| | Your description of Thomas Sowell's thinking rings true, based on having read a couple of his books and quite a few of his articles. If I understand the thrust of your article correctly, Sowell is Hayekian in his outlook.
Unfortunately, there are fundamental contradictions in the Hayakian neo-classcial view of the world, as most clearly explained in Tibor Machan's Capitalism and Individualism: Reframing the Argument for a Free Society. These contradictions include the idea that moral principles do not exist as objective principles of human nature, but rather only as customary habits of behavior shaped by cultural and social influences. This idea of morality as a product of social traditions contradicts Sowell's belief that awarding coercive power to political elites is wrong; for in some societies political elites rule in accordance with long-established social custom. But if Sowell were to counter that such social customs do not adequately justify the wrongs committed by the elites, then Sowell can define wrong only by some objective standard independent of social mores. To summarize: Sowell wants to instruct and persuade people that they ought to institutionalize certain individual "rights" for the betterment of society, while denying the existence of objective normative standards by which "betterment" can be identified.
Perhaps Thomas Sowell's moral agnosticism explains why he sometimes favors glaring violations of individual rights, as for example his support of the War on Drugs and his applause for (to my incomplete knowlege) virtually every instance of American military adventuring since the start of the Twentieth Century.
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