David Lay Williams’s contribution “inverts the common conservative argument that arguing against economic inequality is somehow contrary to the thrust of classical Western thought. If anything, it’s the casual and lazy dismissal of concerns with economic inequality that constitute an intellectual deviation and decline from the norm.” Note how a universal topic like economic inequality does not include non-Western thinkers from China to India, from Latin America to the Middle East and Africa. Williams just restricted his research to Western European thinkers. The reviewer himself mentioned a couple of non-white intellectuals and activists, but not a single non-Westerner came to his mind.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51