Discrimination and Disparities

Sowell is always an interesting read. However, I find that he can be a bit repetitive in his points from book to book—I get it, minimum wage laws are dumb. Yet, despite his persistence, nobody appears to be listening (it’s no surprise that in interviews he is quite pessimistic about the future). But for all his repetition, there are always a few nuggets of novel insights in each of his essays. My favorite from this book is his observation that demographic statistics seem to ignore average ages of various statistical groupings. When the average age of a particular group is 18–25 you are going to see more criminal behavior on average because most criminals, not matter their race, fall into that age group. There are some other good bits about birth order affecting outcomes and the self-sorting of communities.