The Vision of the Anointed

Sowell’s argument that a self-selected intellectual class adopts social policies for what holding them signals rather than for their measured results, and that the resulting pattern — a crisis is announced, a solution is enacted, the outcome contradicts the prediction, and the response is to attack the critics’ motives — repeats across welfare, crime, education and family policy. He works through cases where the trend being blamed on inaction had already been improving before the intervention.

The entry carries a ☑️ on the source list. The page gives no legend for that mark, so it is recorded here only as “marked on the source list” — it is not known to mean read, essential, or start-here.

Why it’s on the list: The Modern Conservatism sub-section collects the tradition’s critiques of the administrative and intellectual class; Sowell is its most systematic empirical version, and this is the book that states the mechanism rather than a particular case.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on Modern Conservatism. Shared on X on March 9, 2026 and saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 211-entry transcription, with the four parts and sixteen sub-sections, is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this card came from.
• Government — the policy apparatus the book is an attack on.
• Incentives — Sowell’s alternative frame for explaining the outcomes.
• Regulation — the instrument he argues is adopted for its symbolism.