Knowledge and decisions
by Thomas Sowell · first published 1980
67% recommend33% neutral
"With a new preface by the author, this reissue of Thomas Sowell's classic study of decision making updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Annointed, Sowell, one of America's most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making--a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency, but our very freedom because actual knowledge gets replaced by assumptions based on an abstrac
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…read one I have seen, and for the math phobic it has no equations. Another really good, if idiosyncratic, book is David Friedman's Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life. Also Thomas Sowell's Knowledge and Decisions covers roughly the same ground as Hayek's Use of Knowledge in Society, but is newer and more readable.
on “Ask HN: Best book(s) to learn about the basics of economics?” ↗…actually doing the work so it is rarely, if ever, taken into proper account when formulating regulations. For a really good explanation of the differences and the problems caused, read Thomas Sowell's Knowledge and Decisions. Hayek's Use of Knowledge in Society also discusses this, as do other books and essays, but Sowell's is more readable and his examples are closer to contemporary (it was written in the late 1970s and…
on “Your Brain Knows a Lot More Than You Realize ” ↗…underlying premise of free market economics and small-government conservatism, too. Go read some Thomas Sowell, a lot of his books discuss the issue, especially A Conflict of Values and, in more detail, Knowledge and Decisions.
on “Rock Stars Went Where?” ↗Some books I would put on this list: Knowledge and Decisions by Thomas Sowell, Le Rouge et le Noir by Stendhal, Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, 1984 by George Orwell.
on “How to live an intellectually rich life” ↗Knowledge and Decisions by the same is also a great book.
on “Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?” ↗A column or collection of random quotes will never adequately summarize a thinker - however his books "Knowledge and Decisions" and "A Conflict of Visions" both rank as masterpieces.
on “Encountering Thomas Sowell” ↗I’m a longtime Thomas Sowell fan but I only just recently started reading his most celebrated work, Knowledge and Decisions, first published in 1980. In one of the early chapters there is a reference to the old physical mailbox systems of pre-networked offices, and how the cost of distracted attention from hundreds of employees…
on “Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work” ↗…have the same productive endowment nonetheless may have different preferences of what to produce. Also, your comment about package deals strongly reminds me of stuff I recently read in Thomas Sowell’s *Knowledge and Decisions.
on “A catalog of wealth-creation mechanisms (2009)” ↗…individual contributes their own private knowledge that is unavailable to other people, through participating in market and communicating it through price mechanism. See, for example, Thomas Sowell’s “Knowledge and Decisions”, which is precisely about this point, or for more classic reference, Hayek’s “The Use of Knowledge in Society”. Again, to reiterate, the entire point of market economy is that nobody has full knowledge.
on “New federal food label law has unintended effect: Sesame now in more foods” ↗