Williams, Walter E. 1936–

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Walter E. Williams 1936–

Economist, educator

At a Glance…

Books Challenged Stereotypes, Traditional Liberal Views

Identified Government, not Bias, as Problem

Attacked Welfare System, Public School Monopoly

Selected writings

Sources

Economist Walter E. Williams lends a powerful, eloquent voice to the growing chorus of black leaders and academics determined to upset the intellectual applecart in discussions about civil rights and the plight of minorities in the United States. In books, journal articles, and newspaper columns, Williams marshals economic data and sociological observations to reach a conclusion about blacks in contemporary society—a conclusion that varies sharply from the one offered by many liberal theorists. Rather than attributing economic hardship, crime, unemployment, and other social ills to racism and bigotry, Williams, a self-described radical who abhors the subjugation of individual rights to abstract notions of a greater good, puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the U.S. government, whose programs, in his view, have unquestionably hurt the very people they were designed to help.

Whether discussing minimum wage laws, education, social security reform, or affirmative action, Williams spiritedly waves the conservative banner of a free market society, arguing that government should embrace a narrow scope of interest. He claims that politicians try to accomplish too much and inadvertently create and perpetuate poverty, immorality, and dependency, qualities which society understandably decries. According to Williams, an astonishingly high percentage of the black population has been conditioned to live on welfare and act as unwitting guinea pigs in government programs that teach them to look to others, rather than to themselves, for the means of pursuing rich and productive lives.

Walter Edward Williams was bom March 31, 1936, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was raised there by his mother, Catherine, a day servant, after his father deserted the family when Walter was three. Following his graduation from Philadelphia public schools, Williams drove a taxi for two years, served in the army, and enrolled at California State College in Los Angeles, where he received his undergraduate degree in 1965.

It was during the final stages of his graduate training at the University of California at Los Angeles—he received his M.A. in 1968 and Ph.D. in 1972—that Williams first began to question the role government plays in attempting to help citizens who are both politically and economically disenfranchised. After an eight-year teaching stint at Temple University in Philadelphia, Williams moved to George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he is

At a Glance…

Born Walter Edward Williams, March 31, 1936, in Philadelphia, PA; son of Walter and Catherine Williams; married, 1960. Education: California State College, Los Angeles, B.A., 1965; University of California at Los Angeles, M.A., 1968, Ph.D., 1972.

Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, professor, 1973-81; George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 1981—, became John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics. Author of books and articles on economical and sociological issues. Military service: Served in the U.S. Army.

Addresses: Office—Economics Department, George Mason University, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030.

currently John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and a sought-out analyst on a broad variety of issues confronting popular culture.

Books Challenged Stereotypes, Traditional Liberal Views

Studying the standard economic questions concerning minimum wage laws, laws which liberals have championed in the name of the common man and woman, Williams grew to believe that such legislation actually increases unemployment. He sees a definite danger in government’s acting to effect economic and social change. Of Williams’s four books, two—America: A Minority Viewpoint and All It Takes Is Guts —are collections of his syndicated columns on social and economic topics, which he began writing in 1978. His 1982 work The State Against Blacks was his first book-length argument that the government, with its myriad social programs, has not been a good friend to blacks and indeed has been a strident enemy to social and economic black progress. Trumpeting deregulation and hands-off government, Williams revisits the dispute over minimum wage legislation and discusses the state’s strangulation of entrepreneurial spirit and economic opportunity. He claims that an uneducated poor person in New York City in the 1920s could buy a used car and turn it into a taxi business, but that a cab license, necessary today, is prohibitively expensive.

Reviewing Williams’s treatise in Commentary magazine, Michael Novak wrote: “This clear and useful book prompts a general observation. Williams is one of several black scholars who are now enriching the economic profession with fresh inquiries into culture, family, and race. Their work is bound to have an impact on future discussions of differences in ’human capital’ both in the United States and in the Third World.” Christopher Policano, writing in the Nation, also praised the book, but argued that Williams had not adequately addressed the lasting economic and psychological impact of the slave institutions that framed the historical experience of blacks brought to the United States against their will.

Consistent with his quest to debunk traditional, and in his opinion simplistic, ways of viewing the world, Williams’s 1989 book South Africa’s War Against Capitalism probes the historic, economic forces that shaped the internationally reviled and alienated apartheid regime of white minority rule there. Williams argues that contrary to popular perception, apartheid was not created as a means for white-owned businesses to exploit the work of the native black majority. He claims that in the early part of the twentieth century, business owners were inclined to hire blacks, but leaders of the communist and socialist movements decried the loss of white-worker jobs and supported the implementation of apartheid’s explicit racial separation. After World War I, when many white South Africans returned home to see that their colorblind employers had hired lower wage black workers, the call for separate worker markets was again issued.

In the larger political context, Williams berates what he views as the knee-jerk, naive, and emotional response of the international community to apartheid. Williams contends that the sanctions implemented by many countries, including the United States, merely hurt black South African workers, and the pullout of American and European corporations has enabled white South Africans to buy the companies at deeply discounted prices and operate them without regard for free market principles or racial equality. In successfully challenging the view that South Africa’s political apparatus was originally driven by greedy capitalists, and pointing out that apartheid is fundamentally a socialist-tainted system, Williams is positioned to make a larger, more theoretical point, a point which echoes throughout his writings: that capitalism and free market forces, without the intervention of government, will engender the freest and least prejudicial society.

Identified Government, not Bias, as Problem

The principal intellectual enemy that Williams fights is the belief that all the ills suffered by blacks are rooted in racism. He does not deny the existence of discrimination, only its prevalence and power in spawning so many contemporary social and economic disasters. He contends that the problems in the black community—high unemployment, crime, illiteracy, high illegitimate birth rate—are exacerbated or, at worst created, by social programs that, though well-intentioned, have not been effective.

Some economic experts believe that many leaders—both black and white—view society through the lens of bias, thereby unintentionally provoking discrimination in situations where it did not exist before. Williams contends that affirmative action—programs set up by the U.S. government in the 1970s to provide minorities with educational and employment opportunities—is one glaring example of this thesis. He attributes the disproportionately few blacks at institutions of higher learning not to discrimination, but to the fact that blacks have historically underperformed against other groups on standardized testing. Many college administrators, in an effort to bolster black presence on campus, have compromised their academic standards of admission for blacks, Williams claims. The result, he maintains, is not only a misguided policy, but a counterproductive one. “Whatever justification may be given for such a practice, it cannot help but build resentment, bitterness, and a sense of unfair play among whites, as it has already in matters of hiring, promotions, and layoffs,” Williams wrote in National Review in 1989. “Official policy calling for unequal treatment by race is morally offensive whether it is applied to favor blacks or applied to favor whites.”

Attacked Welfare System, Public School Monopoly

For Williams, the underlying reason for blacks’ poor test performance and for other problems many blacks encounter as adults is the substandard education offered in many secondary public schools, particularly inner-city schools. Again, this is an arena in which the government has woefully failed, he argues. Concurring with conservative doctrine, Williams believes that inadequate funding is not the core impediment to successful public education. The problem, as he sees it, lies in the fact that government has a monopoly on most children’s education, and where a monopoly exists, the quality of the product drops. “At the heart of the problem in public education is a system of educational delivery which creates a perverse set of incentives for all parties involved,” Williams wrote in American Education magazine in 1982. “At the core of the perverse incentives is the fact that the teachers get paid and receive raises whether or not children can read and write; administrators receive their pay whether or not children can read and write. Children (particularly minority children) receive grade promotions and diplomas whether or not they can read and write.”

Also contributing to the deterioration of black youth, according to Williams, is the breakdown of the black family—another condition fostered by well-meaning government programs, such as welfare. He argues that state handouts and unearned benefits subsidize behavior that society finds deplorable. He criticizes, for example, the provision of entitlements to women who give birth out of wedlock, claiming that the government is implicitly sanctioning an activity that contributes to the collapse of the black community.

In general, Williams claims the welfare state stymies the development of values that are essential if parents are to properly rear moral, law abiding children who can succeed in school and ultimately, as adults, contribute meaningfully to society. “We don’t have the decency to treat poor people the right way,” Williams was quoted as saying in the Christian Science Monitor in 1991. “We do to them what we would never do to someone that we loved. We want to give the poor money without demanding responsibility. Would you do that to your children? If we love our children, we teach them responsibility.”

Leery of the “politically correct” movement, which emphasizes racial and gender sensitivity, Williams goes against the liberal grain on a broad variety of issues. He argues, for instance, against the term “African American” for blacks, claiming that the term is really meaningless. “Africa[n] refers neither to a civilization, a culture, or even a specific country,” he wrote in Society. “Instead, Africa is a continent consisting of many countries, cultures, ethnic groups, and races. Referring to Africa as a culture reflects near inexcusable ignorance.” He claims that American blacks have an ancestral but not a cultural tie to Africa, and, if they are serious in adopting a new name, should look to terms such as Nigerian-American, Ugandan-American, Senegalese-American, etc.

In questioning the far-reaching effects of discrimination, Williams wonders why contemporary black society is in tatters, while the same group of people 30 or 40 years ago, when prejudice was perhaps more widespread, succeeded in building a more cohesive, safe, and morally intact community. His answer lies in government, which, he believes, has strayed from its more legitimate function of law enforcement and entered the arena of social activism. He argues that black Americans, the supposed beneficiaries of this shift in policy direction, have not fully realized the damage that has been done to them and have been blinded to the cause of many of their most disabling troubles. Black people have bought the “siren song of promises,” he said on the television program Wall Street Week in 1991. “All Americans in general, but black Americans in particular, have to recognize that government has always been the enemy; that is, blacks were enslaved because government did not do its job.”