Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism Controversial Essays WALTER E. WILLIAMS hoover institution press Stanford University Stanford, California The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the thirty-first president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic and international affairs. The views expressed in its publications are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, officers, or Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution. www.hoover.org Hoover Institution Press Publication No. 564 Copyright ᮊ 2008 by Walter E. Williams All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. The Hoover Institution Press acknowledges Creators Syndicate, Inc., and also the Foundation for Economic Education (publisher of The Freeman), for their permission and cooperation in the reprinting of Walter E. Williams’s columns and articles in this collection. First printing, 2008 161514131211100908987654321 Manufactured in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. ࠗϱ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Williams, Walter E. (Walter Edward), 1936– Liberty versus the tyranny of socialism / by Walter E. Williams p. cm. — (Hoover Institution Press publication ; no. 564) ISBN 978-0-8179-4912-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social sciences. I. Title. II. Hoover Institution Press publication ; 564. H85.W55 2008 320.52092—dc22 2008016376 Contents Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Education 1 A Donor with Backbone 4 The Shame of Higher Education 6 Murder at VPI 8 Academic Cesspools 10 Academic Cesspools II 12 Academic Slums 14 Indoctrination of Our Youth 16 What’s With GMU? 18 Who’s to Blame? 20 College Stupidity 22 Are Academic Elites Communists? 24 Anti-Intellectualism among the Academic Elite 26 Education Ineptitude 28 Education Ineptitude II 30 Believe It or Not 32 School Violence Toleration 34 Higher Education in Decline 36 Higher Education in Decline II 38 What’s Wrong with Education? 40 Fiddling whilst Rome Burns 42 Environment and Health 45 Busybodies or Tyrants? 48 Global Warming Heresy 50 Trans Fat Ban 52 Fearmongering 54 Do We Want Socialized Medicine? 56 Phony Science and Public Policy 58 FDA: Friend or Foe? 60 Health Care: Government vs. Private 62 Deadly Environmentalists 64 Global Warming Hysteria 66 vi Contents Silencing Dissent 68 Do We Want This? 71 Destructive Western Policy 73 Envirobamboozled 75 Is This the America We Want? 77 Weak-Kneed Corporate CEOs 79 Killing People 81 They’re Coming after You 83 Government 85 Competition or Monopoly 88 Stupid, Ignorant or Biased? 90 Congressional Constitutional Contempt 92 Bitter Partisan Politics 94 Attacking Lobbyists Wrong Battle 96 Is There a Federal Deficit? 98 Click It or Ticket 100 The Slippery Slope 102 The Pretense of Knowledge 104 Why We Love Government 106 The FairTax Book 108 Are We a Republic or a Democracy? 110 Not Yours to Give 112 Social Security Deceit 114 Stupid Airport Security 116 Stupid Airport Security II 118 Stupid Airport Security III 120 Is It Permissible? 122 Congressional Miracles 124 Minimum Gasoline Prices 126 Dangers of No Tax Liability 128 National Sales Tax 130 Income 133 Should We Save Jobs? 136 The Tempermental Minimum Wage 138 Economists on the Loose 140 Are the Poor Getting Poorer? 142 Income Mobility 144 The Poverty Hype 146 Contents vii Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly 148 Are CEOs Overpaid? 150 How Not to Be Poor 152 Dead-End Jobs 154 Income Inequality 156 From Whence Income? 158 The Morality of Markets 160 The Politics of Envy 162 International 165 Goodies Cost 167 The Seen and Unseen 169 The Anti–Free Trader’s True Enemy 171 Nonsense Ideas 173 Trade Deficits: Good or Bad? 175 World Poverty 177 Creating Effective Incentives 179 Rules of Engagement 181 The Pope Sanctions the OECD Thugs 183 How to Create Conflict 185 Disappearing Manufacturing Jobs 187 Foreign Aid to Africa 189 Will the West Defend Itself? 191 Foreign Trade Angst 193 Should We Trade at All? 195 Should We Copy Europe? 197 Our Trade Deficit 199 Aid to Africa 201 Sweatshop Exploitation 203 Self-Inflicted Poverty 205 The Appeasement Disease 207 Economic Stupidity 209 Poverty Myths 211 Do Peace Treaties Produce Peace? 213 Congressional and Leftist Lies 215 Law and Society 217 Constitution Day 219 Rules More Important Than Personalities 221 Property Rights 223 viii Contents Democracy or Liberty 225 The Law versus Orders 227 Economic and Property Rights 229 Bogus Rights 231 Results versus Process 233 The Law or Good Ideas? 235 Ignorance or Contempt 237 American Contempt for Rule of Law 239 Liberty’s Greatest Advocate 241 Corporate Courage 243 Confiscating Property 245 Attacking Western Values 247 Immigration vs. Gate-Crashing 249 The Greatest Generation 251 Potpourri 253 Illegal Immigration 254 Straight Thinking 101 256 Things to Think About 258 Historical Tidbits 260 Running Out of Oil? 262 Passing of a Giant 264 The Productive vs. the Unproductive 266 Making Intelligent Errors 268 Economic Lunacy 270 Do We Really Care about Children? 272 Why We’re a Divided Nation 274 What’s Inflation? 276 Basic Economics 278 U.S. Atrocities in Iraq 280 Will the West Survive? 282 Economics 101 284 Economic Lunacy 286 Attack on Decency 288 Profiling Needed 290 A Dynamite Economics Department 292 Who May Harm Whom? 294 Too Much Safety 296 There’s No Free Lunch 298 Contents ix Dopey Ideas and Expressions 300 Different Visions, Different Policy 302 My Organs Are for Sale 304 Parting Company Is an Option 307 Honesty and Trust 310 Race 313 Regrets for Slavery 316 Do People Care? 318 Liberal Views, Black Victims 320 Insulting Blacks 322 Betrayal of the Civil Rights Struggle 324 Racial Hoaxes and the NAACP 326 What’s Discrimination? 328 What’s Prejudice? 330 Discrimination or Prejudice 332 Discrimination, Prejudice, and Preferences 334 How Much Does Politics Count? 336 Racial Profiling 338 Victimhood: Rhetoric or Reality 340 Betrayal of the Struggle 342 Racial Profiling 344 Price Discrimination 346 Three Cheers for the Cos 348 A Usable Black History 350 Does Political Power Mean Economic Power? 352 Stifling Black Students 354 Economics for the Citizen 357 Preface This book contains a selected collection of newspaper columns I have written over the past few years. Writing a weekly column for nearly thirty years is one of the loves of my life and the fruition of an ad- monition given to me by Professor Armen Alchian, one of my tena- cious mentors during my graduate years at UCLA, who told me that the true test of whether one knows his subject comes when he can explain it to someone who knows nothing about it. If there is one glaring dereliction of economists, it is making our subject accessible to the ordinary person. The most important thing to be said about economics is that economics, more than anything else, is a way of thinking. As such, the tools of economics can be applied to topics commonly thought to be in the realm of economics, such as inter- national trade, regulation, prices of goods and services, and costs and choice. The same economic tools can be usefully applied in areas not commonly thought to be in the realm of economics, such as racial discrimination, national defense and marriage. The reader should be aware of a bias that underlies much of what I write. That bias is an unyielding defense of personal liberty that is a necessary consequence of the initial premise I make about humans. That initial premise that is each of us owns himself. Stated another way: I am my private property and you are yours. The institution of private property is the right held by the owner of property to keep, acquire, dispose, and exclude from use. The premise of self-owner- ship determines what human acts are moral or immoral and consis- tent with that premise. For example, rape, murder, slavery, fraud, and theft are immoral because they violate private property. Americans articulate respect for private property rights, but their actions indicate otherwise. For example, although most Americans find slavery offensive, they do not find the essence of slavery offen- sive, which is a set of circumstances whereby one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another. Casual examination of the fed- eral budget demonstrates that forcibly using one person to serve the xii Preface purposes of another is now the primary function of the federal gov- ernment in the forms of programs such as Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, farm and business subsidies, foreign aid, and the like. Americans, through the tax code, are forcibly used to serve the pur- poses of another, the recipient of government largesse. Our founders feared government. Thomas Jefferson said, “I con- sider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition.” Many of my columns focus on the growth of government and our loss of liberty, but many other columns demonstrate how the tools of ec- onomics can be used in ways that ordinary people can understand.