ministers questions that the british house of commons. later, british prime minister theresa may and british foreign secretary boris johnson talk about wednesday's terrorist attack outside parliament. ♪ >> this week on q&a, author and hoover institution senior fellow thomas sewall. he recently ended his syndicated column and he talks about his life and career, and his love of photography. >> dr. thomas sowell, you wrote this at the end of 2016. age 86 is well past the usual retirement age, so the question

is not why i am quitting, but why i kept at it so long. why did you? thomas: why do they keep at it so long? there were a lot of things happening different from the way in most of the media. i enjoyed doing it, i enjoyed hearing back from people. i was sorry i never had a chance to reply to them all. -- i'm just going to ask you why you put this in the column and you can expand on it if you would like. havewn family did not electricity or running water in my childhood, which was not unusual for blacks in the south in those days." what you member about those days? remember a lot because i did not leave the south until i was a most nine years old. i spent a fair amount of time down there. most of those places, there was

not a lot of hot running water. we had cold water. many other blacks in those days did not have, by the way. sort of saying where i came from. >> you moved to harlem. what was that like? thomas: i lived with the same family that had raised me in north carolina. some members and donna ahead and had been in new york for a while. before we got here. fortunately for me, they ran into a boy named eddie. days, hesual in those came from a highly educated family. before i ever arrived in new york, they had decided that this was someone i needed to meet. they could tell me things that they themselves did not have the education to tell me. if this could help me in life. i myself was not by any means

looking ahead that way. thank heavens others were. andn: where is any today what did he do in his life? ironic.it is last year on my birthday, i received a card from him. he is a year old and i am. he went on to become the dean of one of the colleges. he is now retired, living in a very nice area. it was quite a pleasant surprise. really could have been had i not been introduced to him. i never would have been introduced to him except members of my family that were older sought immediately that this was someone who could be helpful to me. he and i never lived within a quarter-mile of each other. he was a year older so i would never have been in the same class with him in school.

he was able to tell me things that i did not know. for example, he took me to a public library for the first time in my life. i had no idea what a public library was. it was very dubious when i saw all those books and realized i didn't have enough my to buy one of them. he patiently explained it all to me. somewhatned reluctantly to take out a library card and are look up books. that was in honestly important. i began to acquire the habit of reading on my own. years before ever would've required in the normal course of events. brian: what kind of books were you interested in? thomas: i remember reading all the children's books, dr. doolittle, alice in wonderland, things like that. was i read andng

read and eventually got into the habit of reading. other kids from the same neighborhood where i grew up, the odds were against them ever meeting someone like eddie. others saw the significance. brian: how long did you live in harlem? was 20 years old the first time i moved out of harlem. then i came back for a couple years. the age ofhere from just before i was nine years old. brian: besides eddie, what impact did parliament your family experience have on you? thomas: i think a tremendous effect. i did not realize it at the time. older, i had a son of my own, like most first-time parents, i wanted to

know when is he supposed to do various things. i asked one of the surviving members of the family how old was i when i began to walk? tommy, nobodyh knows when he could walk. you are always been carried. i was an only child in a family of four dollars. whenever i got to be too much for one of them, they could always hand me off to somebody else. i remember one episode in particular that was recounted , ay times in later years family member took me to a movie. everything was fine. it was only when we got back and i saw the house where we lived, i picked up some rocks and started throwing them. i must been four years old. in later years, she would tell that story and just laugh. i was a little angel until he got back there.

thoughtlater years, i you could take that attitude when there is one child and for adult. if it is the other way around, one mother and four children, it wouldn't have been nearly as funny. mention youlways like to think things through before you write a book or write a column and you're not in any hurry to have those published. how about this final column? what kind of message did you want to leave at the end? thomas: i did to final ones. i don't think i took any longer with them. thoughts of not renewing my contract in some previous years. always told me at the very least, you can blow off steam when things happen in the world that you don't like. i was offcular time,

taking pictures in yosemite with some photographic buddies of mine for four days. in all that time, i never watched a television news program, we never read a newspaper. i thought this is the way to live. the only way to live this way is to stop writing the column so i don't have to be up-to-date on all the news. that is the biggest benefit. i'm watching the television program and some silliness and program -- in politics comes on, i can switch to the tennis channel or turner classic movies. very irn the thing off feel no obligation not to keep track of things like that. it certainly doesn't do my blood pressure any good. brian: sitting on the stanford campus, do you remember when you had your first solid political thought or idea?

thomas: oh yes. . was 10 years old it wasn't really my idea, it was what i had heard. will give was for the rich and fdr was for the poor. my first clinical activism was tearing down wendell wilkie posters in harlem. there weren't many posters in harlem so waste much time on that. brian: did you consider yourself a democrat? thomas: at that time i was a long way from voting age. most of my -- i was a registered democrat as late as spring 1972. since then i have not been a registered member of any party. that particular year i was disgusted with both candidates that i did not vote at all. neither of those candidates seem

to be as bad in retrospect as the two candidates we had last year. brian: let me go back to the column and ask about this paragraph. presidents -- you're talking about a president being overdue vinaigrette today. lying, johnsonf and republican richard nixon destroyed not only their own credibility, but the credibility the office itself once conferred. country, noto the just to the people holding that office in later years. consider both johnson and nixon presidencies as lying presidencies? thomas: nixon is the easiest one. he lied obviously about watergate. in retrospect, i think the fact

that nixon was so obviously lying, i regard that as almost a virtue. when you sign on television saying things that proved to be false, you would see him sweaty and so forth. it didn't take any great insight to know he was lined even before the evidence came out. with lyndon johnson, there were so many things. gulf ofs into this tonkin resolution, turned up to have been set by something that was completely overblown in order to give him power over the war. at a crucial time in that war, after the tet offensive, the media all said that this uprising of communist guerrillas in south vietnam would show that our policies have failed and that the commonest of one. it happened that later evidence from commonest leaders themselves was that the american

troops had wiped out the vietcong guerrillas and they were never a serious force thereafter. what came through the media was had the vietcong guerrillas succeeded and had inflicted terrible loss on americans and that the war was unwinnable. if the public thinks the war is unwinnable, that will in fact make it unwinnable. lynn johnson came on aaron told the truth -- came on air and told the truth, and yet he was not believed. all those in the media were putting forth what turned out to be completely false stories. therefore all 50,000 americans who lost their lives in vietnam, winning victory after victory, all of that went down the tubes because the president did not have credibility when he needed it. the impact has been

of the vietnam war and watergate years on this country? thomas: no question, a great cynicism about the republic. let it go back to john f. kennedy in 1962, the cuban missile crisis. i was never a big fan of president kennedy. in 1960.ry narrowly when he came on the air and told the russians put nuclear missiles 90 miles from the united states and he was taking us to the brink of nuclear war to stop them, i thought he is president, he has to do what he has to do. very tense time. i was teaching at the time and i remember when i was giving out the assignment for the students in class, i said the assignment is next week and i had to bite my tongue to keep from saying if there is a next week. confidence.kind of

i don't anybody raising a fuss. it could've been the death of millions. today, i don't think any president of the united states in the last 30 or 40 years could go on the air and do that and have the public find them. that is not a problem for him, that is a problem for the country if you have a president, he has to have the public support not for his sake but for the public's. brian: you never how you felt about watergate in the middle of it all? thomas: yes. someone was trying to get me to except a presidential appointment in the nixon administration. they asked me to send them my visa. i'm very aware, about what is coming up in watergate. at some point, i may find it necessary to criticize the

president of the united states. and the guy at the white house said to me -- tom, if we let that stop us, we would never get these jobs filled. brian: what did you do? thomas: i decided i didn't want the job anyway. brian: while you're on that, we have some video of you back in our talk in 2005. you are talking about an offer fordad in the administration. as people listen to this, they have to keep in mind when you're telling the story that there was a democratic senate at that time. let's listen to this and you will see what you said back in 2005. >> which president offered you the federal trade commission is job? thomas: president ford. brian: what were the circumstances? thomas: there was a vacancy, it was 1976 and they offered it to me.

if anyd to take it that obligation arises, they would let me know and i would withdraw. i kept calling and asking and the guy at the white house was not hearing anything. he said oh no, it is just taking time. eventually i was in washington so i went up to the hill and talked to the staffer. they're going over your record with a fine tooth comb. were not going to hold hearings. it is an election year. you will be appointed. was i asked if they had told the white house this, and they had told the white house months ago. brian: would you have taken the job had they cleared you in the senate? thomas: after learning this? brian: if the process had moved faster into agreed to go to the

federal trade commission. thomas: i would have reluctantly. in fact, the first time it was offered to me i said no. they came back again. in the meantime, someone i need you said you are always criticizing the federal trade commission. here's your chance to be one of the commissioners. .nd i thought i really should i would have taken it. it was not something i looked forward to. it meant moving. it did not mean any increase in pay but it did mean an increase in cost of living. many downsides for me personally. living upa matter of to what i have been saying, i was going to try it. job inyour first government was considerably earlier than that. what was it? in the i was a clerk general accounting office back in 1950. that was a big step up for me at the time. atan: that means they start

gs one and got to gs 18. why had you gone of the government and what impact did those years have on your thinking today? thomas: the year before or after? brian: afterwards. after you have experience working in the government. thomas: it was not habit-forming. there was a lot of doubledealing and stuff going on. before i was drafted and went into the marine corps. as i came out, i went back in it but now i realize i had the g.i. bill to back me up and that i was now going to try to go to college. i never regarded that is a career thing. it was just something i would do. that gave me a great deal of

freedom, because for one thing, back in those days, the general accounting office had a large unit that was essentially all black. it was presided over by a white woman from georgia. rules.d different other units, if you were late, you signed a t for tardy. in the unit i was in, if you were late, they docked you an hours annual leave and you had to sign for it. since i was planning to leave when the time is right, i was going to turn in my annual leave for money. i told them quite frankly that not only was i not going to sign, but if they took it without my signing, i would take the case to the civil service commission. they immediately realized that if i did that, all held would break loose.

the wonderful political compromise is they would let me sign it for tardy and everybody else had to sign for an hour's annual leave. i told the others, but they wouldn't believe me. many of them felt i must have some secret in. that was the way it was. the other thing was, the other career civil servants, they knew not to make waves. i really didn't care because i was not planning on being there that long. brian: did you ask anybody then why in the world they would have to separate -- two separate ideas about someone was late, why they would do one with the whites and one with the blacks? thomas: no. put a white woman from georgia in the 1950 in charge of a black unit, that is what you expect to happen. brian: talking about in your last word that you wrote, at

least in your column, creative services? thomas: creative syndicate. brian: you say the first column i ever wrote 39 years ago -- and you wrote this at the end of 2016 -- was titled the province of doom. this was before -- the prophets of doom. long before al gore made millions of dollars promoting global warming hysteria. back in 1970, the prevailing hysteria was the threat of a new ice age, promoted by some of the same environmentalists were promoting local warming hysteria today. thomas: it was published in the old washington star. it went out of business some years ago. hopefully not as a result of my column. "pink and book called people" of my columns

published by the hoover institution in the 1980's. it is in there. whether that book is still in print, i don't know. brian: when you wrote your last column, did you go back and read it? thomas: no, i did not. i remember and this was my first column that i had no thought when i would be writing regularly. the washington star had a feature where ordinary readers could write in and send in a column. that was the first time i ever tried it. they published it as i wrote it. that was the beginning. brian: your undergraduate degree was from what school? thomas: harvard. brian: you started at howard and then went to harvard? thomas: that is right. brian: your masters degrees from columbia? thomas: yes. brian: and your phd at chicago. what was your dissertation about? called phase law. i wrote a very expanded version

of that dissertation as a book published by princeton university press. brian: i counted the number of opportunities to buy something with your name on it. i think i stopped at 57. i know those are all kinds of things including essays. how many actual books have you completed since you started writing them? know, i have been asked that question and i have never actually counted them. booksare original books, that are collections of previous writing, and so on. i have never really tried to keep track. it is a few dozen. brian: at this point, which one of all those books sold the most? thomas: basic economics. it sells the most, it has been translated into seven or eight languages. brian: what would you say would

be the most important thing -- i know this is a simple question -- post important thing or things that people who read that book will learn? thomas: that is tough. i guess they will learn what economics is all about, which is more than just the sum of the topics. in the first chapter, i point out economics, i really elaborate on a definition of the london school of economics, that it is the study of scarce resources which have alternative uses. in other words, there were no economics in the garden of the. everything was available. in unlimited qualities. -- quantities. economics or otherwise, too many people do not begin by saying what are the inherent constraints of a situation we are talking about? they are gones if

on the first day of creation and can follow whatever policy seems best. when each of us enters a world that is already completely elaborated and complex before we ever got here, you make your decision within that context. if you don't think of it that way, you can have all sorts of utopian notions. fromne obvious example, time to time people complain george washington, thomas jefferson condoned slavery. there for centuries before george washington and thomas jefferson were ever born. neither of them thought the office of the presidency had any power to do anything about it. lincoln was able to do something about it because he did so not simply as president but as the commander in chief in a war. what he did apply only to people

who were in rebellion against the united states. there was no basis otherwise. ofyou can't think in terms the things confronting the people who made the decisions, nothing is easier than to sit there today and say this should have been done, that should have been done. that is not taking the past as it was. it is the seeing the past as if is just the present taking place at an earlier time and that is not the case. brian: when yale university took the name john calhoun off of one of their buildings, what was your reaction? thomas: oh my gosh. by this time, i had given up all hope for the academic world. practically nothing surprises me anymore. if we are again look retrospectively, for whatever reason the name was put on there, it was there. i don't know if anything has happened since then to make

calhoun better or worse than he was when that decision was made. back, ife going to go you are so desperate you have to go back into history and find it, that really says something. brian: we talk about the impact of vietnam and watergate on the country. what about the impact of slavery on the country? thomas: great. in any a number of ways. the question is -- the thing that always gets me is that the past, whatever it is, good, bad, it is irrevocable. the only thing we have any influence over our the present in the future. pained we do -- i was so to learn that apparently angela merkel in germany saw the need to take in these refugees in order to help germany live down the terrible record of hitler's. nothing is ever going to change what hitler's did. nothing.

all you can do is do things that are going to have an effect in the present and the future. the effects her policy are having in the present have been disastrous. there is no reason to believe they will be any less disastrous in the future. andn: i want to go back look at some video of you in 1987 testifying before the united states senate judiciary committee about robert bork. thomas: this may be the most important supreme court nomination of our time. not simply because the present court is so closely divided, or even because judge bork is the most highly qualified nominee of this generation, but because this is an historic crossroads as we guard the expanding power of judges, which is to say the erosion of people's rights to govern themselves brian: why did you testify there

and what impact did the rejection of robert bork have on the judiciary over the years? thomas: i testify because of the gross distortions that were coming out. i would listen to the congressional hearing and i would hear how bork was at least a racially insensitive or opposed civil rights and so forth. then i would go to the stanford law library and check out his record before he became a judge. , discovered in those files weres filed by judge bork repeatedly on the side of civil rights activist.

i was only familiar with his record because i often read things you wrote about antitrust law, brilliant things. and enormously intelligent man, a decent man and all sorts of other filth was brought up. for example, that he worked for because moneyns was more important to him. bork was an academic, it is not an enterprise to get rich quick. at the particular time he went to work at a high salary in business, his wife was dying of cancer and he wanted to have the money to make her last days as comfortable as he possibly could. for that to be turned into a cheap political charge was truly despicable. , the difference of one man on a supreme court that is divided is enormous.

every time i read an opinion by justice anthony kennedy that is wishy-washy and incoherent in some cases, i think that is the price of defeating judge bork. he was sent in to replace him. brian: what is your take on the supreme court today as an institution after all these years? thomas: it is very dicey. what is dicey are the freedoms that depend on whether the court can enforce the constitution or go on their own social adventures. i think the greatest disappointment with this court was chief justice roberts disregarding the 10th amendment and finding a terribly clever way of evading it and declaring obamacare constitutional. the 10th amendment says the government has only such powers,

the federal government has only as are specifically designated to it, and all other powers belong to state governments or the people themselves. there is no power for the federal government to tell people what kind of medical insurance they have to buy even if they prefer something else. i have no idea what terribly clever reasons the chief justice might have had. once you knock down the 10th amendment, there is nothing the government cannot order us to do. clip. here is another we talked in palo alto in 2005, it is a very brief. i want you to give us your reaction to what you said then. [video clip] on thethe impact of 9/11 country in the world. thomas: we will never be the

same again. i'm disappointed in people who realize it is not business as usual anymore. there are things we need to do that we do not want to do but the alternator -- alternative is far worse. brian: what would you say today to the same question? thomas: i think it would give the same answer. the previous administration gave iran the go-ahead to develop nuclear weapons and iran is testing intercontinental missiles. the thing they're supposed to be preparing to do is attack israel. israel is closer to iran than boston is to denver. you don't need intercontinental missiles to attack israel. you need intercontinental missiles to attack people on

another continent. it is not a great mystery who would likely be the target if they ever decided to go that route. i think right now, we are doing what was done by the western powers in the 1930's when hillary was building his war machine geared your going day today and taking the easy path and avoiding the hard problems on the assumptions you will muddle through. close to noty muddling through. france was conquered during world war ii. columns, it recent may have been one of the last ones, i suggested the people who want to understand what is happening in the world today should read a book called "the gathering storm," it is not about today but the 1930's. when you see the kind of

the face offting in fatal dangers, you understand the thinking that is going on, or the lack of thinking going on as we are approaching the kind of dangers we're facing now, which are far worse. most people don't understand that for the first three years of world war ii, the western powers never won a single battle. literally, either in europe or asia. they were beaten time and again had gotten pacifists their way in the 1930's and prevented an adequate buildup of -- fory forces, for with which men paid for with their lives. at some point, the west learned their lesson. began aed states progressive capacity. they were able to defeat the nazis and later the japanese.

thatre not going to have time in a nuclear war, you will not have three years to be beaten and come back. we will be lucky if we have one year. storm" was gathering written by winston churchill. is there anybody today in your opinion beside what you just suggesting we ought to be concerned with the gathering storm? thomas: you mean people with an official position? brian: yes. thomas: not that i have noticed. you don't get two winston churchill's in the same century. would have been the closest and he is gone. you have to look at the inherent constraints and which with you are operating. when the soviets started

building up nuclear weapons in respondedrope, reagan by sending an american nuclear weapons in western europe, people were horrified and said he was going to get them into a war and we would be annihilated. fortunately he disregarded them completely. instead of getting us into a war, he brought the cold war to an end. people lived through the cold war with the fear of nuclear annihilation hanging over us all that time. people don't know what a feat that was. he did it without firing a single shot at the soviet union. i don't think he was ever considered for a peace prize. prizen't get nobel peace for having produced piece, you get one for saying the kind of things the people on the committee think will promote peace. , suchhough those things

said inle chamberlain the 1930's, have led to war. been: since you have retired from writing your column, how closely have you paid attention to what is going on in this country and the world? thomas: not nearly as closely as before. encouraging. truly i won't say that. i think the new administration in washington has some very good people, better than i think most recent administrations have had in top positions. the only question is whether the president listens to them. that we won't know until a lot more time has passed. brian: i want to completely change what we are talking about the something you seem to enjoy and is important to you, as you mentioned when you took your four days off and went to yosemite and did your

photography. how long have you been a photographer? you have this on your website. how long have you been doing photography? thomas: i took my first picture in 1950. when the results came back from the drugstore, i was hooked from that point on. previously i had been thinking about becoming an artist, i used to do a lot of sketching and so forth. of design and art and so on. when i was in the marine corps, the marines took me to the navy photography school in pensacola. there i got professional training in the 1970's. when i got out and went away to i worked for the university news office as a photographer to help pay the bills. it was the perfect job because

it was something i could do whenever i had the time. not just the taking of pictures, that when the photographer and he always had more negatives than time to print them. if i happened to be awake at 2:00 a.m., i could go into the news office, let myself in and print the negatives he had sitting on his desk and leave it on the desk for him and tell him my time so i could be paid. it was a great job. brian: for the audience, i can see you but you can't see me and you won't be able to see these photographs, but i want to throw one on the screen. i know you have a list. the first one i think is yosemite. is that el capitan? thomas: that is el capitan. it was taken with a four by five linhoff camera.

brian: when did you take that? thomas: i don't remember, but it was before i went digital, so probably toward the end of the 1900s. brian: the next image is a waterfall. -- do you member that remember that? thomas: i think it is lower yellowstone falls in yellowstone national park. brian: it is black and white. thomas: then it was not yellowstone. i know, that would be yosemite falls in the winter, i believe. i think there was snow on the ground. of yourow much photography is black and white and color? do you like black and white or color when you are doing your photography? thomas: i like both, but when i was doing som, most of it was

black and white. now that i am digital, most of it is color. color film can be very delicate. when i would travel with color film, i had to keep it in a cooler that i plugged in into the car. will change if you let the film set in the warm weather. fortunately with digital, it does not make a difference. the third photo is a young lady sitting on a chair. about three or four years old. do we know who that is? thomas: i know, but i am not going to mention the name. now a retired lady. brian: when did you take this picture? thomas: back in the 1950's. i believe, i am almost certain, it was before -- no, it was probably after i went into the marine corps.

i remember the camera i took it with, it was a push pressman -- bush pressman. it was in the 1950's. brian: is it any of calculating, i don't need to know the dollar amount, but you have -- have you spent a lot of money on photography? has it been an expensive hobby? thomas: it is really my only extravagance. i am not into clothes or luxuries. my wife does not wear jewelry. i will say, when i finally decided to go completely digital and sold my equipment to a local camera store, they paid me over $10,000 for what was at the time used equipment, some of it obsolete. so i must've spent an awful lot more than that. brian: here is a photograph of kids playing on the beach in the water.

thomas: oh yes. that is the santa monica beach in southern california. lensamera was a twin reflex. boardwalk,bly on the the santa monica boardwalk looking down at them. brian: what have you done with all of your photographs? do you catalogued them all, are you going to give them the somebody? no, i have negatives, i have a few that are prints. the ones i really like i have hanging on the walls in my home. negatives, a tremendous number. my first negative in my file was taken in 1948 of people getting the white house when truman was president. brian: over the years, how many

different kinds of cameras have you used? gosh.: oh my at one time i had a dozen cameras simultaneously. today i struggle along with the just six. brian: what kind of cameras now? thomas: i do most of my pictures , and i nikon d3 x have a couple of sony cameras and a couple of other miscellaneous. brian: here is a photograph of a beretman painting with a on and a cigar here at where is that? thomas: british village, 1952, locord. camera was a ro brian: we take a picture like this, do you have to get

permission to use it? thomas: i hope not, i didn't get his permission. brian: [laughter] this picture looks like niagara falls. how did you get this picture? thomas: from a helicopter. helicopter charted a , but in this case there was an existingg -- helicopter service. i got on instantly shot out the window. brian: have you sold any of your photographs? thomas: not really. there was a picture i took of a lady who was an academic, and someone did some kind of feature about her and they requested a copy of the photograph. i had given it to the lady in question, and when they interviewed were they asked if they could use it, i said go ahead. i put one on the cover of a book of mine.

unfortunately, that book was out-of-print inside a year. it got very little exposure. then: a photograph of golden gate bridge and cars. how did you get this photograph? thomas: there is an observation area near the golden gate bridge. d3-x, and i had a telephoto and i use that to take that picture. brian: what are you looking for when you take photography? thomas: something that makes an interesting scene straight when i see it, essentially take it. sometimes i preplan by looking through old pictures of looking at yellowstone national park, i looked before i went there. i thought to myself, i could take it better than that.

when i went there, i set it up and i think i did take a better picture than that. my wife tells me i was there for two hours. along aely she brought large book to read as she does on these occasions. i was amazed when she said it hours, because i took pictures from every conceivable position with every conceivable camera. brian: how long have you been married and where did you meet your wife? thomas: i have been married 36 years and i like to say that i got my wife is of affirmative action. written an article about affirmative action, which she alto, and she complained to a mutual friend that she really objected to what i had said and thought i was wrong. in he said, he is right here

palo alto, why don't you get together for lunch and work out your differences. we got together for lunch and we still have not worked out our differences, but things took a turn in a different direction. brian: does she agree with you politically at all? butas: on a lot of things, no wives and husbands agree on all things. brian: what would be your advice after all these years of marriage when you don't have the exact political views? thomas: i am not one of those that becausehink someone did something differently than you. nowadays, people think the fact that they disagree with someone and reason to create a riot latest property, the among a number of similar incidents across the country. brian: we have an aerial view of

stanford university right where you are right now. where were you when you took this picture? thomas: in a helicopter i had charted. we simply flew over the campus and i took the pictures. brian: after all -- thomas: obviously a handheld camera. brian: the tower we see is the hoover institution. thomas: it is. brian: you have been there how long? is, my since 1980, which heavens. brian: about 36 years. how has stamford changed since you've been on the -- stanford changed since you've been on the campus? thomas: i am one of the least informed on what is going on on the campus.

i never planned to teach again, and the hoover institution was becauseect place for me of a loving to do the work i wanted to do, research and writing and so on, and had nothing to do with the rest of the campus. that has been my policy the entire time i have been here. it has been the happiest and most productive part of my career. brian: there is something, i wondered if you were aware of this, there is something on @thomassowell that you did not start. not thomas sowe

ll, but i will tweet out quotes from him. he has over 87,000 followers reading your work. here is one that just says "most people that read the communist manifesto probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who never had worked a day in their lives and nevertheless spoke boldly in the the workers. similar offspring of inherited wealth have repeatedly provided the leadership of radical movements with similar pretenses of speaking for the people." was that your book on marx? thomas: no, i don't think i would've put things like that in that particular book. brian: were you ever a marxist? thomas: oh yes, in my 20's. fortunately, unlike today's left, i never felt that i had to what people with

different views of thought. years as amy marxist, i read everything across the political spectrum. i have to this day a book on burke that i read when i was an undergraduate at harvard and i treasure that book. i could tell even then. i understood there were reasons people have different views, i see that even today. not just a question of being on the side of the angels against the forces of evil. brian: here is another tweet. "racism is not dead but it is on life support, kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as racists." i think there are a lot of people who would be gratified if the subject of race

vanished in thin air because they are sick of hearing about it. there are people for whom this is a very lucrative's nest. littleazed that so attention is paid to the fact that al sharpton owes the federal government millions of dollars in taxes. you don't owe millions of dollars in taxes unless you have made millions of dollars in income. the question is, how did this man give in the position to make millions of dollars other than by race hustling? brian: one more tweet. "you will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats, procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing. if you have been living in a world where outcomes are everything, you may have a hard time understanding bureaucratic thinking or practices." sometimes myi know wife is been amazed by the foolish things done in

government. if you understand bureaucracy, it makes perfect sense. i turned mygo, expenses over to the university for reimbursement for a trip. no one questioned the major expenditures, but someone decided i should not be reimbursed for the collision damage cost of renting a car from an agency because stanford has a clause that it covers that and so on. i was so outraged i went to the head of the hoover institution and he had better things to do than this. he gave me a midyear raise in the amount of the collision damage. [laughter] but those people who did that never asked, why was i there for days for this event?

i had a lot of other research. there is no need to say that. as long as they have paper, they are happy. they seize upon these little things that are utterly inconsequential. they let everything else go by. brian: you are not that far away from your 87th birthday. for theyou intend to do rest of your life, what do you want to accomplish? what is your bucket list? would be happy if i can finish up all of the things i have currently going, which would be quite a project. right now, i have already finished up the third edition of my book "wealth, poverty and politics." my assistants have been so busy they have not had a chance to work on that and put it into press. brian: you have a book coming

out soon? thomas: not soon. i don't even have a timetable because i find the easiest way to work is to not tell anyone, not even my agent, what i am working on. when it is all finished, i said that the finished manuscript to my agent and leave it with her. she knows to call me back when she has an offer. brian: our guest has been talk ll.-- dr. thomas sowe there is a lot to read if people are interested in reading a lot of your work. we thank you very much for joining us. thomas: thank you for having me. ♪

>> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q and a.org. programs are also available as c-span podcasts. if you enjoyed this week's "q&a" interview, here are some other programs you might like. sowe005 interview with mr. ll. george mason university economics professor walter williams talking about his life and libertarian views. and conservative radio talk show host mark will then -- mark levin. you can watch these anytime or search our entire video library

at c-span.org. >> c-span's "washington journal," live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, washington examiner white house correspondent and the hills reporter talk about the failed health care bill. be sure to watch "washington monday morning. join the discussion. >> next, british prime minister theresa may takes questions from members of the house of commons. after that, we will show her remarks and those of foreign secretary forced johnson on the terror attack outside parliament. and at 11:00 p.m., another

chance to see "q&a" with thomas sowell. ministerh prime theresa may took questions this week on school funding, cuts to the national health service and reparations to officially withdraw from the european union. place hours took before the terror attack outside parliament that claimed the lives of four people. after this, we will have the prime minister's statement on that attack. this is 45 minutes. with because they are located in one single place. >> order. he questions to the prime minister. john mann. the prime minister. >> thank you, mr. speaker. and i would like to press my condolences family and colleagues of former deputy