Book Review: Wealth, Poverty and Politics by Thomas Sowell

The book draws examples from many different countries and groups to make a powerful cause for its factors. You will be wiser and more informed by reading it.

Present-day conversations on poverty and wealth are often focused on the last 50 years, this is not bad, but it is limiting. This is why this book by Thomas Sowell is infinitely important. Thomas Sowell takes a deep dive into the forces that have shaped countries from way back. In this book, Sowell helps you see how ancient Britons have something in common with people of today. He shows you how the Romans rated the Britons.

This is an overview of poverty around the world. Poverty and wealth. Thomas Sowell categorizes the forces that shape the wealth or poverty of nations into four major factors: geographic, cultural, social, and political. As always, he uses incredible facts to make his point. It is hard to disagree with Thomas Sowell. So hard that for you to disagree with him, you have to study the facts very well. Of course, Sowell is not always correct, but here's the thing: whenever I disagree with Thomas Sowell, I disagree with him with a fresher perspective than the one I entered the conversation with. Whenever Sowell writes on a subject, he digs the facts in a meticulous way that many people miss.

This book opened me to new perspectives that I had never thought about. I will mention just a few.

Poverty is the default state of human beings. Hold up. Digest that for a moment. What Sowell means is that the result of just living and doing nothing is material poverty. I had never thought of this. The implications for this are enormous. It means that poverty is the more common thing, not wealth, as we often presume. It goes that if human beings lived and did nothing, we would be in poor material conditions. This goes further to explain the conditions of certain nations. The cause of poverty is primarily a failure of productivity. Poor nations are simply not producing enough. And individuals are simply not producing enough. Now, it is important to add a caveat here. Not all poor people are unproductive. Some poor people are the hardest workers you will ever meet. However, there are limitations, such as political factors, especially political factors, that impede their getting good rewards for their hard work. A prominent example that Thomas Sowell uses is the case of China in the 14th Century when the Emperor closed down China and isolated it from the world. Burned the ships, which were the best in the world then, and burned all the records for the previous travels to ensure no one attempts it again. Not surprisingly, China began to decay. China, the wealthiest country, the most civilized, and the most powerful at that time, began to fall apart, and within a few centuries, the Europeans surpassed it by far. Politics caused the downfall of that empire.

Today, you see the same thing in many poor countries. Let's look at Nigeria. The Nigerian government has implemented a policy of currency redesign, which has sent the market reacting, decreasing the value of the Naira. In the past eight years, the value of the Naira has reduced by more than 800%. What this means is that if you saved money in the previous years, your savings value has been wiped off. Your money today is less than what it was worth when you first saved. How did this happen? Politics. Politicians and political decisions.

Thomas Sowell also diagnoses the effect of culture on the creation of wealth. As he stated, this is hot button issue because people hate to hear that some cultures are better than others in terms of productivity. While it may be so, we have to state this. Take, for instance, Nigeria. The Igbos are known to be entrepreneurial and business savvy. Everywhere they go, they are just good wealth creators. Their culture is simply better in terms of creating wealth. This is a fact that should be used to aid in development conversations, not to spark up hate. Rather, it has been used to cause violence. It was a major cause of the Nigerian Civil War that saw the death of millions of people.

The book draws examples from many different countries and groups to make a powerful cause for its factors. You will be wiser and more informed by reading it.

Although this book does not end with any recommended steps to be taken, I find it to be insightful in understanding the causes of poverty and the things that can lead to wealth creation. Sowell's take on analyzing long periods of history should make you hopeful. It means no nation is predestined to poverty or wealth. Every nation that became wealthy made a choice for itself. The fact that the wealthiest countries in the world today were not always the most prosperous nation makes me smile; it means one day, it could be our turn.

In the 14th Century, it was China. In the 15th, Europeans began to take over. Spain, Netherlands, etc. As the 18th Century came to a close, Britain, a small island nation that the Romans said was too lazy and should even be taken as slaves, was the undisputed wealthiest nation. In the 20th Century, America, a former colony itself, became the richest nation. In the 21st Century, China which has seen some of the most dangerous poverty in history, is rising to compete with America. Poverty is not destiny. Creating wealth for your people is possible.

To me, a limitation of this book is that as it draws to a conclusion, it focuses on American issues. I could have ignored this, but the book has a subtitle that says “An International Perspective." We can forgive Sowell; he is an American, so he can focus on his country. We will have to do ours.

The final lesson for me is that wealth has to be created. Is your country creating wealth? If it is not, it is creating poverty.