Affirmative action is perhaps one of the more polarising phrases to enter our political lexicon in the last few years, which is darkly ironic given we have access to an increasingly vast body of data showing how affirmative action policies almost always end in abject failure. How is it that we still find ourselves debating the merits of gender quotas for politicians and enforced ethnic diversity amongst corporate leaders when it has been repeatedly proven that such policies do nothing to resolve whatever purported inequality or discrimination they claim to redress?

The formidable economist Thomas Sowell provided the answer to that question repeatedly and forcefully throughout his...