The Vision Of the Anointed Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy [Paperback]

Now, plenty of commentators have taken on lefties before, but Sowell may have been the first to connect all the dots and present all of their disastrous ideas as the logical outgrowth of a single vision, what he calls (duh) the Vision of the Anointed. Who exactly are the Anointed and what is their vision, you might ask? Well, there are lots of them, and they tend to be concentrated in powerful and influential institutions like academia, the media, the courts, and of course, elected office. Their vision is of a world where nothing is impossible, and all "problems" can be "solved" by those with the superior wisdom and virtue necessary to do so, if only they're given unlimited power to carry out their programs. Naturally, the government is the best instrument for bringing their vision to bear, with little to no regard for the actual desires of actual people as expressed through the workings of free markets.

As Sowell makes clear, often stopping to name names, these people have constructed their own worldview, which has precious little to do with the world in which we live. You've probably heard a lot of the buzzwords they use: "rights," "public service," "social justice," "progress," and on and on they go.
These terms are all very clever when it comes to cutting off reasoned debate; after all, who can be against rights, social justice, or progress? Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world populated by imperfect people, and any benefits conferred by the Anointed on one group must inevitably come at the expense of another, possibly quite larger, group. While the Anointed like to talk of solutions, in Sowell's Tragic Vision there are only trade-offs. The actions of the Anointed may produce some largely illusory advantages for their mascots, such as bums, criminals, and minorities, but huge numbers of other people typically get the shaft as a result.

The book's powerhouse second chapter is an especially powerful example of the practical results the Vision of the Anointed has for the rest of us. Sowell examines the colossal failures of 1960's-era liberalism (although socialism might be a more accurate term), and discusses how exactly the Anointed were able to bring them about. He identifies a common theme to the Anointed's plans: first, they identify a "crisis" that can't be proven to exist, then they prescribe a "solution" that can only be produced through categorical government action, and when their solution only makes things worse they dismiss all evidence much like a man putting his hands over his ears yelling "I'm not listening!" Sowell specifically discusses how the Vision of the Anointed was expressed during the 60's in the areas of poverty, crime, and teen pregnancy. In each area, as Sowell demonstrates quite conclusively, there was no serious problem until massive government intervention created one. And as a quick look at statistics on social pathologies like crime and illegitimacy will tell you, we're still dealing with the results today, especially among the poor and minority people these policies were supposed to help.

And so it goes, with Sowell's brutal honesty exposing leftist chicanery at every turn. I think the most important point readers should get from this book is just how disconnected from reality the Vision of the Anointed has become. If we don't start taking a more rational approach to our problems soon things could really get ugly, as the leftward drift of the past few decades must inevitably produce an opposite reaction. Ideas like Sowell's provide some important clues for finding a way out of the current mess while there's still time.

In America today, it is usually the right, both free market and evangelical, that has abandoned the tragic sense of human imperfectibility. Worship of technology and progress and belief in policies that have benefits and no costs, not to mention self-righteousness are surely common in conservative circles. Sowell is very perceptive about the motes in liberal eyes, but misses the beams in conservative ones.

The heart of the progressive agenda -- redistributive taxes, publicly-funded social insurance, laws against private discrimination and a role for government regulation, freedom to determine one's personal life -- has to be leavened by a respect for market processes and inherited social custom. For the most part, left-wing parties throughout the world have started to do this. Progressives shouldn't assume that everyone who disagrees with them is stupid or evil. But neither should conservatives act as if their enemies are all as self-satisfied and mush-headed as the Baldwin brothers.