Today, Thomas Sowell joins Uncommon Knowledge to discuss charter schools and the state of American education; Andrew Roberts examines the rise of historical falsehoods concerning Winston Churchill; and Lanhee Chen explains how to fix California’s boom-and-bust budgetary challenges.
Reforming Education
In a new and special episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Distinguished Policy Fellow Peter M. Robinson speaks with Senior Fellow Thomas Sowell about his critiques of American education, affirmative action, and modern universities, drawing on his own life story, decades of research, and hard data. Sowell argues that the promulgation of ideology has replaced the transmission of knowledge and that well-intentioned policies often harm the very people they are meant to help. Throughout the conversation, the legendary economist explores intersecting issues of race, charter schools, universities, AI, and the future of American institutions—with his usual clarity, candor, and unmistakable intellectual force. Watch or listen here.
Revitalizing History
Distinguished Visiting Fellow Andrew Roberts writes at Law & Liberty about the worrying rise of revisionist scholarship on World War II—particularly the attempt to cast Adolf Hitler as a redeemable figure and Winston Churchill as “an evil warmonger who put his own career above the well-being of Western civilization.” Roberts says, “[British columnist] Douglas Murray has rightly observed that these ‘attempts to downplay Hitler and do down Churchill’ are ‘playing with really dark and ugly stuff.’” Roberts’s essay rebuts the claim that Churchill entered the war in error or for his own political purposes and notes various factual errors and historical inconsistencies in the arguments of the new revisionists. As he concludes, Churchill’s “deciding to fight on against Adolf Hitler was not some kind of strategic error, but the best decision he ever made, for which we all owe him our freedom.” Read more here.
California Policy & Politics
In an opinion column for the Los Angeles Times, Research Fellow Lanhee J. Chen argues that while “California’s leaders deserve their fair share of the blame” for projected upcoming budget deficits, “there are three underlying factors that make effective fiscal management in California uniquely challenging: an overreliance on the state’s personal income tax; mandatory spending commitments that limit policymakers’ discretion to address challenges; and a lack of accountability for the taxpayer money that is spent.” Chen makes the case that “California has an outdated tax system” with an “outsize role” for income and capital gains taxes, which fluctuate with market and employment conditions. Additionally, Chen shows how California’s lack of financial accountability creates “confusion over how much it’s really spending, or whether that money is achieving its intended purpose.” Read more here. [Subscription required.]
“California is flirting with a new and destructive tax,” write Policy Fellow Jon Hartley and eminent economist Arthur Laffer in a new op-ed at The Wall Street Journal. “A proposed ballot initiative, the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, would impose a one-time 5% levy on the net worth of California residents with more than $1 billion,” and this tax would be “retroactive to the start of 2026.” Harley and Laffer identify several critical issues with this proposal, arguing that “a wealth tax collapses economically because financial capital is highly mobile and high earners can move.” They note that “if California can impose a retroactive 5% charge on wealth today, it can do so again tomorrow,” and that those subject to the tax will likely leave the state entirely, amplifying “the problem of revenue volatility.” Read more here. [Subscription required.]
International Affairs
Visiting Fellow Markos Kounalakis writes in Washington Monthly that, in the midst of heightened uncertainty about the future of American commitments to the NATO alliance, “Europe, to secure its sovereignty, must consider the unthinkable—a continental project to develop and deploy its own tactical nuclear weapons under a unified European command independent of NATO.” Kounalakis continues, “I shudder to write these words,” but he finds “Europe is slowly descending into a permanent condominium of great-power influence, its fate dictated by the calculations of Washington, Moscow, and Beijing.” Balancing the risks of the status quo with those of a nuclear-armed Europe, Kounalakis suggests that European nuclear command should reside in a new institution outside of the EU, with membership criteria including “industrial capacity, democratic stability, and an unwavering commitment to collective defense.” Read more here.
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