Knowledge and Decisions

Thomas Sowell

ISBN 10: 1470808803 ISBN 13: 9781470808808

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc., 2012

Synopsis

*Winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize

This reissue of Thomas Sowell's classic study of decision making, which includes a preface by the author, updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Anointed. 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. This is because actual knowledge is being replaced by assumptions based on an abstract and elitist social vision of what ought to be.

Knowledge and Decisions, a winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize, was heralded as a landmark work and selected for this prize ''because of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government.'' In announcing the award, the center acclaimed that the ''contribution to our understanding of the process of regulation alone would make the book important, but in reemphasizing the diversity and efficiency that the market makes possible, [this] work goes deeper and becomes even more significant.''

About this title

About the Author

THOMAS SOWELL has taught economics at Cornell, UCLA, Amherst, and other academic institutions, and his Basic Economics has been translated into six languages. He is currently a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford University. He has been published in both academic journals and such popular media as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fortune and writes a syndicated column that appears in newspapers across the country.

Review

''This is a brilliant book. Sowell illuminates how every society operates. In the process he also shows how the performance of our own society can be improved.'' --Milton Friedman

''In a wholly original manner [Sowell] succeeds in translating abstract and theoretical argument into a highly concrete and realistic discussion of the central problems of contemporary economic policy.'' --F. A. Hayek

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1470808803
• ISBN 13: 9781470808808
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 21