The debate on the effectiveness of gun control measures to reduce firearm violence distracts attention from the real motive behind gun control. Nobody wants more gun violence, so focusing on gun violence shifts the debate in favor of gun control. What the proponents of gun control really want is control, and the gun violence argument is merely a means to the end that they actually seek–a disarmed population. Arguments that look at the facts to see whether gun control achieves those ends are ineffective persuaders, because gun control advocates want regulation, regardless of its effectiveness.

It should be obvious that proposals such as those to tax ammunition sales will be ineffective controls on firearm violence. Can anyone really think that someone intent on illegally using a firearm would be deterred because ammunition is so expensive? For people who know little about firearms, limiting the number of rounds a magazine is capable of holding may sound promising, but magazines can be swapped out in seconds.

Focusing the debate on gun violence rather than on individual rights gives a debating advantage to gun control advocates, because nobody wants more gun violence. The argument shifts to whether regulations are effective rather than on preserving the rights of citizens. Arguing that proposed gun control measures would be ineffective cannot persuade gun control advocates, because that’s not their big concern. Their ultimate objective of gun control advocates is not safety. They want control.

The post The Name Says It All: Gun Control Isn’t About Reducing Firearm Violence; It’s About Control appeared first on The Beacon.

Limbaugh rose to No. 1 in the market, doubling the size of his audience in just a year. . . . When a radio consultant told his friend Ed McLaughlin about Limbaugh’s popularity there, the ABC Radio Networks President traveled to Sacramento to hear him firsthand. . . . McLaughlin, who credited Limbaugh with rescuing AM radio from oblivion in a 1994 Forbes profile, recruited the local host to New York. He debuted a two-hour talk show on WABC in August 1988 that they soon began syndicating across the country. At the time, AM radio was facing an existential crisis. Listeners had gravitated to FM for music, leaving AM radio in search of a winning programming format. Talk filled the silence.

Limbaugh’s program in Sacramento that launched his nationally syndicated “The Rush Limbaugh Show” was only possible after the FCC’s 1987 repeal of the suffocating Fairness Doctrine (created in 1949) had opened up AM radio to free speech and new programming competition. For over three decades, Limbaugh’s program was by far the most popular radio show in America, airing on more than 650 stations nationwide across the Premiere Radio Networks with a weekly audience of 25 million, and on May 7, 2020, Limbaugh announced on air that Premiere had calculated an audience that day of 43 million people with an average listening time of two hours and 28 minutes. But throughout his career, he never lost affection for his successful radio roots in the Sacramento area, regularly returning to the area and often on his show humorously singling out comments “For those of you in Rio Linda.”

We had the memorable opportunity to work with Rush Limbaugh on two pivotal occasions.

The first occurred in the mid-1980s, when I was in the process of producing the paperback edition of a book on the growing problem of affordable housing in California, Resolving the Housing Crisis: Government Policy, Decontrol and the Public Interest. Edited by the late, renowned economist M. Bruce Johnson (U.C. Santa Barbara), who would become the founding Research Director at the Independent Institute, the book assembled the most comprehensive-ever critical analysis of government housing and land-use controls restricting the supply of housing and new construction and creating the unaffordable housing tragedy that has only greatly worsened today, including contributing to the massive problem of homelessness.

The acclaimed Clemson U. economist Thomas W. Hazlett (Ph.D., UCLA) at the time was a new assistant professor at the University of California at Davis (U.C. Davis). Tom had contributed the superb Chapter 10 in Resolving the Housing Crisis, “Rent Controls and the Housing Crisis,” and he had further assisted Bruce in completing details for his Introduction to the book.*

Bruce and I were planning to be in Sacramento in spring of 1984 for a one-day conference I had organized on the housing crisis in California with the California Chamber of Commerce and other groups. Bruce was to be a keynote speaker along with the housing and land-use expert Ward A. Connerly, and all attendees would receive a free copy of the book.

Tom had first met Rush Limbaugh at an event at U.C. Davis at which former U.N. Ambassador Jeane D. Kirkpatrick (1926-2006) spoke, and Tom and Rush became good friends. As a result, Tom helped us arrange for Bruce and me to visit with Rush while we were in town for the housing conference to discuss the book’s findings in the KFBK studio.

We had already arranged for Bruce to be interviewed about the book on numerous radio programs, but none of the show hosts understood the housing issue and were quite clueless of government’s culpability in creating the problem. But in visiting with Rush, we found that just as Tom had promised, he had clearly done his homework on the book and understood its findings, interviewing Bruce at considerable detail for an entire hour.

I recall Bruce’s delight, excitement, and amazement with the interview by this guy who neither of us had ever heard of but who, unlike other radio hosts, fully understood what Bruce was saying and the central need for deregulation, free markets and private property rights.

The second time we connected directly with Rush was when we had published the first edition of the Independent Institute’s book, Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate by our Research Fellow, the late S. Fred Singer, and featuring a foreword by Frederick Seitz, former President of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rush enthusiastically interviewed Fred, who at the time was in Bonn, Germany, having addressed the Austrian Parliament in Vienna a few days earlier, and Rush subsequently published the interview in The Limbaugh Letter (December 1997):

Fasten your seatbelts—you are about to get some real science from one of the foremost experts on global climate change. In fact, Dr. Singer devised the basic instrument for measuring stratospheric ozone. He was somewhat reluctant to discuss the political aspects of the global warming debate—though I tried. Still, as a scientist, he backed me up . . . and confirmed things I’ve been saying for years. . . .

The book became a major seller with extensive media coverage featuring Fred, and was instrumental in redefining and redirecting public climate debate away from unscientific alarmism, leading up to the U.S.’s refusal to ratify the deeply flawed 1992 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Incidentally, we have just released Hot Talk, Cold Science in a Third Revised and Expanded Edition (twice the size of the previous editions in 1997 and 1999), completed by Fred before his death in 2020 and co-authored with the climatologists David R. Legates (U. of Delaware) and Anthony R. Lupo (U. of Missouri), and with a new foreword by the eminent physicist William Happer (Princeton U.)

We will forever be grateful for the very kind and generous assistance of the late Rush Limbaugh.

Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

* * * * * * * *

*Other distinguished scholars who were contributing authors to Resolving the Housing Crisis include Peter Colwell (U. of Illinois), Carl Dahlman (U. of Wisconsin), Robert Ellickson (Yale U.), Bernard Frieden (MIT), Norman Karlin (Southwestern U. Law), James Kau (U. of Georgia), Richard Muth (Stanford U.), Roger Pilon (U.S. Office of Personal Management), Judith Robert (U. of Michigan), Bernard Siegan (U. of San Diego), and Robert Weintraub (U.S. Joint Economic Committee), as well as Stephen DeCanio, H. E. Frech III, Alan Gin, Lloyd Mercer, Douglas Morgan, and Jon Sonstelie (all from U.C. Santa Barbara).

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Our defense of individual liberty does not arise out of a philosophy that says to the world, “Leave me alone.” Rather, we defend liberty from a philosophy that says specifically to the government, “Leave us alone so we can be together.”

Where individuals are free and government is limited, people have the incentive to engage in commercial transactions for mutual benefit. They also have the leeway to establish educational, artistic, familial, and religious relationships that are not transactional—relationships that often involve self-sacrifice for others, especially children. All of this arises without being dictated by bureaucrats. A free society is like choosing your own schoolyard friends rather than having the teacher assign them to you.

Historically, this reflects a “classical liberal” outlook. Part of the genius of this outlook is to distinguish society from the state: It is not the role of the state (i.e., government power) to control society or to determine its features. The state can stifle society but it cannot create it, because society is the flowering of human freedom.

It would be a mistake to try, somehow in the name of freedom, to liberate individuals from the influence of society—family, community, faith, art, etc. That would scarcely be human! Human dignity shows itself best when we bind ourselves freely to one another in affection or at least respect and mutual tolerance. In this way we fulfill the ethical framework of natural law, and we forge natural, living links to those who went before us and to generations yet to come.

So the point of liberty is not to protect the individual against the influence of society but rather against the coercion of the state. The stronger civil society is, the less need there is for coercive state power. Conversely, when the voluntary bonds of mutual association weaken, and individuals are “on their own,” then the situation is ripe for the abusive extension of state power. Nature abhors a vacuum.

Totalitarianism exploits such vacuums. The cardinal sin of totalitarianism is to insist that society conform to the state and to require that culture—indeed, human nature itself—reflect government policy. But human nature is not a creation of the state, and should not be under the thumb of the state or public policy.

Therefore lovers of liberty want more than just limits on government power; we also want to foster a society with a humane culture. We celebrate the many ways that people provide for the common good without resorting to government—successful profit-making businesses, of course, and also a multitude of other ventures like cooperatives, philanthropies, private medical insurance pools, and NGOs of all kind. Our now-classic book, The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society (published in 2002) sets forth nongovernmental cooperative solutions even in areas where most people think only of government—such as in urban planning, courts, and education.

In a healthy society, most of the activities of human life have nothing to do with partisanship or ideology. By contrast, in a socialist system where government lays claim to the means of production, and where everything is potentially subject to state control, everything operates in the shadow of politics; the government is always trying to mobilize society toward the achievement of some urgent, collective goal. As Oscar Wilde once remarked, “The trouble with socialism is that it leaves you with no free evenings.” By contrast, a free society flourishes when people get together on their own terms, whether to build gun ranges or organic gardens or mutual aid societies.

“Thank you, teacher, but I’ll choose my own friends—lots of them!”

[This piece first appeared in the Fall 2019 issue of The Independent. To receive this quarterly newsletter by mail, become an Independent Institute member today!]

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The linked article notes that about 25 percent of Black workers and 19.1 percent of Hispanic workers earn less than $15 an hour, compared to 13.1 percent of white workers, so the law would disproportionately throw minority workers out of work. The article says this would “help” minority workers, but it is difficult to see how making their employment illegal would help them. Could anyone believe that if the minimum wage were raised to $15 an hour, no low-wage workers would lose their jobs?

It’s actually worse than that for low-productivity workers, because one way people can increase their productivity and earn a higher income is by learning on the job. If people are priced out of the labor market and can’t get their first job, they won’t be able to increase their productivity through on-the-job training. In a society that increasingly is cognizant of enacting public policies to help minorities, it is shocking that some are proposing a policy that would make it illegal for many minorities to hold jobs.

Some people think that corporations make lots of money and so can afford to pay their workers more, but corporations are not charities, and this thought misunderstands what motivates employers to hire people. Regardless of how profitable a company is, it will not hire people who cost the company more than they bring back in income.

Do we really want to make it illegal for low-productivity people to work? Do we really want to enact a policy that disproportionately disadvantages minorities? Many states have already done so, and there appears to be increasing support at the federal level to limit the right to work for some of our most-disadvantaged citizens.

The post Should It Be Illegal for Low Productivity People to Work? appeared first on The Beacon.

I had the privilege of first meeting Walter when I was a 23-year-old graduate student in economics at GMU. I was his research assistant for one academic year, then a student in his graduate-level courses in labor economics. Later, Walter was a faculty member on my Ph.D. dissertation committee, and after graduate school, he was a reference for jobs. Walter was generous with his time—I spent many hours with him discussing my dissertation, economics, and life.

Anyone who heard Walter speak knows that he was quick with a joke and could communicate important economic concepts to his students and to the public using simple, often humorous, examples, while never losing sight of the key role of individual rights in a free society. He inspired me and many others. A reoccurring subject throughout his career, which spanned a half-century, was race in America. Since it is particularly relevant to current discourse, I want to summarize Walter’s work in this area using his words whenever possible.

On Racism

Walter did not deny that some people are racist or that people discriminate based on race, but his central argument was that racial discrimination was not the primary determinant of problems confronting many Black people today:

There is discrimination of all sorts, and that includes racial discrimination. Thus, it’s somewhat foolhardy to debate the existence of racial discrimination yesteryear or today. From a policy point of view, a far more useful question to ask is: How much of the plight of many blacks can be explained by current racial discrimination?

According to Walter, the answer is very little: “At the root of most of the problems black people face is the breakdown of the family structure” and the “rotten public schools” that issue “fraudulent diplomas” across America:

Let’s look at whether black fatherless homes are a result of a “legacy of slavery” and racial discrimination. In the late 1800s, depending on the city, 70 percent to 80 percent of black households were two-parent.

As late as 1950, only 18 percent of black households were single parent [today it is more than 70 percent]. From 1890 to 1940, a slightly higher percentage of black adults had married than white adults. In 1938, black illegitimacy was about 11 percent instead of today’s 75 percent. In 1925, 85 percent of black households in New York City were two-parent. [A study of family structure in 1880 Philadelphia found that 75 percent of black families were two-parent, with only small differences between racial groups.] Today, the black family is a mere shadow of its past. . . .

At many predominantly black schools, chaos is the order of the day. There is a high rate of assaults on students and teachers. Youngsters who are hostile to the educational process are permitted to make education impossible for those who are prepared to learn. As a result, overall black educational achievement is a disaster.

“During slavery and as late as 1920,” Walter noted, “a black teenage girl raising a child without a man present was a rarity. . . . The absence of a father in the home predisposes children, especially boys, to academic failure, criminal behavior, and economic hardship, not to mention an intergenerational repeating of handicaps.”

In a 2011 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Walter said, “Today I doubt you could find any significant problem that blacks face that is caused by racial discrimination. The 70 percent illegitimacy rate is a devastating problem, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with racism. The fact that in some areas black people are huddled in their homes at night, sometimes serving meals on the floor so they don’t get hit by a stray bullet—that’s not because the Klan is riding through the neighborhood.”

Elsewhere, Walter wrote, “Political hustlers like to blame poverty and racism while ignoring the fact that poverty and racism were much greater yesteryear but there was not nearly the same amount of chaos.” And in a separate piece he said, “If today’s weak family structure is a legacy of slavery, then the people who make such a claim must tell us how it . . . managed to skip nearly five generations to have an effect.”

It is not the legacy of slavery, racial discrimination, or poverty that account for the disintegration of Black families and rotten schools, Walter maintained. Rather, it is government programs, pushed by liberal elites, that devastate Black communities, subsidize irresponsible behavior, and block community efforts to fix problems without waiting for government.

Regarding policing, a topic of much debate today, Walter said that people should not “excuse bad behavior by some police officers.” But based on statistics, people concerned about Black deaths should focus more on Black-on-Black violence and other criminal behavior in troubled cities than on shootings by police. Walter did note, however, the low homicide clearance rate by the Chicago Police Department (less than 15 percent) and by police departments in other major cities. (For more on policing reform, see my commentary “What the George Floyd Protesters Should Demand: Five Top Reforms.”)

On Race Hustlers, Poverty Pimps, and the Victimization Lobby

Walter reserved some of his harshest criticism for Black and white elites who push for government programs in the name of rescuing Black people from their plight:

Intellectuals and political hustlers who blame the plight of so many blacks on poverty, racial discrimination, and the “legacy of slavery” are complicit in the socioeconomic and moral decay. Black people must ignore the liberal agenda that suggests that we must await government money before measures can be taken to improve the tragic living conditions in so many of our urban communities. Black and white intellectuals and politicians suggesting that black people await government solutions wouldn’t begin to live in the same high-crime, dangerous communities and send their children to the dangerous schools that so many black children attend.

As a young man, Walter read the words of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and other Black civil rights leaders of the time, but Malcolm gained his favor: “I was more sympathetic to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King because Malcolm X was more of a radical who was willing to confront discrimination in ways that I thought it should be confronted, including perhaps the use of violence,” Walter told the Wall Street Journal in 2011.

One passage by Malcolm X, in particular, resonated with Walter as “an important lesson,” so he quoted it at length in a 2019 commentary titled “The Worst Enemy of Black People.” Malcolm said,

The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked, or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man.

Walter maintained throughout his career, as he did here in a 2019 commentary, that,

Black people could benefit from an honest examination of the bill of goods they’ve been sold. Such an examination would not come from black politicians, civil rights leaders, or the black and white liberal elite. Those people have benefited politically and financially from keeping black Americans in a constant state of grievance based on alleged racial discrimination. The long-term solution for the problems that many black Americans face begins with an absolute rejection of the self-serving agenda of [race] hustlers and poverty pimps.

Walter singled out Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Benjamin Hooks, and others in the civil rights movement as race hustlers who make a living on the grievances of Black Americans and who advocate for government programs that make problems worse and make upward mobility less likely.

Discussing Intellectuals and Race, a 2013 book by Thomas Sowell, the noted economist and historian based at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Walter wrote, “black people waged a successful civil rights struggle against gross discrimination. It’s white and black liberals, intellectuals, academics, and race hustlers who have created our greatest hurdle [today].” “Politics and white liberals will not solve these and other problems,” Walter concluded.

Politics Is Not the Solution to Problems Facing Many Blacks

A consistent theme in Walter’s writings is that political power is not the solution for the problems facing many Black people:

My argument has always been that the political arena is largely irrelevant to the interests of ordinary black people. . . . Much of the 1960s and ’70s civil rights rhetoric was that black political power was necessary for economic power. But the nation’s most troublesome and dangerous cities, which are also cities with low-performing and unsafe schools and poor-quality city services, have been run by Democrats for nearly a half-century—with blacks having significant political power, having been mayors, city councilors, and other top officials, such as superintendents of schools and chiefs of police. . . .

Whoever is the president has little or no impact on the living conditions of ordinary black people, even when that president is a black person, as the Obama presidency has demonstrated. The overall welfare of black people requires attention to devastating problems that can be solved only at the family and community levels.

Mountains of evidence demonstrates that outcomes are not favorable for children raised in female-headed households. Criminal behavior is greater, and academic achievement is much less for such children. This is a devastating problem, but it is beyond the reach of a president or any other politician to solve. If there is a solution, it will come from churches and local community organizations.

In a 2018 commentary titled “Enough’s Enough: Blacks Must Seize Control of Own Lives,” Walter wrote,

More money from taxpayers could not fix the problems of these communities [communities with high crime rates and failing schools]. Over the past 50 years, more than $16 trillion has been spent on poverty programs. The majority of those programs have simply made poverty more comfortable by giving poor people more food, health care, housing, etc. What’s needed most is to get poor people to change their behavior.

Less than a month before he died, Walter emphasized that “the solution to most of the major problems that confront black people will not be found in the political arena or by electing more blacks to high office.” Instead, the solutions are to be found in free-market capitalism, civil society institutions, and the transformation of black subculture. Government programs that are intended to help solve problems confronting many Black people have instead made problems worse: “If we wait for Washington to solve our problems,” Walter said, “we’ll be waiting for a long time.”

“Intentions Are Irrelevant”: The Effect of Government Programs on Blacks

When Walter entered graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the mid-1960s, UCLA had one of the top economics programs in the world. At the time, Walter’s political philosophy was “progressive.” For example, he believed that legally mandated higher minimum wages unquestionably helped poor people. He recounted in 2011 that he “probably became a libertarian through exposure to tough-minded professors”—Armen Alchian, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, among others—“who encouraged me to think with my brain instead of my heart. I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions. . . . Sometimes I sarcastically, perhaps cynically, say that I’m glad that I received virtually all of my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people. By that I mean that I encountered back then a more honest assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Professors didn’t hesitate to criticize me—sometimes to the point of saying, ‘That’s nonsense.’” (Discover here on EconTalk how Seagram’s Gin was responsible for Walter attending UCLA.)

After earning his PhD in 1972, Walter applied “UCLA price-theory” analysis to government programs that were enacted to purportedly counter racism and improve the well-being of Black people. Walter concluded that these programs, although intended to help, have the effect of making a large segment of the Black population worse off. In his classic 1982 book The State Against Blacks, Walter argued that laws regulating economic activity among consenting adults, especially labor laws, are much larger impediments to upward mobility among Black Americans than is racial discrimination. His favorite targets for condemnation were public schools, the minimum wage, welfare, rent controls, and affirmative action.

On government schools Walter said, “The Ku Klux Klan couldn’t sabotage chances for black academic excellence more effectively than the public school system in most cities.”

On the minimum wage, Walter argued, consistent with economic theory and overwhelming empirical evidence, that increasing the legally mandated minimum wage causes unemployment among the least-skilled workers, who are often Black adults and Black teenagers because of the poor quality of public schools. “The unemployment effects of the minimum-wage law are felt disproportionately by nonwhites,” Walter wrote in an article titled “Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly.” High rates of unemployment in legal markets also push many blacks into illegal underground markets.

In addition to discrimination against the employment of low-skilled workers, many of whom are Blacks, the minimum wage, Walter noted, “denies them the chance of sharpening their skills and ultimately earning higher wages. The most effective form of training for most of us is on-the-job training.” Mandated minimum wages eliminate the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, depriving the least advantaged in society from the pursuit of happiness.

Walter also emphasized that racists around the world have used minimum wage laws to harm blacks, for example: “Why would South Africa’s racist unions support minimum wages for blacks? The answer is easy. Mandated wages are one of the most effective means of pricing one’s competition out of the market, and historically, mandated wages have been one of the most effective tools in the arsenal of racists everywhere.” The stated intent of minimum wage laws in the United States is not overt racism, of course, but the effect of the laws in the United States is the same—higher Black unemployment.

Regarding welfare, Walter said, “The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do, what Jim Crow couldn’t do, what the harshest racism couldn’t do. And that is to destroy the black family.” Subsidizing unwed pregnancy and other irresponsible behavior through various government assistance programs has destroyed the human spirit, crushed the work ethic, and disintegrated black families over many generations. (Walter called this “spiritual poverty.”) The government has become the father in Black families, making Black males dispensable. As noted by Thomas Sowell, welfare has gone from an “emergency rescue to a way of life.” (In a remembrance article, Sowell described Walter as “my best friend for half a century. There was no one I trusted more or whose integrity I respected more.”)

Regarding rent controls, Walter criticized it in memorable fashion: “[S]hort of aerial saturation bombing, rent control might be one of the most effective means of destroying a city.” Rent controls that keep rents below market rates create an excess demand for rental units, also called a shortage. The shortage becomes worse over time as demand for rental units increases. Initially, in response to binding rent controls, landlords reduce maintenance of their buildings to reduce their costs, causing a prolonged deterioration of the housing stock. Long term, landlords convert apartments to condos to escape the rent controls or abandon the buildings altogether, further shrinking the stock of rentals. In many American urban areas, some predominately Black, it is common to see block after block of abandoned, boarded up buildings, victims of rent control and magnets for crime and fires.

Walter also opposed government affirmative action programs [government-mandated racial preferences and quotas for hiring and/or admissions], writing in 1989 that “official policy calling for unequal treatment by race is morally offensive whether it is applied to favor blacks or applied to favor whites.” In other words, an historical inequity is not remedied by repeating that inequity. Racial preferences by governments are always immoral regardless of the intent or the beneficiary.

Rather than create more government programs with ever-expanding budgets that produce counterproductive results, a better approach relies on free-market capitalism, civil society institutions, and the transformation of black subculture.

The Path to Sustained Upward Mobility for Black Americans

Poverty has been the normal state of affairs for people during most of man’s time on earth. Only with the emergence of capitalism has ordinary people achieved high standards of living that was once attained only by kings and dictators through the plunder of wealth. Therefore, free-market capitalism rooted in constitutionally limited government and individual rights, and the civil society institutions that reinforce it, are key to sustained upward mobility for Black Americans, and for people of every race. Walter also advocated for cultural transformation.

Free markets, among other things:

• Allow individuals to pursue their dreams unencumbered by burdensome government restrictions such as occupational licenses, minimum wages, and confiscatory taxation;
• Allow all people to compete at whatever wage they can command in the market through voluntary negotiation;
• Allow individuals to acquire the on-the-job training and life skills essential for upward mobility; first as a teenager and later as an adult moving up the economic ladder;
• Encourage people to be alert to entrepreneurial opportunities, perhaps even to start a business themselves, and encourage people to invest in themselves through quality education;
• Allow rivalrous competition between education entrepreneurs to transform dangerous, rotten schools into low-cost, high-quality learning environments;
• Encourage individual responsibility and individual accountability by ending government programs that subsidize destructive, irresponsible behavior through welfare and other programs that erode civil society institutions;
• Allow families, community organizations, churches, and other groups in civil society to flourish, providing targeted assistance to people, which is customized to individual needs and voluntarily funded, to help them get back on their feet.

Free-market capitalism has the added benefit of imposing financial penalties on people who discriminate against Blacks, or any race, based on skin color rather than productivity or the ability to perform the job. Consider one of Walter’s favorite classroom thought experiments: Imagine if former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a white racist, owned an NBA basketball team and refused to hire any Black basketball players. Not only would he win few games, but as a result, ticket sales would plummet, and television revenues would tumble. The value of the team would not be maximized, making it an attractive takeover target.

Competitive markets impose costs on people who exercise their discriminatory racial preferences that are unrelated to productivity. The cost is higher in more competitive markets and lower in less competitive markets, for example, heavily regulated or taxed markets. Competitive markets, in other words, are allies of black people.

Finally, Walter sought a transformation of Black subculture such that both Blacks and whites condemn dangerous, antisocial behavior:

The fact that black parents, teachers, and civil rights organizations tolerate and make excuses for the despicable and destructive behavior of so many young blacks is a gross betrayal of the memory, struggle, sacrifice, sweat, tears, and blood of our ancestors.

The sorry and tragic state of black education is not going to be turned around until there’s a change in what’s acceptable and unacceptable behavior by young people. That change could come only from within the black community.

In one of his final columns, Walter scolded whites and Blacks:

Many black problems are exacerbated by guilt-ridden white people. Often, they accept behavior and standards from black people that they would not begin to accept from white people. In that sense, white liberal guilt is a form of disrespect in their relationships with black Americans. By the same token, black people should stop exploiting the guilt of whites.

Walter favored “shaming self-destructive behavior” and encouraging “constructive behavior,” which he role modeled throughout his life.

A Final Remembrance

The morning that James M. Buchanan, professor of economics at GMU, was notified that he had won the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics I was in Buchanan’s office when Walter came in with an expensive bottle of champagne. In classic Walter Williams style he said, “Congratulations, Jim. I always knew you’d make something out of yourself.” They laughed, talked for a while, and then Walter left to teach a class on microeconomics to undergraduate students.

Walter loved to teach, and he especially loved to teach economic principles in auditorium-size classrooms filled with a 100 or more students. He was a great communicator, debunking myths, challenging orthodoxies, and applying price theory to every issue imaginable while demonstrating the moral superiority of individual rights, free markets, and constitutionally limited government.

I am reminded of the quote attributed to Martin Luther, “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. So help me God.” That was Walter’s life.

Selected Books on Race and Economics by Walter E. Williams

The State Against Blacks (New Press, 1982); Walter’s first book

South Africa’s War Against Capitalism (Praeger, 1989)

Race & Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination? (Hoover Institution Press, 2011)

And a book review written by Walter E. Williams of The Origins and Demise of South African Apartheid: A Public Choice Analysis (The Independent Review, Summer 1999). Walter was a member of the Board of Advisors of the Independent Institute.

Walter E. Williams’s Autobiography

Up From the Projects (2010)

PBS documentary on the life and career of Walter E. Williams

Walter Williams: Suffer No Fools (2014)

Obituaries of Walter E. Williams

New York Times

Washington Post

The post Walter E. Williams on Race in America: A Tribute by His Former Student appeared first on The Beacon.

Part of my optimism comes from beginning my professional life as an economist in the 1970s, when rising inflation, rising unemployment, price controls, and lines at the gas pumps seemed to point toward both a loss of liberty and economic decline. The motto of the decade was “Think small.” And if that wasn’t enough, the decade also brought with it disco music and leisure suits.

The Club of Rome predicted a Malthusian economic collapse in its book, The Limits to Growth. We were in a Cold War that pitted two “superpowers” against each other, just one misstep away from global nuclear war, and the consensus of the economics profession was that central planning was a more productive way to manage an economy than relying on markets.

The 1970s was a decade that could promote pessimism, but the Reagan and Thatcher revolution followed. Then the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved. In many ways we are freer today than we were in the 1970s. I can see threats to our freedoms, but I also see people (like those at the Independent Institute and other organizations that promote classical liberal ideas) who are championing the ideas of liberty. Part of my optimism is based on that good work.

In the 1940s Friedrich Hayek saw the threat of socialism as The Road to Serfdom, and Joseph Schumpeter, in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, feared that capitalism would not survive because those who received the greatest benefit from capitalism would not stand up to defend it. Liberty probably looked more endangered in the 1940s than in any time since the nation’s founding.

The first half of the twentieth century brought with it the establishment of a federal income tax, the Federal Reserve, two World Wars, the Great Depression and the accompanying New Deal, and a progressive income tax with rates that topped out above 90%. No wonder Hayek and Schumpeter were pessimistic. Seventy-five years later, we are freer in many respects than in the 1940s, or the 1970s.

Yes, allure of socialism seems to be making a comeback among younger people who do not remember the horrors of the Soviet Union or life behind the Berlin Wall, but the ideas of Karl Marx hold less sway today than they did throughout most of the twentieth century. Socialism was viewed by many as a mainstream viable alternative to capitalism right up until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 followed by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. By the mid-1990s, socialism had been demoted into a system championed only by a few on the extreme left.

We need to be on our guard to protect the liberty we have. Ronald Reagan said “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” That’s why it is important to champion the ideas of liberty. Liberty has had some setbacks, but mostly has been on the rise for half a century. I am optimistic that those ideas will win out.

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Some people consider themselves conservatives, others view themselves as progressives, some as socialists, others as libertarians. They support candidates and parties based on the ideologies behind those labels. Republicans (mostly) self-identify as conservatives, and political institutions give them the opportunity to join with others to further those views on the appropriate role of government.

There is an analogy with sports teams. University of Alabama fans love Nick Saban because he’s made the Alabama football team a consistent winner. At my own school, Florida State University, Bobby Bowden was revered for decades for that same reason, but fired before he wanted to go because the team’s performance was declining. It was sad to see him go (everybody loves Bobby Bowden!) but allegiance was to the team. Nick Saban won his first national championship at Louisiana State University. How many LSU fans shifted their allegiance to Alabama after Saban went there? Not many. The allegiance sticks with the team, not the coach.

This should be even more true in government, where outcomes have a direct effect on everyone’s lives. A nation slips into dangerous territory when citizen loyalty shifts from ideas to individuals. Trump lost the election. It is time for Republicans to move on and support politicians who can further their ideas on the appropriate role of government.

Some Republicans might agree with Trump’s claim that the election was stolen from him. Fine. But he still lost, and for Republicans who hold that view, the appropriate response is to work for election reform to prevent stolen elections, not to support Trump. Do you think that mail-in ballots and early voting contribute to voter fraud? Then put your energy into those issues rather than supporting a loser.

We enter dangerous territory when people give their political allegiance to people rather than to ideas. That moves us closer to the types of governments ruled by the Hitlers, Stalins, Maos, Castros, and Putins of the world. Trump has been very effective in shifting the loyalties of some Republicans from the conservative ideas of the party to his own persona. This is unambiguously bad for the Republican party.

One reason term limits are desirable is that they are a check on having people’s loyalties shift from ideas to individuals–they are an impediment to having the United States become like Russia, ruled by Putin, or China, ruled by Xi. Like it or not, Trump lost the election, and it is time for Republicans who are committed to the ideas of limited government that have defined the party to move on—to support their party’s ideas rather than the man who lost the election.

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Peaceful protests are part of political dialogue and have value. There was nothing wrong last summer with people gathering in Minneapolis to express their opinions of law enforcement. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with a march in Washington, D.C., to express opinions about the counting of votes in the election. The problem with both is the unnecessary and inexcusable resort to violence and property damage. Neither is it a justified or indeed helpful component to political speech.

However, in the rush to condemn lawlessness, we should not sweep important issues under the rug. We should not give political elites, who are invested in centralized power and globalism, carte blanche to use the actions of irresponsible people as ammunition to advance their agenda by prohibiting peaceful dissent.

Election Fraud Should Be Investigated

Millions of Americans doubt that Joe Biden won the election fair and square. To avoid further unrest, the people need to believe that their votes count and our system operates on the level.

Catholic University’s Claes G. Ryn, offers an analysis of election data at The American Conservative that raises legitimate questions, as have many other thoughtful people. Indeed, three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in a written statement rebuked Pennsylvania state judges for their actions in altering the deadline for ballots to be received.

Bottom line: Based on public perception, troubling statistics, and maladministration of state election laws, there should be an independent examination involving the contesting state legislatures of the results and procedures in key battleground states, with appropriate modifications made for future elections. Only that can dispel the doubts and set the stage to restore Americans’ confidence in our electoral system.

The Role of Leftist Operatives

A smaller issue, but nonetheless an important one, is the impetus for the attack on the Capitol. MAGA folks, despite the media keeping them under the microscope, have behaved quite well at large events leading up to the November election. Our summer of riots and destruction came from the far Left, not the Right. What happened? Was it that Trump’s rhetoric got too heated or are there other causes?

The Washington Times reported, then withdrew, reports that recognition software confirmed the presence of Antifa operatives. At least one Black Lives Matter activist was in the midst of the invaders—later disingenuously claiming he participated “as part of an effort to understand supporters of President Donald Trump.”

As more of those involved are identified and arrested it will be important that they face a dispassionate justice system meting out penalties fitting the crime—not railroaded by a narrative that all involved were “domestic terrorists” motivated by far-right ideology.

There Was No Coup Attempt

Nor was the disturbance at the Capitol a coup attempt. Politicians, the media, and commentators should stop exaggerating what happened. Wikipedia quite accurately describes a coup as “the removal of an existing government from power, usually through violent means. Typically, it is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, the military, or a dictator.”

If we want to know what a real coup looks like, think back to 1991 when communist hardliners put Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest, did not allow him communication with the outside, and took control over the Soviet Government. The coup ultimately collapsed, but it was a real coup attempt. Knuckleheads breaking windows, taking pictures in Pelosi’s office, defacing interiors, and scattering papers around the Senate chamber is hardly a coup.

The political Left and its media allies are using terms such as “coup” and “insurrection” to make the most of this opportunity.

Silencing the Opposition

With the false narrative that Trump and his supporters are endangering American democracy, the Left is silencing dissenting voices on the Right. Big tech and social media giants are shutting down major conservative voices and the President of the United States: Parler, #WalkAway, @POTUS, Trump campaign emails. And a Yahoo News journalist is calling for Twitter to ban other journalists: “Now do Jack Posobiec, Dan Scavino, Mollie Hemingway, Rogan O’Handley, Tucker Carlson . . .”

In response, Parler Founder and CEO John Matze has indicated to The Epoch Times that his company is “prepared to take full legal action” against Apple, Google, and Amazon. However, Matze has since noted that “Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day.”

And U.S. Senator Josh Hawley has now threatened to sue ViacomCBS-owned Simon & Schuster for just cancelling the release of his forthcoming book, The Tyranny of Big Tech, saying that they “cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat.” Hawley’s reply in his “statement on the woke mob at @simonschuster”:

This could not be more Orwellian. Simon & Schuster is canceling my contract because I was representing my constituents, leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity, which they have now decided to redefine as sedition. Let me be clear, this is not just a contract dispute. It’s a direct assault on the First Amendment. Only approved speech can now be published. This is the Left looking to cancel everyone they don’t approve of. I will fight this cancel culture with everything I have. We’ll see you in court.

And to their credit, the ACLU has issued a statement condemning Facebook and Twitter’s decision to suspend Trump. The ACLU properly warns about the dangers of “unchecked power” and the potential for other voices to be silenced.

True to form regarding government officials using crises to greatly expand their own powers (see Robert Higgs’s landmark book, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government), Joe Biden is eager to capitalize on the situation, labeling the protestors “Insurrectionists,” and “Domestic terrorists.” The Wall Street Journal has reported that “Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism . . . [to] fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.” So, we have had months in 2020 with violent BLM and Antifa operatives burning American cities, destroying property, defying law enforcement, and occupying city blocks in Portland. Yet, the capitol mob are now branded as domestic terrorists and extremists. Americans need protection against them? Really?

Civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald and many on the scene have confirmed that the crowd’s gaining access to the Capitol was more a matter of serendipity than a planned assault: defenses were minimal, Capitol police were quick to back down and some openly welcomed the crowd, and most of those who entered the Capitol spent their time taking selfies with statues rather than storming the chambers of power. As Greenwald has observed:

There was zero chance that the few hundred people who breached the Capitol could overthrow the U.S. Government—the most powerful, armed and militarized entity in the world—nor did they try.

Biden’s response is not proportionate to what happened at the Capitol. Conservatives, liberals, libertarians, and independents, though they might not have voted for Trump and have disagreements with him, should come to the aid of the civil liberties of his supporters. Instead, too many leaders have allowed the Left to set the terms of the debate and are cowardly trying to distance themselves.

Until Trump appeared, the major parties refused to address the concerns of those in “flyover states” about jobs, taxes, immigration, the family, cronyism, religious freedom, foreign interventionism, and other issues. Political elites want to go back to the happy days where the two parties marched in lockstep. Trump upset that apple cart. Common people found someone—a very imperfect person for sure—who listened to them and sought to address their issues.

Many elites are now united in seizing the day to ensure that no future threat to their power can take hold, no peaceful dissent and debate be provided a platform, with draconian new unconstitutional powers being proposed in the name of responding to a crisis.

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