Thomas Sowell, in his book The Vision of the Anointed, essentially presents the traditional conservative view of liberal social policy--he rejects it as unworkable and wasteful of taxpayers' money. There is nothing new or surprising in the book, except perhaps for the fact that Sowell accuses the liberal elites of being arrogant in their attitudes and policies, when he himself could not have written a more arrogant work. He essentially argues that those who are disadvantaged in this society, whether economically, politically, socially, educationally, or any other way, might as well get used to it (as a group) because those unfortunate souls are meant to be left out and there is nothing significant which can be done about it. He is not entirely against any funding or policies aimed at bettering the lot of the have-nots, but he argues for minimal funding and realistic policies which do not try to do too much simply because there is not too much that can be done. This arrogantly conservative view outdoes whatever arrogance the "anointed" (i.e., liberals with whom Sowell disagrees) demonstrate, because it essentially condemns the disadvantaged, the poor, the weak and the disenfranchised, to a life without hope. Sowell accuses the liberals of seeing themselves as superior beings, but then Sowell himself plays God with the poor and the weak, concluding that they had better get used to their lot, and that we shouldn't feel guilty because there is little we can do to help them no matter how hard we try or how much money we might throw at their problems.
Sowell's two selected quotes at the beginning of the book sum up his theme. He argues for a "tiny set of policies" to address social problems, and he considers the "anointed" (liberals) to be "a thousand quacks" applauding themselves for their efforts to save those Sowell considers fundamentally unsaveable.
The analysis that follows is not only an examination of the vision of this eli...