Thomas Sowell on Left Brain versus Right Brain

Thomas Sowell has one of his always insightful articles out today, this time discussing the fundamentel differnce in paradigm between the left and the right. He opines that elite left's belief, that by their superior knowledge, they can better govern by fiat then can the unwashed masses by voting, is fundamentally and fatally flawed.

Radically different conclusions about a range of issues have been common for centuries. Many have tried to explain these differences by conflicting economic interests. Others, like John Maynard Keynes, have argued that ideas trump economic interests.

My own view is that differences in bedrock assumptions underlying ideas play a major role in determining how people differ in what policies, principles or ideologies they favor.

Millions died of starvation when the economic ideas of Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China were inflicted on the population living . . . under their iron rule. . .

Yet what the political left, even in democratic countries, share is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a right and a duty to use the power of government to impose their superior knowledge and virtue on others.

They may not impose their presumptions wholesale, like the totalitarians, but retail in innumerable restrictions, ranging from economic and nanny state regulations to "hate speech" laws.

If no one has even one percent of all the knowledge in a society, then it is crucial that the other 99 percent of knowledge - scattered in tiny and individually unimpressive amounts among the population at large - be allowed the freedom to be used in working out mutual accommodations among the people themselves.

These innumerable mutual interactions are what bring the other 99 percent of knowledge into play - and generate new knowledge.

That is why free markets, judicial restraint, and reliance on decisions and traditions growing out of the experiences of the many - rather than the groupthink of the elite few - are so important. Elites are all too prone to over-estimate the importance of the fact that they average more knowledge per person than the rest of the population - and under-estimate the fact that their total knowledge is so much less than that of the rest of the population.

Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.

The ignorance of people with Ph.D.s is still ignorance, the prejudices of educated elites are still prejudices, and for those with one percent of a society's knowledge to be dictating to those with the other 99 percent is still an absurdity.

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