That intellectuals should influence--if not control--the kinds of decisions made in society. More specially, they should promote the transfer of decisions from the masses to those who have 'more intellect'.
Throughout the interview, he goes on to explain that this assumes that the knowledge necessary to make those decisions can be collected and processed by the intellectual elite. But in reality, the knowledge necessary to make those decisions is distributed widely throughout society. He estimates that 99% of the knowledge is not available to would-be central planners, so top-down command-and-control strategies will inevitably fail.
Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs television show, illustrates this point viscerally and memorably in this 20-minute talk:
Dr. Sowell and Mr. Rowe are right. Intellectuals do not (and can not!) know enough to organize society. We are better off when individuals make decisions based on their own local knowledge.
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