05/13/25
I found learning about Thomas Sowell's biography to be revealing. He studied under Milton Friedman, but remained a Marxist until he got a job in government, saw that it was inefficient and that it resisted considering critical facts that exposed its policy errors. Only then he abandoned Marxism!
His general approach seems to be about combining statistics with "common sense." He stated that if you want to debate on some issue, you must have facts and statistics to back your claim. In his comments about Trump's first term, he stated that because stock market went up in his first term, it means that he was a good president. His recent review of Trump is in the same spirit. He said that he doesn't review character, only facts, numbers as resulting from actions. I interpret this that if it's a net positive, or at least, a balance, he could give a positive review. For instance, about tariffs, he said that some people gained jobs, some lost, but that's the tradeoff.
While it's important to have concrete cases to avoid floating abstractions, I see in his approach the avoidance of principles.