What intellectuals perpetuate has powerful ramifications on social issues, as stated in the introduction. Sowell demands an empirical investigation of the claims of those in academia and the media, who he labels as "intellectuals." Who portray disparities as inequities due to discrimination, making millions of young Americans believe that Capitalism and the American founding are engines of prejudice solely against black and brown Americans.

He says “Because intellectual assumptions about these disparities are so deeply ingrained, so widely disseminated, and have such powerful ramifications on so many issues, it is worth taking a closer and longer look at the facts of the real world, now and in the past” (page 8).

Thomas Sowell claims that intellectuals are using the legal system to lead this vanguard of social justice warriors, who switch the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused in legal proceedings. In other words, the accused needs to prove their innocence rather than the accuser proving the guilt of the accused. This translates to America needing to prove her innocence against the claims from the social justice warriors that she is systemically discriminatory against black Americans. This is how the conversation about race can become just as emotional as it is intellectual. Therefore it is necessary that claims of economic distribution be compartmentalized into a series of hypothesis and empirical evaluations to avoid getting emotionally derailed in these conversations.

Sowell gives examples of minorities dominating entire industries or occupations over the majority population in foreign countries.

· Greeks and Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

· Germans in Brazil

· Lebanese in West Africa

· Chinese in Malaysia

· Jews in Poland

· Spaniards in Chile

· Britons in Argentina

· Belgians in Russia

· Tamil in Ceylon

· Italians in the United States

Historically foreign minorities show the potential of ‘outperform[ing]’ the majority in countries. The question then arises, can discrimination be the causal factor that elevated minorities to dominate entire industries in foreign countries? If history shows that minorities can become prosperous is foreign countries, why do intellectuals persist that America suppresses minorities to be economically and academically irrelevant? Is a lack of domination due to discrimination or a set of adopted counterproductive beliefs?

Sowell goes on to display how “[a]t various times and places, foreign minorities have predominated in particular industries or occupations over the majority populations in:

· Peru

· Switzerland

· Malaysia

· Argentina

· Russia

· Balkans

· The Middle East

· And Southeast Asia.

Sowell then asks the question: Does no discrimination prevent the acquisition of skills, experience, and knowledge? There are examples of economic development based on geographical locations, not race, that demonstrate the causes and effects of economic disparities on an international context. Sowell shows that geographic location limits the types of skills and knowledge a people group would have since knowledge and skills is based on what type of resources are available to be learned, developed, and exported. If a geographical setting lacked certain resources, that people group lagged in development. If those people remained isolated in those areas, they would not become as developed in other countries where the resources offered prosperity to those who worked on them. Intellectual capacity does not differentiate one people group from another as much as the circumstances that allowed those faculties to interact with the resources available in their geographic locations. Horses and oxen were not available for farming and battle to the people in the Western Hemisphere, like they were in Asia and Europe for example.

Sowell gives an example of countries whose geography and culture prevented them from advancing at the same rate as other countries. Sowell points to the dearth of resources in Sub-Sahara Africa which caused the natives to be underdeveloped compared to their Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Babylonian and Nordic counterparts, such as:

· Soil deficiencies

· Unreliable rainfall patterns

· Restrictions on communications between cities and tribes (Sowell points out that the Sub-Saharan African demographics made up 10% of the world’s population but 30% of its different languages, noting the tension and division among the tribes, further degenerating economic advancements)

· Dearth of navigable waterways

· Lack of natural harbors

· Difficulties of maintaining draft animals because of animal diseases

· Barrier of the Sahara Desert kept Africans isolated from other countries (Sowell notes that the sand of the desert can account for 48 States in America)

Eastern Europeans, Caucasians of the Canary Islands, and Australia’s Aboriginals were also lagged behind with low standards of civilization compared to their neighbors, having more economic disparities between them than any kind of disparity that can be found in the United States today. The economic disparities between Western and Eastern Europe still outweigh the economic disparities between whites and blacks in America today. Geography and history present economic disparities, not just discrimination and genetics.

Geographic demographics and cultural differences will produce inequalities in people groups, classes, and other subdivisions of people.

The capabilities and developments of seafaring, fishing, agriculture, and the industrial revolution could only happen in certain geographical areas, perpetuating inequalities of advancement and economic disparities that are not racially motivated. Sowell explicitly states on page 15 that “the point here is that geography alone is enough to prevent equality of developed capabilities, even if all races have identical potentialities and there is no discrimination.” Basically, geography, culture, and demographics will hinder equality of outcomes.

Sowell highlights the fact that for every claim made by intellectuals that disparities are the result of discrimination, there are as many, if not more, deprivations of meeting the burden of proof for those accusations, lacking the intellectual force of justification. Sowell calls for the intellectuals to meet the burden of proof of their claims. He points out that “intellectuals” cut intellectual corners of meeting the lawful standards of justification for their claims, circumventing intellectual reason itself by creating ‘abstract people in an abstract world’ (page 19).

Here are the hypotheses and empirical evaluations that need to meet the burden of proof against “society’s” guilt. If the world’s geography and innate resources are not “socially constructed,” how can all disparities be a violation of “social justice” when economic advancements are relatively based on geography? How can underdeveloped minorities advance themselves to dominate industries and outperform majorities in foreign countries? Are disparities always a sign of discrimination? If so how could minorities go to foreign countries and arrange the foreign policies to discriminate against the majority, which lead up the disparities of minorities owning, dominating, and outperforming native born peoples? If discrimination is not the sole factor in motivating individuals to advance themselves, what is?