Asking the right questions

From Asking the correct questions about poverty and slavery by Mark J. Perry.

Wrong Question No. 1: What is the cause, explanation, or origin of poverty?
Correct Question: Not what causes poverty, but what caused the unprecedented and phenomenal “hockey stick” rise in economic growth and human prosperity and flourishing illustrated in the chart above that suddenly started a few hundred years ago, especially in the West?

Wrong Question #2: What’s the reason for slavery and why did it exist in the US and elsewhere?
Correct Question: Why was slavery eventually abolished in so many places including the US following thousands of years of the practice, and what’s the explanation for the rise of mercy and compassion that motivated the end of slavery in the US and elsewhere?

Read the whole thing for some useful historical context and good quotations from Thomas Sowell.

Too many people are trying to focus on the wrong questions because they are ignorant and/or because they are working a malevolent ideological agenda.