The Vision Of The Annointed: Self-congratulation As A Basis For Social Policy

by Thomas Sowell

Overview

One of America’s pre-eminent economists offers a provocative critique of the failures of liberalism

In The Vision of the Anointed, Thomas Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465089956
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	06/28/1996
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	69,145
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1710L (what's this?)

About the Author

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author of dozens of books including Charter Schools and Their Enemies, winner of the 2021 Hayek Book Prize. He is the recipient of numerous other awards, including the National Humanities Medal, presented by the President of the United States in 2003.

Editorial Reviews

"This is as compelling an explanation as any for the seemingly disproportionate amount of condescension and politically correct invective that emanates from the liberal side of the political spectrum toward the conservative opposition."—Scott McConnell, Wall Street Journal

"As always, Sowell's analysis is well informed and displays a great deal of that increasingly uncommon quality, common sense... In the largest sense, The Vision of the Anointed is a book about the perils of ideology—those dazzling intellectual-moral constructions that seduce the unwary into ignoring the way the world works for the sake of dreams about the way it must."—Roger Kimball, The American Spectator

"Mr. Sowell's eye is sharp, and everyone who has been up against progressive orthodoxy will find his or her own candidate for Most Annoying Liberal Kiss-Off Award."—Suzanne Garment, Washington Times

"Avid conservatives, for whom Sowell is a true-blue intellectual force, will certainly seize upon his analysis for succor."—Booklist

From the Publisher

An important and incisive book.

New York Times Book Review

As compelling an explanation as any for the seemingly disproportionate amount of condescension and politically correct invective that emanates from the liberal side of the political spectrum toward the conservative opposition.

Wall Street Journal

In this broadside against the received wisdom of America's elite liberal intelligentsia, noted conservative Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, offers some strenuous arguments as well as fuzzy generalizations. Thus, his attacks on the war on poverty, sex education and criminal justice policies forged in the 1960s counter some slippery rhetoric by their defenders, yet his suggestion that these policies exacerbated things is questionable. Sowell deconstructs how statistics can be distorted to prove assumptions (that lack of prenatal care is the cause of black infant mortality) and gleefully skewers ``Teflon prophets'' such as John Kenneth Galbraith (who said that big companies are immune from the market) and Paul Ehrlich (who said starvation loomed). While ``the anointed'' favor explanations that exempt individuals from personal responsibility and seek painless solutions, those with the ``tragic vision'' see policies as trade-offs. Sowell scores his targets for disdaining their opponents, but this book also invokes caricature-these days, many of ``the anointed'' are less unreconstructed than he assumes. Conservative Book Club and Laissez-Faire Book Club selections. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly