Tom Sowell's Conflict Of Visions

Washington DC

Tom Sowell believes that most social and political controversies are rooted in a conflict of visions between two competing world views. In "A Conflict of Visions," his constrained and unconstrained visions offer strikingly different assumptions about human nature. These competing visions of how the world works – or should work –provide a motivational core for many of the great social and political ideologies found throughout human history.

A constrained vision assumes the inherent limitations of man and seeks prudent, optimizing trade-offs in the development and implementation of public policy. Sowell believes that the constrained outlook offers “a tragic vision of the human condition” (p.26) and that systemic incentives are needed to encourage appropriate human behavior. The market logic and exchange mechanisms of capitalism, for example, are seen as delivering unintended but nonetheless essential social consequences.

The notion of “intentionality” is key here. The constrained vision uses social processes – or what Heilbroner (1985) would call a “social regime,” in the case of capitalism – to control and channel human behavior. However, unconstrained visions are focused on results. Rousseau, Voltaire and the “age of reason” thinkers believed man capable of intentionally choosing to see beyond his immediate needs and working to benefit others. Sowell calls this world view a “moral vision of human intentions.” (p.26)

Indeed, the unconstrained vision accepts the basic goodness of humankind or at least our potential for goodness. Unconstrained visionaries believe that the process mechanisms imposed on man to address the darker, constrained side of human behavior actually discourage positive intentionality. They see these structural inhibitors as actively encouraging the negative behaviors assumed under constrained visions. In this sense, constrained visions are needlessly self-constraining.

The Role and Relationship of Power, Elitism and Education

This paper examines Sowell’s proposition that there are two vast competing world views from three essential perspectives in the development and implementation of political ideologies – power, elites and education. Reference is made throughout this work to Zakaria’s (2004) The Future of Freedom since he closely examines political ideologies through the lens of competing world visions that don’t neatly fold into Sowell’s dichotomy.

Neither Sowell nor Zakaria adequately addresses the misuse of power and greed in the development and implementation of competing ideologies. Indeed, many ideological conventions have been used be ruling elites simply for the purpose of achieving and securing power and wealth, without great fealty among their advocates to underlying principles and purposes. Zakaria traced a history of human liberty on an evolutionary path through theocratic, monarchical, and state models of governance to the emergence of capitalism. Sowell did so, as well, but in less linear terms. It seems too often, however, that the ideological rationale and rhetoric of the regimes described during these various periods were used by ruling elites to justify their own power. What was done in the name of God, the king or the proletariat was more often than not actually done to exert power and maintain control. Indeed, how much Machiavelli (or Karl Rove) lurks behind the idealism of Rousseau and others in the unconstrained camp?

There is good reason to question whether Sowell’s unconstrained vision is ultimately achievable, anyway. It evokes much of the utopian logic found on Sir Thomas More’s imaginary island of that name or Plato’s Republic and later questioned and even ridiculed by Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. It just doesn’t seem possible. Of course, this statement is itself born of a constrained vision that unconstrained visionaries would say is self-defeating. There is no doubt, however, that the language of unconstrained vision has been historically appropriated by regimes far and wide to wield power. Stalinists used the utopian ambitions of Marxism and the central planning tenets of the unconstrained vision as convenient covers for power, paradoxically reflecting the worst of constrained human behaviors while invoking the best possible intentionality. Would Marx and Lenin have even recognized what their ideologies became under Stalin? Sowell’s treatment of power seems to miss this point completely.

The use and misuse of power by small numbers of people naturally raises questions about ruling elites. Sowell’s unconstrained model vests great power and trust in “the special role of thinking people or the brightest and the best” (p.43) in making decisions about the common good. Sowell asks whether “the best social decisions are to be made by those with the most individual knowledge of a special kind or by systemic processes that mobilize and coordinate knowledge scattered by the many?” (p.45) Of course, the challenges found in the unconstrained vision embodied in the former take the form of key questions. Who chooses these elites and what is meant by the “best social decisions?”

The very idea of special elites evokes Nietzsche’s concept of the “superman,” which was subsequently addressed by George Bernard Shaw in his play by the same name. Interestingly, Sowell makes considerable reference to Shaw throughout A Conflict of Visions as an advocate for unconstrained vision. But can and do “super men” really exist? Who is to determine their capacity to govern and help prevent the abuses of power discussed above? What is the bright-line test for discerning between a self-styled benevolent elite and ruthless individuals who use such imagery to promote hatred and division? After all, at the core of a utopian vision called National Socialism was extreme vilification and persecution of people who did not conform to an elite’s – and a democratically elected one, at that – version of Aryan supremacy.

Zakaria laments the passing of American elites, reduced in stature by excessive democracy and the growth of technology and globalization. He rightly maintains that these elites hardly ever took forms in the United States as extreme as Stalinism or Nazism. And yet, what is one to think of Henry Ford and others who used their extreme power to attempt to mold society in their own constrained vision? This is the recurring trap found in any model that vests too much power in individual elites.

Having said this, Zakaria demonstrates that visionary, productive authoritarianism can exist, at least in terms of temporary stewardship needed to create and sustain rule of law and, with it, economic development. He points to the 20th Century development of Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong as examples of dictatorship with a destination in mind, and that destination appears to have been democracy. So, perhaps power and elitism can be used for good purpose. Maybe man is not so constrained that he is incapable of considering the greater good. Still, one has always to ask to what end and at what cost? The Chilean success model cited by Zakaria came at the expense of much death and destruction.

Still, Zakaria seems justified to mourn the death of the “American aristocracy” (p.220) that was once a meaningful vanguard for standards, tastes and a commitment to public spiritedness. Our traditional political, social and cultural arbiters and watchdogs have been replaced by lapdogs, in Zakaria’s words, which are rendered virtually powerless by the new elite of corporate moneyed interests. “Today we expect very little of those in positions of power, and they rarely disappoint us.” (p.238) Zakaria laments.

This discussion of power and elites in the context of political ideology thrives at the intersection of Sowell’s and Zakaria’s work. The third and final link discussed here is public education. Zakaria believes education is essential for creating the rule of law and concomitant economic development needed to democratize. Sowell, Zakaria and Heilbroner all raise questions about how education is used, for example, to train employees and employers to engage in capitalism at a technical level. Of course, education has also been used to indoctrinate people on the virtues of Marxism or even the deification of a Mao, a Castro or even religious cult figures. That’s why education exists beyond mere technical training, teaching us to discern at the moral and ethical level. Of course, those bent on power or accustomed to the perks of elitism often resist this essential aspect of education. Like capitalism itself, the free flow of ideas and ideals threatens the status quo of power and elitism.

Furthermore, in Sowell’s construct, who’s teaching the chosen few to engage in the “articulated rationality” that is central to the unconstrained view? And what are they learning? As advocates of the constrained vision suggest, societies run grave risks when they forfeit leadership to the learned few who seek to produce results in their own image.

The busy intersection of power, elitism and education is complex and confounding. However, an effective balancing of these three forces offers a reasonable framework for helping a political ideology or social construct actually succeed in the long run.