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Published in 1999, Thomas Sowell’s The Quest for Cosmic Justice is simultaneously brilliant, well-reasoned, and thought-provoking. In four parts he describes the quest of those whom he calls “self-anointed” for seeking to right the cosmos through social policy. In an interview about his book, he describes the difference between “cosmic justice” and “traditional justice”:
Traditional justice, at least in the American tradition, involves treating people the same, holding them to the same standards and having them play by the same rules. Cosmic justice tries to make their prospects equal.
The vision of those to enact cosmic justice, says Sowell, is to “make the entire cosmos right and just,” which consequently means that “somebody has got to have an awful lot of power to impose what they think is right on an awful lot of other people.”
I strongly recommend this book. Most refreshing is the absence of political rhetoric in making his arguments, so it is not off-putting for a reader on either side of the current political divide. His tenor is polite and respectful, yet is clear and unequivocal concerning facts related to the issues to which he is speaking.
