As a fan of Thomas Sowell, I always get excited when I learn about a new book he's written. Of course to me most of his works are new because most were published before I even knew what economics meant.
Intellectuals and Society is Sowell's look at politics and the way that intellectuals have shaped it. In a way, his work is about how we have a blind faith in the "experts" whom we believe can take care of all of our societal ills.
My own view is that this is largely true. Before the age of FDR's Brain Trust things seemed to work pretty well in the country. We had tremendous rates of growth both in national wealth and in population. Sure, we had problems with racism and the business cycle, but these in their own way were the result of government policies (Jim Crow and state banks respectively). FDR tried changing things with his policy of an economy run by experts. Of course it failed miserably, but we still live with the system. A return to the old system of voluntarism and free markets is the best way to get back to the rapidly-growing economy that this country used to have.
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