Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens.
Thomas SowellRead
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area - crime, education, housing, race relations - the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the tendency to prioritize appealing ideas over practical solutions, leading to negative outcomes.
Thomas Sowell's quote reflects on the failures of social engineering in the Western world over the last thirty years, emphasizing how the implementation of popular theories has often resulted in worsening conditions in various sectors such as crime and education. It highlights a concerning trend where those responsible for these failures remain undeterred and unaccountable, suggesting a disconnect between theory and reality that continues to influence policy-making despite evidence of ineffectiveness.
Themes
Social HistoryTheoryFailureSocial EngineeringPracticality
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on educational reforms, this quote could highlight the failures of new strategies in improving student performance.
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All quotes →Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.
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One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When they do something that makes no sense, devious reasons are imagined by conspiracy theorists, when in fact it may be due to plain old ignorance and incompetence.
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You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
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The real problem, both in discussions of mass shootings and in discussions of gun control, is that too many people are too committed to a vision to allow mere facts to interfere with their beliefs, and the sense of superiority that those beliefs give them.
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Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today's half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again - and have repeatedly led to disaster. Most of these ideas are not new. They are just being recycled with re-treaded rhetoric.
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