Dr. Sowell Warns: America May Not Resist Socialism

RUSH: Thomas Sowell was interviewed by David Asman, who is at Fox News. He was filling in for Neil Cavuto, was guest hosting Cavuto’s show Coast to Coast on the Fox Business Network. He asked him, “”You yourself as a student were drawn towards socialist ideas. You wrote a book on Marx. What turned you against” the Marxists theory?

SOWELL: Facts. Before I was a Marxist, I was an empiricist, and I stayed an empiricist. And with the passing years, I simply — as I looked into more and more things, I — saw the difference between reality and the rhetoric. Unfortunately, so many people today, including in the leading universities, don’t pay much attention to evidence. When you see people starving in Venezuela and fleeing into neighboring countries and realize that this is a country that once had the world’s largest oil reserves (chuckles), you realize that they’ve ruined a very good prospect with ideas that sounded good but didn’t turn out well.

RUSH: Now, the next bite is the money bite. Asman says, “If I have to ask this question, because you’re so honest and you see things so straight on. Do you think we’re destined to go through a period of socialism where these ideas — which have never worked anywhere and will not work here — will still be tried? And if so, could this bring down our country?”

SOWELL: I do have a great fear that in the long run we may not make it, and I hate to say that. And the one thing that keeps me from being despairing is, of course, we don’t know. There’s so many things we can’t possibly know, and so we may make it. But I wouldn’t — I wouldn’t bet on it.

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