Thomas Sowell

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Lore & Background

Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina, and grew up in Harlem, New York City. Due to poverty and difficulties at home, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School at age 17 and worked various odd jobs, eventually serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. Afterward, he graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1958. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year, and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In his academic career, he held professorships at Cornell University, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked at think tanks, including the Urban Institute. Since 1977, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy. Sowell has said that he was a Marxist during his 20s, but began to change his mind toward supporting free-market economics in 1960 after studying the possible impact of minimum wages on unemployment of sugar-industry workers in Puerto Rico as a U.S. Department of Labor intern. He was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner in the Ford administration and was considered for posts including U.S. Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, but declined both.

Reader's Guide

Thomas Sowell's significance lies in his extensive body of work spanning economics, race, education, and social policy, which has influenced a wide range of economists, intellectuals, and public figures, including fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. He is the author of more than 45 books (including revised and new editions) on a variety of subjects, including politics, economics, education, and race, and he has been a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers. His views are described as conservative on social issues, libertarian on economics, or libertarian-conservative. He has said he may be best labeled as a libertarian, though he disagrees with the 'libertarian movement' on some issues, such as national defense. Sowell was a frequent guest on The Rush Limbaugh Show, in conversations with Walter E. Williams. On December 27, 2016, Sowell announced the end of his syndicated column, writing that, at age 86, 'the question is not why I am' (the source cuts off there).

Did You Know?

• Sowell was the first in his family to study beyond the sixth grade when he qualified for Stuyvesant High School.
• He tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948.
• Sowell's PhD dissertation was titled 'Say's law and the General glut Controversy'.
• He was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner by the Ford administration in 1976 but withdrew from consideration.
• Sowell was appointed as a member of the Economic Policy Advisory Committee of the Reagan administration but resigned after the first meeting.