore, they are left to interpret the filtered version given to them by wherever they consume that information.A striking fact but the author touched on in the book is about slavery, and how people have sorted themselves through time in groups in particular organizations. As it relates to slavery the author highlighted that slavery has become in this country an argument of one race enslaving another, while it’s a known fact that slavery has been around for thousands of years and it mainly began with one race and slaving their own. Proving that the fact that slavery was abolished in the west showed that while they engage in this horrendous activity they somehow “saw the light“ and decided that this was no longer something that could continue and lead the charge in abolishing slavery.The other point by the author is that people sort and on sort themselves into groups and societies based on their own needs. They are grouped into communities, Attend schools and provide goods and services to each other based on how they have sorted and on sorted them selves in these groups, communities, and organizations.The most important point about this book, is that individuals should be left alone to sort and on sort themselves in various groups, communities an economic activities, based on their own discrimination (discrimination 1) as they see fit. It is also claiming that the government should stay out of this process. It made some valid points and proved that when people act independently the results are far greater, but when a third-party act for individuals it makes the situation worse, and the intended end of the intervention is never achieved.

Throughout his long and distinguished career Thomas Sowell has been a consistent stickler for truth. In this book he takes empirical aim at the truth about outcomes. In short, social scholars and economists inevitably over-simplify cause and effect and fail to accept that “grossly unequal distributions of outcomes are common, both in nature and among people, in circumstances where neither genes nor discrimination are involved.”The book is short, to the point, and very clearly written. You don’t need a degree in sociology or economics to follow. The arguments are steeped in common sense, which is where we often lose sight of the truth in our admirable but misguided desire to do the “right” thing.The problem is actually much bigger than the areas of social justice addressed in the book. It is a problem that is quickly eroding the value of all of our political, social, educational, and economic discourse.Type “This is what science says about …” into Google and you’ll get close to 1.5 billion hits. News outlets and social commentators use the heading daily. In reality, however, “science”, which is an empirical methodology, not a body of knowledge, probably says nothing about the topic, and whatever apparent “facts” the author includes probably say even less in the larger context of truth and meaning.Technology, of course, is making the problem worse. Technology gives a voice to every would-be opinion-maker, reinforcing the false perception, in all of its 1’s and 0’s, that math and statistics are inevitably and inherently “true.” It’s a ruse. To the extent it is true it is typically so only in the one dimension in which the writer of the article used it to advance his or her point. That’s not the multi-dimensional and dynamic world, however, where most important reality, like opportunity, compassion, and fairness actually lives.My only complaint is that the electronic book is over-priced for what it is. The author doesn’t typically set the price and Mr. Sowell is a premium intellect that deserves a premium price tag on his thoughts. It is, nonetheless, an empirically supported conclusion, so I’m hopeful Mr. Sowell will forgive me that.

“Just the facts, ma’am.” That was Joe Friday’s interrogation refrain on Dragnet. The same comment could serve as the sub-title of Thomas Sowell’s recent book, Discrimination and Disparities. Few works focused on politically explosive topics maintain such a consistent focus on empirical evidence while avoiding rhetorical jabs at opponents. On the other hand, empirical evidence cuts deep, especially when critics can’t protest the author’s “nasty” style. As radio talker Larry Elder observes, “Facts are to liberals what kryptonite is to Superman.”Sowell’s title, if employed by a member of the leftist intelligentsia, would doubtless imply a causal link between statistical disparities and some form of discrimination--usually racial. Sowell, by contrast, marshals an abundance of evidence to show that this automatic assumption isn’t justified. Focusing simply on statistical probabilities, Sowell notes that if five prerequisites are needed for success in a particular field, and if the chances are two out of three that any person will have each characteristic, the chance of possessing all five characteristics is still only one in eight--a calculation that helps explain why most pro golfers have never won a PGA tournament while Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods have collectively won over 200 times. Consequently, “Given multiple prerequisites for many human endeavors, we should not be surprised if economic or social advances are not evenly or randomly distributed among individuals, groups, institutions or nations at any given time.”Among leftists, however, assumptions about the random distribution of characteristics stand at the heart of various discrimination suits. Thus, if proportionately more blacks than whites are given tickets for speeding, this statistic provides for them prima facie evidence of racial discrimination. Sowell, however, offers clear counter-evidence that black drivers are more likely to exceed the speed limit than white drivers. Similarly, the assumption that racial discrimination is the primary reason blacks are overrepresented in the prison system is countered by noting that blacks are vastly overrepresented as both perpetrators and victims of murder--a crime that’s hard to ignore. Sowell further observes that fatherlessness clearly increases the likelihood that a person will end up in prison since a majority of prisoners “were raised with either one parent or no parent” --a domestic circumstance that applies to well over half of all black kids in the U.S.In short, Sowell shows that many or most of the disparities that afflict black Americans are due to behaviors to which even other blacks have objected. In the early twentieth century, for example, long-time black residents in Chicago publicly chastened new arrivals from the South for behaviors that would, and eventually did, have negative repercussions for the entire community. Today, however, most black leaders ignore the plain fact that merchants in high crime areas, for example, must charge higher prices to squeeze out lower profits than stores in safer parts of town--preferring to blame the proprietors’ racist-fueled greed. Only blacks who’ve moved to safer suburbs can be counted on to protest government policies that again place large groups of unsavory characters near them under the failed assumption that a middle class environment will alter bad habits.Sowell also provides surprising examples of cases where the desire for profit actually won out over racial discrimination. Early in the twentieth century, for instance, attempts to maintain a white Harlem were foiled by the sheer economic advantages available to landlords who ignored the neighborhood’s segregation policy. Likewise, privately owned municipal transit groups and railroads both protested and often ignored laws that mandated segregated facilities. Indeed, railroad management actively worked with Homer Plessy to overturn segregation mandates in that industry--a legal effort that ended unsuccessfully with the Supreme Court’s Plessy v Ferguson “separate but equal” decision in 1896. Amazingly, Sowell shows how the profit motive often trumped segregation laws or compacts even in apartheid South Africa and in the post-bellum South. Put succinctly, it was racist politicians, not transit owners, who insisted that Rosa Parks sit at the back of the bus.Sowell focuses additional attention on well-intended government policies that succeeded in increasing, not decreasing, racial disparities. In this regard significant space is devoted to the negative consequences of minimum wage legislation. Sowell notes that in 1948, when the minimum wage was economically inconsequential, black teen unemployment was actually lower than white teen unemployment and a fraction of its rate when the minimum wage was substantially increased. Sowell also laments the destruction of a traditionally stellar black educational institution, Dunbar High School in Washington D.C., when self-sorting, education-focused black families and students were subjected to politically-driven and empirically-destructive fantasies that involved bussing and the abolition of selective institutions like Dunbar.Similarly, in order to racially “unsort” neighborhoods (as they “unsorted” schools) politicians ignored economic facts that explained why banks (including black-owned banks) disproportionately rejected blacks’ mortgage applications. Instead, legislators insisted that financial institutions lower lending standards to achieve the politically desired “random” racial distribution of house ownership--a misbegotten policy whose economic chickens came home to roost in 2009. Meanwhile, various government laws that decreased the supply of housing and increased prices were “successful” at reducing the Bay Area’s black population in 2005 to less than half its number in 1970.Throughout the book Sowell discusses a number of other factors that clearly lead to “disparities,” leaving aside the kneejerk assumption of racist motives. Being first-born or an only child, for example, has immense advantages, benefits indicated by the fact that twenty-two of the twenty-nine original Apollo astronauts fell into one of those two categories. Additionally, in a chapter titled “The World of Numbers” the author debunks several beliefs about disparities that are rooted in false assumptions about statistics and the lack of economic mobility. Thus, one study found that 95% of the people in the bottom income quintile were no longer there fifteen years later and that 29% of them had risen to the top quintile. Elsewhere Sowell explains how falling “household” incomes are consistent with rising “personal” incomes simply because the average size of a household has fallen substantially. (A two-person household where each individual earns $20,000 represents a household income of $40,000. But if both members of the household begin to earn $30,000 and establish separate residences, the income of each one-person household is now 25% below what it was before.)Much of Sowell’s book is recapitulated in his final chapter--and with a bit more rhetorical intensity than previously exhibited. A few new topics, however, like the destructive consequences of a grievance mentality and “black English,” are also addressed.Overall, Sowell’s book is a protest against the unfounded assumption that “there would be no disparate outcomes unless there were disparate treatment.” Sowell observes that this ideologically-driven assumption “seems almost impervious to evidence.” Accordingly, those who cling to this dogma with religious fervor will likely avoid Sowell’s fact-filled book like kryptonite. Folks with less dogmatic proclivities, however, would do well to peruse this concise work.Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"... is also available on Kindle .

This was my first book from Sowell (surely won't be the last). And, with little to no knowledge of economics, I didn't have many expectations of academic or philosophical learning after reading it.This is a truly honest and insightful book filled with incredible facts that most of the time are ignored in certain discussions.However, as Sowell tends to go deeper over concepts keep in mind that if English is not your first language this might seem too technical and you will probably need to re-read multiple times some paragraphs.

informações concretas, mostrando a fonte, com explicações e exemplos bem claros. Assim como totods os trabalhos do Thomas.

Thomas Sowell should be celebrated more widely than he already is. His ability to explain complicated concepts and theories and tear about social biases and the ready fixes that typically have the opposite effect of what they are trying to achieve, is clear and concise. A highly readable and important book from this seasoned scholar.

Pour comprendre que la discrimination positive est un frein à l'intégration socio-culturo-économique

Another amazing read from an amazing academic.