Thomas Sowell Despises Democracy And Supports Imperialism

I quote:

"when another famine struck India in the nineteenth century, now under the colonial rule of British officials and during the heyday of free market economics, opposite policies were followed, with opposite results:

'In the earlier famine one could hardly engage in the grain trade without becoming amenable to the law. In 1866 respectable men in vast numbers went into the trade; for the Government, by publishing weekly returns of the rates in every district, rendered the traffic both easy and safe. Everyone knew where to buy grain cheapest and where to sell it dearest and food was accordingly bought from the districts which most urgently needed it.'

All elementary as this may seem, in terms of economic principles, it was made possible politically only because the British colonial government was not accountable to local public opinion." -- Thomas Sowell. 2011. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, fourth edition. p. 64-65

The ‘Nobel’ laureate Amartya Sen has a very different view of famines. Naturally, Sowell does not tell the student that or even who he is quoting. I think Sowell is quoting W. W. Hunter, The Annals of Rural Bengal: Vol. I. The Ethnical Frontier of Lower Bengal, with the Ancient Principalities of Beerbhoom and Bishenpore (1868). The Irish, too, might have a view on how the English handled famines outside England.

Here is an old interview in which Sowell says that third world countries that were lucky enough to be colonized by European powers have better prospect of development.

I do not expect to like Basic Economics. It has no math, no graphs, and no charts. I may not appreciate where he explains things that others would describe with functions - e.g., supply and demand.