—

Walter E. Williams 1936-2020: Thomas Sowell

•  
•  
•  
•  

 

By THOMAS SOWELL | Orange County Register

PUBLISHED: December 3, 2020 at 1:53 p.m. | UPDATED: December 3, 2020 at 1:53 p.m.

Walter Williams loved teaching.

Unlike too many other teachers today, he made it a point never to impose his opinions on his students.

Those who read his syndicated newspaper columns know that he expressed his opinions boldly and unequivocally there

Walter once said he hoped that, on the day he died, he would have taught a class that day. And that is just the way it was, when he died on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020.

He was my best friend for half a century. There was no one I trusted more or whose integrity I respected more.

Since he was younger than me, I chose him to be my literary executor, to take control of my books after I was gone.

But his death is a reminder that no one really has anything to say about such things.

As an economist, Walter Williams never got the credit he deserved.

His book “Race and Economics” is a must-read introduction to the subject. Amazon has it ranked 5th in sales among civil rights books, nine years after it was published.

Another book of his, on the effects of economics under the white supremacist apartheid regime in South Africa, was titled “South Africa’s War Against Capitalism.”

He went to South Africa to study the situation directly. Many of the things he brought out have implications for racial discrimination in other places around the world.

I have had many occasions to cite Walter Williams’ research in my own books.

Most of what others say about higher prices in low-income neighborhoods today has not yet caught up to what Walter said in his doctoral dissertation decades ago.

Despite his opposition to the welfare state, as something doing more harm than good, Walter was privately very generous with both his money and his time in helping others.

He figured he had a right to do whatever he wanted to with his own money, but that politicians had no right to take his money to give away, in order to get votes.

In a letter dated March 3, 1975, Walter wrote: “Sometimes it is a very lonely struggle trying to help our people, particularly the ones who do not realize that help is needed.”

In the same letter, he mentioned a certain hospital which “has an all but written policy of prohibiting the flunking of Black medical students.”

Not long after this, a professor at a prestigious medical school revealed that Black students there were given passing grades without having met the standards applied to other students. He warned that trusting patients would pay — some with their lives — for such irresponsible double standards. That has in fact happened.

As a person, Walter Williams was unique.

I have heard of no one else being described as being “like Walter Williams.”

Holding a black belt in karate, Walter was a tough customer. One night three men jumped him — and two of those men ended up in a hospital.

The other side of Walter came out in relation to his wife, Connie

Walter Williams: R.I.P. to a champion of freedom

© Provided by Washington Examiner

Conservative author and economist Walter Williams has died, ending the illustrious career of one of liberty’s fiercest yet most soft-spoken advocates.

He was 84.

Many conservatives know Williams from his years of subbing for talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. Others know Williams from his appearances on the 10-part 1980 PBS television series Free to Choose, featuring Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman.

Born in 1936, the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University was known as a prolific author.

Williams “was the author of over 150 publications which have appeared in scholarly journals,” Economic Policy Journal recalls in its memoriam. His work appeared in Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review, Georgia Law Review, Journal of Labor Economics, Social Science Quarterly, and Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy and popular publications such as Newsweek, Ideas on Liberty, National Review, Reader’s Digest, Cato Journal, andPolicy Review.

The man also wrote ten books: America: A Minority Viewpoint, The State Against Blacks, All It Takes Is Guts, South Africa’s War Against Capitalism, Do the Right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks, More Liberty Means Less Government, Liberty vs. the Tyranny of Socialism, Up From The Projects: An Autobiography, Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed On Discrimination?, and American Contempt for Liberty.

To his friends, Williams, who was born both poor and fatherless in Philadelphia and spent much of his childhood in public housing projects, was known as an uncompromising lover of liberty.

“Walter liked smoking and he also hated the TSA,” economist David Henderson recalled this week after learning of Williams’s death. “Some years ago, the combination of no-smoking [regulations] on planes and intrusive groping by the TSA caused him to vow never to fly by commercial airline again. When he received offers to give speeches that were far enough away that driving was infeasible, he negotiated for a private airplane to take him there.”

John J. Miller likewise recalls in National Review the time that Williams’s exerted his independence and fought racial prejudice after being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1959 to fight in Korea.

“Although the military had desegregated, he bristled at institutional prejudice — and demonstrated his willingness to challenge racial orthodoxy,” Miller wrote in 2011. “He complained constantly about discrimination, even writing a letter about it to his commander-in-chief, President Kennedy.”

“When he stepped off the plane for a posting in Korea,” Miller continues, “he was told to fill out a paper with personal information. In the box for his race, he claimed to be white. ‘No, you’re not,’ said a warrant officer who reviewed the form. ‘Yes, I am,’ replied Williams, who knew perfectly well that he couldn’t pass for a white guy. Williams explained his choice to the officer: ‘If I checked off ‘Negro,’ I’d get the worst job over here.”

Williams’s first assignment ended up being a relatively easy one, far away from the front lines.

But as he was known for his sharp mind, he was also known for his keen wit, his dry sense of humor, and his kindness.

Personally, however, Williams will be remembered best as the soft-spoken conservative economist who frequently clowned on his late wife, Connie, who died in 2007.

As Marymount University economics professor Brian Hollar recalled after her death, “Professor Williams used to make a lot of jokes in class about making his wife shovel snow, how much he spoiled her, used her bad behavior for illustrating downward-sloping demand curves, etc. You could always tell through his teasing that he loved her deeply.”

Indeed, the Connie anecdotes were indicative not only of Williams’s dry sense of humor, and they acted not only as excellent examples to explain complex economic theories, but they displayed well his humanity. The stories always revealed his clear and deep love for his wife of 47 years.

He will be missed. Rest in peace, Walter Williams

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Walter Williams Highlights from – Testing Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman PBS Free to Choose 1980 Vol 8 of 10 Who Protects the Worker

Related posts:

__________

His research was rigorous, and he was one of the few economists who know how to engage with the public by Donald J. Boudreaux

–

• OPINION
• COMMENTARY

Walter Williams, R.I.P.

His research was rigorous, and he was one of the few economists who know how to engage with the public.

 

By

Donald J. Boudreaux

Updated Dec. 2, 2020 5:24 pm ET

 

America has lost one of its greatest economists and public intellectuals. Walter Williams died Wednesday morning after teaching his final class at George Mason University on Tuesday. He was 84.

For 40 years Walter was the heart and soul of George Mason’s unique Department of Economics. Our department unapologetically resists the trend of teaching economics as if it’s a guide for social engineers. This resistance reflects Walter’s commitment to liberal individualism and his belief that ordinary men and women deserve, as his friend Thomas Sowell puts it, “elbow room for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their ‘betters.’ ”

A onetime cabdriver who grew up poor in Philadelphia, Walter knew injustice—and understood the way to fight it wasn’t by emoting but by probing and learning. In 1972 he earned a doctorate in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he learned to look beneath surface phenomena for deeper causes and consequences.

His pioneering 1982 book, “The State Against Blacks,” is an eloquent, data-rich broadside against occupational licensing, taxicab regulations, labor-union privileges and other fine-sounding government measures that inflict disproportionate harm on blacks by restricting the employment options and by driving up the costs of goods and services.

The economics profession boasts many excellent minds, but it has precious few with the ability and interest to do rigorous research and to engage the public with its results. Milton Friedman was such a scholar, as is Thomas Sowell. Walter was in their league. From his appearance on Friedman’s PBS program “Free To Choose” (1980) through his stints as guest host of Rush Limbaugh’s radio program to his syndicated column, Walter brought economic lessons to life in a way few others could

Behold his brilliant explanation of how minimum wages promote employment discrimination: “What minimum wage laws do is lower the cost of, and hence subsidize, racial preference indulgence. After all, if an employer must pay the same wage no matter whom he hires, the cost of discriminating in favor of the people he prefers is cheaper. This is a general principle. If filet mignon sold for $9 a pound and chuck steak $4, the cost of discriminating in favor of filet mignon is $5 a pound, the price difference. But if a law mandating a minimum price for chuck steak were on the books at, say, $7 a pound, it would lower the cost of discrimination against chuck steak.”

Observing dilapidated and abandoned housing in New York and other cities, Walter blamed rent control, which dampens landlords’ incentive to maintain their properties and even creates an incentive to destroy them and collect insurance proceeds. “Short of aerial saturation bombing,” Walter observed, “rent control might be one of the most effective means of destroying a city.”

The author of 13 books, dozens of academic papers and countless popular essays, Walter was a scholar’s scholar. He was one of America’s most courageous defenders of free markets, constitutionally limited government and individual responsibility. I will miss him as a friend. The world will miss him as a tireless champion of American values.

Mr. Boudreaux is a professor of economics at George Mason University

 

 

 

Dr. Walter Williams Highlights from – Testing Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman PBS Free to Choose 1980 Vol 8 of 10 Who Protects the Worker

Related posts:

__________

—

Conservatives mourn the death of economist Walter E. Williams: ‘Punch in the gut’

Conservatives reacted to news of the death of world-renowned economist Walter E. Williams, with radio host Mark Levin describing it as a “punch in the gut.”

“Wow, what a punch in the gut,” Levin tweeted following reports of Williams’s death at age 84 on Wednesday. “I am told that one of my heroes, Dr. Walter Williams, passed away. Walter had an enormous influence on me, from the time I was 13-years old; he was my first guest on Life, Liberty & Levin. I’ll discuss more tonight on radio.”

Conservatives across the country have commented on Williams’s death, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who called the late economist “legendary.”

“Very sad news,” Cruz tweeted. “Walter Williams was legendary. He was brilliant, incisive, witty, and profound. I grew up reading him, and he was a ferocious defender of free markets and a powerful explainer of the virtues of Liberty.”

“I was introduced to Walter Williams’ work as a college newspaper writer & editor at Dartmouth,” attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon tweeted. “Our own professors were peddling Marxist propaganda, but we took inspiration from Williams’ writing and commentary. He was truly an inspiration and a hero to me. RIP to legend.”

“Walter Williams was an American hero,” the Heritage Foundation tweeted. “Born in poverty, raised by a single mother in the projects of North Philadelphia, a college drop-out, he overcame all types of adversity to become a nationally renowned professor, economist and columnist.”

Williams, known as a champion of free market economics and capitalism, often wrote about the topic of racismand published hundreds of research papers and scholarly articles. He also wrote several books, including The State Against Blacks and America: A Minority Viewpoint, which was turned into a PBS documentary.

“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,” Williams once said. “And that is to destroy the black family.”

Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage

Related posts:

–

Since 1980 when I first saw Walter Williams on the Milton Friedman film series FREE TO CHOOSE I have been a big fan of his and read his articles and books with great interest. I even had the honor of corresponding with him. His articles have featured many times on my blog and I was sad to see that he passed away yesterday. Here are some links to some of his best articles here, and here.

Despite his opposition to the welfare state as doing more harm than good, teacher and economist Walter E. Williams was privately generous with both his money and time. Pictured: Williams during a 2016 interview with The Daily Signal, which carried his weekly column. (Photo: The Heritage Foundation)

In a letter dated March 3, 1975, Walter said: “Sometimes it is a very lonely struggle trying to help our people, particularly the ones who do not realize that help is needed.”

In the same letter, he mentioned a certain hospital that “has an all but written policy of prohibiting the flunking of black medical students.”

Not long after this, a professor at a prestigious medical school revealed that black students there were given passing grades without having met the standards applied to other students. He warned that trusting patients would pay—some with their lives—for such irresponsible double standards. That has in fact happened.

As a person, Walter Williams was unique. I have heard of no one else described as being “like Walter Williams.”

Holding a black belt in karate, Walter was a tough customer. One night three men jumped him—and two of those men ended up in a hospital.

The other side of Walter came out in relation to his wife, Connie. She helped put him through graduate school—and after he received his Ph.D., she never had to work again, not even to fix his breakfast.

Walter liked to go to his job at 4:30 a.m. He was the only person who had no problem finding a parking space on the street in downtown Washington.

Around 9 o’clock or so, Connie—now awake—would phone Walter and they would greet each other tenderly for the day.

We may not see his like again. And that is our loss.

COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM

Editor’s note: Walter E. Williams’ columns published by The Daily Signal may be found here.

——-

WILLIAMS: U.S. In Moral Decline

Last week, U.S. Attorney General William Barr told a University of Notre Dame Law School audience that attacks on religious liberty have contributed to a moral decline that’s in part manifested by increases in suicides, mental illness and drug addiction. Barr said that our moral decline is not random but “organized destruction.” Namely that “Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”

The attorney general is absolutely correct. Whether we have the stomach to own up to it or not, we have become an immoral people left with little more than the pretense of morality. The left’s attack on religion is just the tiny tip of the iceberg in our nation’s moral decline. You say: “That’s a pretty heavy charge, Williams. You’d better be prepared to back it up with evidence!” I’ll try with a few questions for you to answer.

Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not peaceably submit to such use, do you believe that there should be the initiation of force against him? Neither question is complex and can be answered by either a yes or no. For me the answer is no to both questions. I bet that nearly every college professor, politician or even minister could not give a simple yes or no response.

A no answer, translated to public policy, would slash the federal budget by no less than two-thirds to three-quarters. After all most federal spending consist of taking the earnings of one American to give to another American in the form of farm subsidies, business bailouts, aid to higher education, welfare and food stamps. Keep in mind that Congress has no resources of its own. Plus there’s no Santa Claus or tooth fairy that gives Congress resources. Thus, the only way that Congress can give one American a dollar is to first, through intimidation and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American.

Such actions by the U.S. Congress should offend any sense of moral decency. If you’re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of some other American. When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment — “Thou shalt not steal” — I am sure that He did not mean thou shalt not steal unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress. By the way, I do not take this position because I don’t believe in helping our fellow man. I believe that helping those in need by reaching into one’s own pocket to do is praiseworthy and laudable. But helping one’s fellow man in need by reaching into somebody else’s pockets to do so is worthy of condemnation.

We must own up to the fact that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. Morality is society’s first line of defense against uncivilized behavior. Religious teachings, one way of inculcating morality, have been under siege in our country for well over a half a century. In the name of not being judgmental and the vision that one lifestyle or set of values is just as good as another, traditional moral absolutes have been abandoned as guiding principles. We no longer hold people accountable for their behavior and we accept excuses. The moral problems Attorney General William Barr mentioned in his speech, plus murder, mayhem and other forms of anti-social behavior, will continue until we regain our moral footing.

In 1798, John Adams, a leading Founding Father and our second president said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I am all too afraid that a historian, writing a few hundred years from now, will note that the liberty American enjoyed was simply a historical curiosity. Then it all returned to mankind’s normal state of affairs — arbitrary abuse and control by the powerful elite.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at http://www.creators.com.

Milton Friedman PBS Free to Choose 1980 Vol 8 of 10 Who Protects the Worker

Related posts:

__________