Social Justice Fables 

     Economist Thomas Sowell, a fellow at Stanford, dispatches the left's favorite "fallacies" in the book, SOCIAL JUSTICE. 

     "The world does not work as the liberals wish because everyday Americans are rational actors who respond to incentives. Both history and economics show that people are not chess pieces. Yet politicians so often act that way, as though an increase in tax rates will guarantee a corresponding increase in tax revenue... 

     "This 'exaltation of desirability and neglect of feasibility' is one of the 'fundamental fallacies of the social justice vision.' As Christians, we might say policy must be rooted in reality, which includes the nature of Creation and the fallenness of man. This creates problems for the utopians in our midst. 

     "Racialist fallacies are found and refuted throughout the book, a subtle reminder of how central race is to the modern liberal project. 

     "Sowell's writing is Spartan. There is no narrative, or introduction. 

     "Instead, Sowell's style is to pick a topic, a proposition - a social justice fallacy. Recite the typical liberal assertion, and then deconstruct it in two pages of logic, history, academic studies, and facts. Then move on to the next one. It's not meant to be entertaining, though it's hard not to smile occasionally when he lands his best punches. 

     "His style has its audience: those craving the intellectual vindication of things they already believe to be true and right about the world."

 by Daniel R. Suhr