The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell

hey what's up this is sudo lena from

madulana digital welcome to my channel

every sunday i post a new video here

based on my interests i read a lot of

books so i do a lot of book reviews

some courses as well as my favorite

topics politics and history

so today i'm talking about another very

interesting book

by american writer thomas soule called

the quest

for cosmic justice if you're new here

please be sure to subscribe check also

the other videos that i have

on thomas so well books i have

reviews on black rednecks and white

liberals you can check them here

and today i'm talking about another book

similar let's say

as a as a message and maybe it's like

the book which

crystallizes the whole a whole series of

ideas of thomas soul

first a little bit about the writer

thomaso is an american it's

actually a black american professor in

stanford

writer uh he has done a lot of relative

works on economics

uh his books are very easy to read very

digestible

but often they are not let's say the

most popular opinion especially nowadays

and i think nowadays more and more these

books are becoming very relevant as we

keep hearing about

justice about equality now about equity

all these terms are becoming very

fashionable and people talking to about

them about achieving equality

so this book is actually tackling

exactly the topic

about how difficult and almost

impossible it is to achieve

equality and why there is this quest for

cosmic justice

causing so much trouble

so starting with the definitions what is

justice and what is equality

well let's talk about justice first

justice can only be social

there is no unsocial justice because it

is purely between

people and typically we have two types

of justice

we have the noble justice which is

happening in court for example you

have a judge which is saying whether a

criminal has

offended the law or hasn't and you have

the cosmic justice the cosmic justice on

the other hand is something different

it's something let's say born by

intellectuals who are trying to solve

world problems and of course the

our world has a lot of problems of

course there's disparities between

uh wealthy and unwealthy uh there are a

lot of disparities between different

races between different

sizes and fractions of of society

and what they are trying to do is

to achieve some kind of what they call

social justice to solve all the unjust

things in our world what he argues here

is that

solving the and the unjust is sometimes

causing more problems

than letting it the way it is and he

gives here an example

with uh let's say with deliveries

an example with someone who was close to

the mayor of san francisco

he tried to order a pizza he was in a

poor neighborhood

with high crime rates and the pizza

company said that they don't deliver in

this neighborhood

what happens then is a fight of cosmic

justice

they make a law to force every business

in san francisco if they do deliveries

they have to deliver to every single

area of the city

in order for it to be equal and in

theory it makes sense

as we know people from poor

neighborhoods are punished by a lot of

from their geography so first a lot of

companies don't want to go there to

deliver

which accrues different more and more

costs to them and

especially many of these are

impoverished people

which is making things worse for them

and

in theory the idea that every business

has to deliver to every single area of

the city and there should be

no discrimination towards people from

poor neighborhoods sounds good

but in practice it is causing more

trouble than

actually benefit so one side is let's

say benefiting the small area of the

city

which would be able to take get

deliveries but on the other hand

it is unjustly forcing businesses to

deliver

uh to areas which are probably not

economically uh

suitable for them maybe it's too far

away for them to deliver

maybe there is actually danger for their

drivers

and some of their drivers and delivery

men may suffer

uh sufficient sufficient problems they

could be robbed they could be killed

they are

were areas of san francisco where crime

rates were extremely high at that time

and uh this is just one example of how

when we try to solve the problem from

its beginning on

on the cosmic level we cause more

problems uh

which we haven't considered and often

people who are fighting for cosmic

justice do not consider the costs of the

justice

and they want justice at any costs even

when this is hindering and causing

problems for others

another thing is that does actually

cosmic justice

make any sense because we say normal

justice

is between people who are living here

and now someone stole

some money they have to pay it back to

the person who is there and this is all

happening now

in in this the same time whereas cosmic

justice is often trying to solve

problems that happened

hundreds of years ago so one example is

the reparations given to uh black

americans for

the damages from slavery well these

reparations are coming a little bit too

late as

what he asks uh what he's arguing is

that say if

these reparations or some kind of

reparations has been done 300 years ago

when

the actual people who suffered directly

from the slavery

were were there maybe this would have

makes sense but

does it make sense now 300 years later

to make reparations to

long long long long descendants of these

people

and would it actually make any

difference in their lives would it

actually solve the problem that it's

trying to solve

he gives an example would it make sense

for the daughter of

let's say a black doctor or an executive

to go

to a more prestigious university

instead of the daughter of someone else

so does it does actually solve the the

the deep uh problem that existed long

time ago

and the reality is that we cannot so we

cannot

change the past we cannot uh change what

has happened

that actually there is no examples of

people who moved from poverty

to another stage to middle class or to

rich because of a policy

majority of the people who moved and

were able to move

was because they had opportunity

it was not the policy that made it it

was the opportunity the opportunity to

have jobs the opportunity to have a

business

the opportunity to do something or

practice some kind of skill

which made them earn money and

change their status in society also when

we talk about

people trying to solve the cosmic

justice problems

they often talk in general with

statistics and with large groups without

taking into consideration that these

groups are not static a survey was done

of people who were followed over eight

years they were all poor

considered to be poor but after eight

years

almost none of the people from the

service they had stayed in the same

stage and the reason was that eight

years

is a lot of time during that time people

gain experience

if they have started a business they

grow it and turn it into profit

if they have start a profession they get

more clientele

they get better reputation and just the

experience and the knowledge that you

gather over eight years

makes you more valuable so within even

the poor

group this is not a static group this is

not a group of people who always stay

poor

this is a group which comes new members

come in and others go

out of it consistently it is a dynamic

group and same for the rich one

actually surveys uh was checked was

showing that

in the 90s four-fifths of the

millionaires in the united states

were millionaires for the first

generation

so they were able to achieve wealth

within one generation

which contradicts our idea of rich being

defined by class being inherited and

entitled since their birth

so what are the dangers with achieving

justice social justice first of all

we don't know what is just because we

are trying to solve things on a cosmic

level and we

happen not to be the creator of this

planet

so when trying to solve things on a

cosmic level

often what is overlooked is the price to

everybody else when you solve

one issue for one small group you may

disturb

a lot of other people and it can come

with an even higher cost to the rest of

the society

second of all people are not equal

numbers can be equal

because they have one dimension which is

magnitude and this is a measurable

dimension

we people have multiple multiple

dimensions and it's very difficult to

measure them

even now the iq tests are often

considered to be inaccurate for

measuring the human

intelligence so how can people

be considered equal if it exists what it

exactly equal in

equal in mental abilities in athletic

abilities in

singing in beauty in talent

people are born absolutely different

even people in the same family grow up

different

some of them become very successful

maybe some of them

deal with some difficulties even if

you're born in a rich

family doesn't mean that you might face

some kind of

hostilities or or mental problems

that hinders your development or on the

opposite if you are born

poor maybe this motivates you to change

as so many people have changed their

status

so it's very difficult to talk about

equality

and about justice as it's very difficult

to define it

on a cosmic level it is easy to define

equality between measurable numbers it

is easy to define

justice to daily basis but not on a

cosmic level

so here it is also one quote that i

would like to finish the talk with is by

milton friedman

a free society which is trying to

achieve equality by force ends up

neither free

nor equal this is all from me for today

thank you so much for watching my video

please subscribe to this channel

and i'll see you next week with another

video