There's "Making a Point", then there's what Sowell's doing....

Forgive me - I had mistakenly assumed that Sowell was done with his rants against "busybodies".

It appears that the long gas lines during the OPEC oil boycott in the 1970's were the fault of Ted Kennedy, who in the face of long lines and shortfalls called for price controls. Ronald Reagan, coming into power after the boycott ended, apparently "saved they day". While I share Sowell's skepticism of price controls, perhaps it should be acknowledged that OPEC's boycott had more to do with the price of oil and long lines at the pumps than "price controls"? Or that the notion of "price controls" was advocated previously by the horrible liberal busybody Richard Nixon - for that matter, Nixon also imposed wage controls....

So evil liberals like Ted Kennedy and Richard Nixon impose their notions of "fairness" on what Sowell believes should be a free market for human organs, oil, and farm land free of zoning restrictions. And, as it seems, this whole "busybody" thing is driven by a Nixonian passion for the poor:

When the issue is posed as "the free market" versus "compassion for the poor," which do you think is likely to win out?

Our bloated and ever-growing welfare state -- from which the poor get a very small share, by the way -- answers that question.

Perhaps somebody can explain that in a comment. The U.S. has the stingiest social welfare system in the developed world. Sowell seems to be complaining that the "welfare state" is growing because of "busybodies" who want to help the poor, but not to the benefit of the poor.

Is Sowell referencing the huge new prescription drug benefit signed into law by President Bush - a subsidy that will largely help seniors who are not poor? Is he complaining about massive new agricultural subsidies signed into law by Bush - welfare for corporate farms which, again, are not poor? Is he complaining about Bush's steel tariffs, which forced up the price of many manufactured goods in order to protect the domestic steel industry - corporate welfare at its finest? The multi-billion dollar subsidies that Bush wishes to provide to wealthy U.S. corporate interests through his proposed "energy bill"? There seems to be little doubt that this nation's corporate welfare rolls are swelling to unprecedented levels under President Bush.

So when Sowell whines about "'the free market' versus 'compassion for the poor,'" he means to condem evil "liberal busybodies" for advocating for the poor, whom Sowell acknowledges are getting less and less of the welfare pie, but that it is fine for "conservatives" to expand that welfare pie as long as the benefits are shifted to corporate interests (most of which need no subsidy in the "free market")? Free markets should only govern if we're speaking of building an industrial plant in an evil "open space" next to a poor neighborhood (a net social good, in Sowell's mind, as it not only represents the "free market" in action, it makes the neighboring housing more affordable - perhaps costing little more than one one could get for selling one's "spare kidney"), but we should wear our blinkers when it comes to noticing the enormous subsidy handed to the wealthy corporation that is building the industrial plant?

Sowell concludes,

Because of the innumerable problems caused by busybodies who devote "a most unnecessary attention" to things that would be better without them, the rest of us should devote some very necessary attention to these busybodies and their sloppy arguments.

I think, in the context of these columns, he's describing himself.

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