索维尔的书到现在看过四本，这本无论从深度还是广度都是最好的一本。讨论知识在现代社会的传播方式以及因此所带来的局限，尤其警告了美国跟西方社会中所谓知识精英对话语权与政策制定权的把持所造成的种种反民主趋势。

索维尔代表作，后来屡屡对“不平等”认识误区的揭露和对自我陶醉的“良心”知识分子的批判已经浮现，但即便略去这些论战性质的内容，依然是本伟大且不过时的介于纯学术和大众图书之间的社会科学著作。（不少经济学家说受到本书巨大影响。甚至从书名即可看出索著堪称其作品续写的前辈哈耶克，读后写书评认为这是“多年来最好的综合性经济学著作”。https://douc.cc/30dQdM ）无论所谓“社会”有何伦理判断，若有人主张将决策权从有 skin in the game 也会相互磨合的当事人手中，提至更高的政治、法规层面，封闭一部分原本双方可及的决策范围或选项，总是有必要问，既然第三方决策者得不到即时、切身的反馈进而缺少在地、默会知识，这么做会造成什么负面后果？（猜估此书删掉两三千汉字的敏感内容后应可引进。）

第三本六星书，哈哈。耗时3个月，读了三遍。这是迄今为止读过索维尔书中知识密度最大的一本

decision costs and trade-offs in economy, law and politics ; pro laissez-faire and decision dissemination

这本书太厚了终于啃完了 前半部分对于决策和成本的论述十分到位 颇有启发 后半分对于政治和法律的决策论述实在不是我感兴趣的部分 很快翻过 可惜没有对于经济学的决策的更详细论述 如果不是特别对法律 政治感兴趣读读前半部分即可

作为知识分子很难得去触碰“到底这么多知识经不经济”的问题

花了二十天时间，新年读完的第一本书。

“平庸化”不是原书表述，这里起用是因其相对中性。索维尔谈及的组织在不同视角看来可能是“好”的或“坏”的。无论好坏，组织建立后都趋向于变得缓和起来。索维尔提到的一个例子更完整的轨迹是：为了意识形态理...

最近看德国史更新了一个思路，打破了以往对现代主义的好感：过度追求秩序/一致性属于浪漫主义行为，非理性浪漫很土。 用Thomas Sowell的话讲：没有免费的团结，有的团结比别的团结路费更贵，帐更难平。

这里很好地解释了对于商业新闻，为啥 “去两头，取中间，谁在中间就骂谁”的评论广受欢迎，如 https://m.weibo.cn/2382064902/4583946212083810 physical fallacy: - 观念：认为商品基于其物理特性有客观固定的价...

A capitalist system, especially when it is actively defending itself, may offer few direct personal benefit for being a socialist and may impose various costs, ranging from social disapproval to ja...

Chapter 4 Social Trade-Offs The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic pr...

THE MEANING OF "KNOWING" Science and technology lead to far more complexity in producing cameras and film today, but that growing complexity among a handful of technicians permits far more simpicit...

In short, the degree of authentication of knowledge may be lower in the "higher" intellectual levels and much higher in those areas which intellectuals choose choose to regard as "lower."(9) …that...

We need to consider not only how much we know, but how well we know it.(8) Still, because we act, we must decide, and how decisively we can act depends on how well we know the consequences.(9)

Civilization is an enormous device for economizing on knowledge. The time and effort (including costly mistakes) necessary to acquire knowledge are minimized through specialization, which is to say...

What is more readily established is that the kinds of knowledge possessed by the average inhabitant of the primitive and the modern world are very different, and that each would be at considerable ...

It is widely believed that modern society has a larger quantity of knowledge than more primitive societies, that this quantity of knowledge is growing, and that the knowledge "required" for the ave...

IDEAS The important point here is simply to distinguish such systematic authentication procedures from decisions based on consensus, emotions, or traditions. The crucial distinction is one of proce...

Those convinced that they have "the answer" on whatever economic, legal, social, or other issues are the preoccupation of the moment are of course impatient with questions about institutional proce...

#对经济学家哈耶克高度肯定的评价。# The intellectual debt I acknowledged to Professor Friedrich Hayek in the first edition of Knowledge and Decisions must be repeated here. He was one of those peopl...

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION The unifying theme of Knowledge and Decisions is that the specific mechanics of decision-making processes and institutions determine what kinds of knowledge can be brought to...

#接下为对美国历史的回顾，主要从1930年美国政府对经济担责，到80年代结束，以及全世界政府包办经济的逐渐崩溃。 What is happened politically since 1980 is perhaps the end of the beginning of a worldwide ...

While these various kinds of ideas are conceptually different, in reality a given notion may evolve or metamorphose through several of these states.

POLITICAL TRENDS The strongly pessimistic tone of the last chapter of Knowledge and Decisions in 1980 can now be moderated by subsequent experience——a feedback mechanism very appropriate to this ...

While political plans and schemes for overriding Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. ——British Prime Minister Winston C...

COSTS AND VALUES In other words,while an individual or an economy may appear at first to be weighing the subjective value of a good against its objective cost, ultimately what is being weighed is t...

Value being ultimately subjective, it varies not only from person to person but from time to time with the same person, and varies also accorrding to how much of the given good he already has.(51)

POLITICAL TRENDS The political role of intellectuals in particular remains very much what it was in 1980, including "the totalitarian thrust of the intellectual vision," while "the rampaging persum...

COSTS AND VALUES Although neither value nor efficiency is wholly objective, the idea that they are dies hard. Denunciations of "inefficiency" and "waste" are often nothing more than statements of a...

Once it is clear that an economy--any kind of economy--is basically a system of rationing inadequate supplies, and a system of incremental substitutions, the concept of "cost" assumes a new signifi...

COSTS AND INCREMENTAL SUBSTITUTION In World War II, we transformed our automobiles and refrigerators into tanks and airplanes by this very process of redirecting resource inputs into other product ...

Substitution takes place in production as well as consumption. Again, substitutes need not be perfect substitutes. Through substitution, an economy--in effect--transform one product into another by...

When people casually speak of "the" cost of producing something, they usually mean the average cost--that is, the total cost of running the enterprise divided by the number of units of output it pr...

Given the inherent factor of scarcity, any kind of economy tries to maximize the output from its given inputs--or, in other words, to get the most value for its costs.(49)

More complex operations obviously involve more complex knowledge---often far more complex than any given individual can master.(48)

More pervasively than is generally appreciated, economic transactions are purchases and sales of knowledge.(47)

Although we speak loosely of "production," man neither creates nor destorys matter, but only transforms it––and the knowledge of how to make these transformations is a key economic factor.  (47)

There are as many different way of doing this, as there are different economic systems. All of these involve the use of knowledge, and how effectively that knowledge is used is crucial.(47)

Even among contemporary nations, differences in their economic conditions are often far more related to   differences in their technological and organizational knowledge than to their respective en...

When economics is mentioned, many people think of money, and in fact the word "resources" is often used simply as a genteel synonym for money. But in reality, a nation's economic success is far mor...

IDEAS After we begin with such a vision, we may proceeed to systematically determine that if this vision is correct, then certain empirical consequences will be observable under the proper conditio...

TRENDS IN THE LAW One measure of how far the general public's sense of the law has changed over the years is that much editorial discussion of the Lopez decision focused on whether it was a good id...

ECONOMIC TRENDS TRENDS IN THE LAW More fundamentally, the validity of a test, or any other criterion, is an empirical question, not a question of plausiblility to observers.(19)

What is crucial is how these decisions have changed the locus of decision-making and what that implies.(19)

Knowledge and Decisions was published some month before Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States. His eight year in office were marked by both by changing economic conditions in the...

托马斯·索维尔(Thomas Sowell)是一位美国经济学家、经济史学家和社会理论家。他通过广泛出版的评论文章和书籍，以及作为电视和广播节目的嘉宾，作为一位杰出的黑人保守派，在美国保守主义运动中拥有广泛的知名度。他是胡佛研究所的高级研究员，并于2002年获得了乔治·W·布什...

《知识与决策》/《Knowledge and Decisions》深度解析

金如玉002 天书奇谈：王建宙《Knowledge AND Decisions》 国破山河在，城春草木深。 感时花溅泪，恨别鸟惊心。 小女子，金如玉，借杜甫《春望》表一表中国3G牌照的故事。 谁能想到中国发个3G牌照比《爱情呼叫转移2》里的林嘉欣领结婚证都难，比奥巴马黑人当美国总统还惹麻烦。 ...

天书奇谈：王建宙《Knowledge AND Decisions》

这本书最尖锐的地方，不在于它告诉你'知识很重要'，而在于它逼你承认：现代社会里，真正掌握一手经验的人，恰恰是制定决策的人之外的人。索维尔用大量具体案例说明，当政策越来越由'坐在办公室里的人'依据抽象理念而非现场知识来拍板时，普通人的实际知识便被悄悄替换成了精英的假设——这看似高效，实则悄悄侵蚀着自由。它不是经济学教科书，也非政治宣传册，而是一部介于学术与大众之间的'决策社会学'：从经济、法律到政治，层层拆解'谁有权决定、凭什么决定'。适合那些对'专家治国'保持警惕、想看清权力如何借知识之名运作的读者。