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Thomas Sowell is among the scholars whose works I most admire. His 1980 masterwork, Knowledge and Decisions [2], occupies a very special place on my bookshelves. (And it has the best closing line of any book that I’ve ever read [3]. By far.) I could list other of Sowell’s many books and countless articles that I believe are brilliant gems, but that list would make this post too long.
The scholars from whom I’ve learned as much as I have learned from Thomas Sowell are very few in number.
But on some issues I disagree with Sowell deeply. I believe, for example, that he too-readily accepts pop-conservative criticisms of “judicial activism.” Even more importantly, I disagree strongly with Sowell’s opposition to more open immigration. Mysteriously – for, to me, it is exactly that: a deep mystery – Sowell musters only very weak economic and ethical arguments in opposition to more-open immigration.
My former student Alex Nowrasteh goes into more detail on Thomas Sowell and the immigration issue [4].