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Race and culture: A world view. By THOMAS SOWELL. New York: Harper Collins, Basic Books, 1994. Pp. xvi, 331. $25.00. ISBN 465-06796-4. JEL 95172
Thomas Sowell introduces Race and Culture: A World View with the bold statement that it is the culmination of a decade of research and more than 20 years of writing on race and ethnicity. Indeed, for almost a quarter century, Sowell has interwoven the principles of classical economics with his particular view of racial dynamics in order to advance a paradigm that has now become common place among political conservatives. Sowell's view, reiterated time and again in numerous books and articles, has several constant themes.
The first is that inequalities experienced by African Americans are not unique. At various points in time, he argues, other ethnic groups have experienced similar disadvantages. In fact, it is the ability of these other ethnic groups to transcend these inequalities that leads Sowell to conclude that social oppression is not a uniquely racial phenomenon and that racial inequality is not permanent
A second theme is that differences in cultural and historical experiences have endowed ethnic groups with different abilities. As such, he argues that achieving social and economic equality among ethnically diverse groups is impossible. Associated with this argument is the idea that internal group specific differences, rather than the...