I read Thomas Sowell's Vision of the Annointed en route from SFO to NYC for New Years 2002/2003. Overall, I enjoyed this book although -- like many books I've read lately -- it was enlightening but occasionally suffered from unequal execution.

The heart of Sowell's book was his presentation of an abstracted intellectual dividing line between many of the policies that are broadly "Right" and "Left" in contemporary politics.  He christens the two visions the "Tragic" vision and the "Anointed" vision. 

Sowell defines the Tragic vision as [p104]:

...a vision whose reasoning begins with the tragedy of the human condition.  By tragedy here is not meant simply unhappiness, but tragedy in the ancient Greek sense, inescapable fate inherent in the nature of things, rather than unhappiness due simply to villainy or callousness. 

It is no accident that Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate echoes feelings about the "inherent nature" of people  (Pinker's book is what alerted me to Sowell's).  The Anointed vision on the other hand is quite clearly adopted by many a social crusader and is predicated on a belief that a perfect plan to address a problem can be concocted and simply needs to be executed by the the government.  [p114]

...the hallmark of the vision of the anointed is that what the anointed consider lacking for the kind of social progress they envision is will and power, not knowledge.  But to those with the tragic vision, what is dangerous are will and power without knowledge -- and for many expansive purposes, knowledge is inherently insufficient.

For Tragics, we sometimes find our selves in sucky situations cuz Life Sucks.    For the annointed, the reason we find ourselves in sucky situations is cuz Tragics suck.

Sowell provides a very well conceived summary comparing/contrasting the 2 visions on pg 105 of his book.   I've taken his table and added a few additional cells (marked with a dark grey background) with my annotation / discussion

Category	Tragic Vision	Annointed Vision
Human Capability	Severly and inherently limited for all	vast for the annointed
	Governmental leaders, armed with the power of the state are particularly susceptible to the meme du jour and willful ignorance of unintended consequences	Policies don't fail due to incorrect intellectualization but rather due to incorrect actualization.   The solution is perfect implementation of the anointed's ideal plan.
Social Possibilities	Trade-offs that leave many "unmet needs"	Solutions to Problems
	Some problems like poverty, crime, delinquency, etc. will never go to zero;   Government solutions to problems in one sphere may/will have larger unintended consequences in others.	Problems must be solved in totality with "no one left behind" and "no one left at risk"
Social Causation	Systematic	Deliberate
	Incentive structures within a system provide the basis / remedy for observed social phenomena.   For ex., if minority loan rejection is systemically occuring, there should be a lower level of profitability for banks who are rejecting otherwise qualified applicants.   Similarly, this creates opportunities for banks to address this (underserved) niche because of the oppty for super-normal profits.	Social correlations are proof of social causation;  for ex., loan rejection discrepencies for minorities are directly indicative of racism.
Freedom	Exemption from the Power of others	Freedom to implement a plan
	Individuals are best at choosing paths for themselves	"Privileged" individuals must give up freedoms to help implement the plans of the anointed on behalf of the less-privileged
Justice	Process rules with just characteristics	just (equalized) chances or results
	It is more important for the law to set clear precedent to prevent future cases from needing to be brought into court	Justice is the metered distribution of spoils on a case-by-case basis
Knowledge	consists largely of the unarticulated experiences of the many	consists largely of the articulated intelligence of the more educated few
	Faith in the market to distribute resources	Some individuals have "super-market" knowledge in an area
Specialization	highly desirable	highly questionable
	Related to letting the many (specialists) make independent decisions
Motivation	incentives	dispositions
	Actions occur because of market/non market incentives regardless of an individual's underlying disposition.  Capital flight from a developing nation is because of bad economic choices by that nation.	Actions occur because people have underlying, sub-rational behavioral dispositions towards that action.   Capital flight from a developing nation is because speculators wish to punish that nation.
Process Costs	crucial	incidental
	The cost of "changing over" to a new system is critical in determining the value of the new system.   We invade Iraq but not N. Korea because Feasibility is a central issue.	Ends justify the means especially when economic costs are concerned  (e.g. "save the environment", eliminate DDT, eliminate asbestos, etc.).   We invade Iraq but not N. Korea because Iraq had Oil.
Decison-making mechanism preferred	systemic processes that convey the experiences and revealed preferences of the many	deliberate plans that utilize the special talents and more advanced views of the few
	"Process architects" should construct profit incentives in order to allow individuals to weigh for themselves a particular balance amongst conflicting policy options  (for ex., allowing tax deductions on charitable contributions)	Specific allocations must be made by architects.   Instead of allowing charitable deductions to be tax deductable, the government should directly become a charity
Kinds of decisions preferred	Incremental	Categorical
	The general American system / ideals are functioning / have functioned well to date with the incremental changes required to address certain ills	Specific structural solutions must be constructed to address issues in a black/white way.   The intrinsic failures of capitalism mean that Capitalism itself must be rethought and a "third way" must be found.
View of Economic Order	Inherent and highly ordered	Accidental and Random
	The economy is a wild complex organism that should only be tinkered with using extreme care.   The reason most economic structures come to being and persist is because they create value.	The dominant determinant of winners / losers in the economy is randomness.   Economic structures are the product of a priori power and alternate structures can be found that deliver the same value.

So, in short, Sowell breaks the Left - Right divide down into "good intentions" vs. "results in the face of imperfect knowledge."  What makes Sowell's work critical / profound is the attempt to construct an abstract framework.

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