[2] Sowell analyzes social and economic knowledge and how it is transmitted through society, and how that transmission affects decision making.

Hayek said that this book expanded admirably on his original concepts and made them clear to lay readers, with examples of economic activity drawn from the real world.

[3] Sowell rejects the tendency to put economic and political decisions and their results in moral terms.

Consistent with his established laissez-faire viewpoints, Sowell also indicts price controls (such as rent control, minimum wage, price fixing, and subsidies) as interfering in the implicit communication between consumers and producers necessary to optimize the choices of each.

Sowell questions the popular unwavering faith in the expert intellectual and "articulated rationality" for "solutions" to economic or political problems.