Walter E. Williams | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Williams in 2013 | |
| Born | Walter Edward Williams (1936-03-31)March 31, 1936 Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | December 1, 2020(2020-12-01) (aged 84) Fairfax, Virginia, U.S. |
| Years active | 1959−2020 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Academic background | |
| Education | California State University, Los Angeles (BA) University of California, Los Angeles (MA,PhD) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Economics,education,politics,free market,race relations,liberty |
| School or tradition | Libertarian economics |
| Institutions | George Mason University Temple University Los Angeles City College California State University, Los Angeles Grove City College |
| Notable ideas | Analysis ofDavis–Bacon ActResearch onoccupational licensing, specifically in the taxi industry |
Walter Edward Williams (March 31, 1936 – December 1, 2020) was an American economist, commentator, and academic. Williams was theJohn M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics atGeorge Mason University, asyndicatedcolumnist, andauthor. Williams heldclassical liberal andlibertarian views,[1] and wrote frequently forTownhall,WND, andJewish World Review. Williams was also a popular guest host ofThe Rush Limbaugh Show whenLimbaugh was unavailable.[2]
Williams was born inPhiladelphia on March 31, 1936.[3] His family during childhood consisted of his mother, his sister, and him; Williams's father played no role in raising Williams or his sister.[4] The family initially lived inWest Philadelphia, and later moved toNorth Philadelphia's Richard Allenhousing projects when Williams was ten years old. He attended and graduated fromBenjamin Franklin High School in North Philadelphia.
After graduating from high school, Williams traveled to California, where he lived with his father and attendedLos Angeles City College for one semester.[5] He later returned to Philadelphia and secured a job as acab driver for theYellow Cab Company.[6] In 1959, he was drafted into the military and served as aprivate in theUnited States Army.[7][8]
While stationed in theSouth, Williams "waged a one-man battle againstJim Crow from inside the army." He challenged the racial order with provocative statements to his fellow soldiers, resulting in an overseeing officer filing acourt-martial proceeding against Williams. Williams argued his own case and was found not guilty.[7] While considering filing countercharges against the officer who brought the charges against him, Williams was transferred toSouth Korea. Upon arriving there, Williams marked "Caucasian" for race on his personnel form. When challenged on this, Williams replied wryly if he had marked "Black," he would end up getting all the worst jobs. From Korea, Williams wrote a letter to PresidentJohn F. Kennedy denouncing the pervasive racism in the American government and military and questioning the actions black Americans should take given the state of affairs, writing:
Should Negroes be relieved of their service obligation or continue defending and dying for empty promises of freedom and equality? Or should we demand human rights as our Founding Fathers did at the risk of being called extremists? I contend that we relieve ourselves of oppression in a manner that is in keeping with the great heritage of our nation.[7]
He received a reply from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense,Alfred B. Fitt, which Williams called "the most reasonable response that I received from any official."[9]
Following his military service, Williams served as a juvenile group supervisor for theLos Angeles County Probation Department from 1963 to 1967.[10] Williams also resumed his education, earning a bachelor's degree in economics in 1965 from California State College at Los Angeles (nowCal State Los Angeles).[10] He earned both his master's degree and hisPhD in economics from theUniversity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[11][12] Williams's doctoral thesis was titledThe Low-Income Market Place.[13]
Speaking of his early college days, Williams said: "I was more than anything a radical. I was more sympathetic toMalcolm X thanMartin 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. But I really just wanted to be left alone. I thought some laws, like minimum-wage laws, helped poor people and poor black people and protected workers from exploitation. I thought they were a good thing until I was pressed by professors to look at the evidence." During his time at UCLA, Williams came into contact with economists such asArmen Alchian,James M. Buchanan, andAxel Leijonhufvud who challenged his assumptions.[14]
While Williams was attending UCLA,Thomas Sowell arrived on campus in 1969 as a visiting professor. Although he never took a class from Sowell, the two met and began a friendship that lasted for decades. In the summer of 1972, Sowell was hired as director of the Urban Institute's Ethnic Minorities Project, which Williams joined shortly thereafter.[15] Correspondence between Sowell and Williams appears in "A Man of Letters," a 2007autobiography authored by Sowell.[16]
During his doctoral studies, Williams was an instructor ineconomics atLos Angeles City College from 1967 to 1969, and atCal State Los Angeles from 1967 to 1971.[10]
After returning to his native Philadelphia, Williams taught economics atTemple University from 1973 to 1980.[10] For the 1975–76 academic year, Williams was a visiting scholar at theHoover Institution atStanford University.[17]
In 1980, Williams joined the economics faculty atGeorge Mason University inFairfax, Virginia. That same year, Williams began writing a syndicated column, "A Minority View", for Heritage Features Syndicate, which merged withCreators Syndicate in 1991.[10] From 1995 to 2001, Williams chaired the economics department at George Mason University.[18] Courses taught by Williams at George Mason include "IntermediateMicroeconomics" for undergraduate students and "Microeconomic Theory I" for graduate students.[19][20] Williams continued to teach at George Mason until his death in 2020.[21]
In his nearly 50-year career, Williams wrote hundreds of research articles, book reviews, and commentaries for scholarly journals includingAmerican Economic Review,Policy Review, andJournal of Labor Research and popular journals includingThe American Spectator,Newsweek,Reason, andThe Wall Street Journal.[22]
Williams was awarded an honorary degree atUniversidad Francisco Marroquín. He served on advisory boards including the Review Board of Economics Studies for theNational Science Foundation,Reason Foundation, the National Tax Limitation Committee, and theHoover Institute.[10][18]
Beginning in 1982, Williams set about writing ten books, beginning withThe State Against Blacks andAmerica: A Minority Viewpoint.[18] He wrote and hosted documentaries forPBS in 1985. The "Good Intentions" documentary was based on his bookThe State Against Blacks.[23]
As aneconomist, Williams was a proponent offree market economics and opposedsocialist systems of government intervention.[24] Williams believedlaissez-faire capitalism to be the most moral, most productive system humans have ever devised.[25]
In the mid-to-late 1970s, Williams conducted research into theDavis–Bacon Act of 1931 and on the impact of minimum wage laws on minority employment. His research led him to conclude the government's interventional programs are harmful. Williams was critical of state programs, includingminimum wage andaffirmative action laws, stating both practices inhibit liberty and are detrimental to the blacks they are intended to help. He published his results in his 1982 bookThe State Against Blacks, where he argued that laws regulating economic activity are far greater obstacles to economic progress for blacks than racial bigotry and discrimination.[14] Subsequently, Williams spoke on the topic and penned a number of articles detailing his view that increases in the minimum wage price low skill workers out of the market, eliminating their opportunities for employment.[26][27][28][29]
Williams believed thatracism and the legacy ofslavery in the United States are overemphasized as problems faced by the black community today. He pointed to the crippling effects of a welfare state and the disintegration of the black family as more pressing concerns. "The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, and that is to destroy the black family."[14] Although in favor of equal access to government institutions such as court houses, city halls, and libraries, Williams opposed anti-discrimination laws directed at the private sector on the grounds that such laws infringe upon the people's right offreedom of association.[30]
Williams viewedgun control laws as a governmental infringement upon the rights of individuals, and argued that they end up endangering the innocent while failing to reduce crime.[31] Williams also made the argument that the true proof of whether or not an individualowns something is whether or not they have the right to sell it. Taking this argument to its conclusion, he supported legalization ofselling one's own bodily organs.[32] He argued that government prohibiting the selling of one's bodily organs is an infringement upon one's property rights.[33][34]
Williams praised the views ofThomas DiLorenzo,[35] and wrote aforeword to DiLorenzo's anti-Abraham Lincoln book,The Real Lincoln.[36] Williams maintained that the American states are entitled tosecede from the union if they wish, as theConfederate states attempted to do during theCivil War,[35] and asserted that the Union's victory in the Civil War allowed the federal government "to run amok overstates' rights, so much so that the protections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments mean little or nothing today."[36]
In reaction to what he viewed as inappropriate racial sensitivity that he saw hurting blacks in higher education, Williams began in the 1970s to offer colleagues a "certificate of amnesty and pardon" to all white people for Western Civilization's sins against blacks – and "thus obliged them not to act like damn fools in their relationships with Americans of African ancestry." It is still offered to anyone. The certificate can be obtained at his website.[37]
Williams was opposed to theFederal Reserve System,[38] arguing thatcentral banks are dangerous.[39]
In his autobiography, Williams citedFrédéric Bastiat,Ludwig von Mises,Friedrich Hayek, andMilton Friedman as influences that led him to become a libertarian.[40] Williams praisedAyn Rand'sCapitalism: The Unknown Ideal as "one of the best defenses and explanations of capitalism one is likely to read."[41]
Aside from authoring his weekly columns, Williams was a frequent guest host forRush Limbaugh'sradio program when Limbaugh was away traveling. In 2009, Greg Ransom, a writer for theLudwig von Mises Institute, ranked Williams as the third-most important "Hayekian" Public Intellectual in America, behind onlyThomas Sowell andJohn Stossel.[42]Reason called Williams "one of the country's leading libertarian voices."[7]
Beginning in 1973, Williams lived inDevon, Pennsylvania.[43] He was married to Connie (née Taylor) from 1960 until her death in 2007. They had one daughter, Devon.[44] When he began teaching at George Mason University, he rented a cheap hotel room inFairfax, Virginia, where he lived from Tuesdays through Thursdays around his teaching schedule.[45] Williams was a cousin ofJulius Erving, a professional basketball player with thePhiladelphia 76ers.[46]
Williams served on the board of directors ofMedia General, parent company of theRichmond Times-Dispatch, from 2001 until his retirement from the board in 2011. He was also chairman of the company's audit committee.
On December 1, 2020, Williams died in his car inFairfax, Virginia, shortly after teaching a class atGeorge Mason University, at age 84.[21] His daughter said that he suffered fromchronic obstructive pulmonary disease andpulmonary hypertension.[3] Shortly before his death, Williams was featured in the documentary,Uncle Tom, where he provided commentary onconservatism within the black community and discussed his own perspective as a black conservative.
| Academics |  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People | |||||
| Student life |
| ||||
| Legal cases | |||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
