Walter E. Williams

Born in Philadelphia in 1936, Walter E. Williams holds a bachelor's degree in economics from California State University (1965) and a Master's degree (1967) and doctorate (1972) in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1980, he joined the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and is currently the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics. More than 150 of his publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review and Social Science Quarterly and popular publications such as Reader's Digest, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. He has made many TV and radio appearances on such programs as Milton Friedman's Free to Choose, William F. Buckley's Firing Line, Face The Nation, Nightline and Crossfire, and is an occasional substitute host for The Rush Limbaugh Show. He is also the author of several books. Among these are The State Against Blacks, later made into a television documentary, America: A Minority Viewpoint, All It Takes Is Guts, South Africa's War Against Capitalism, More Liberty Means Less Government, Liberty Versus The Tyranny of Socialism, and recently his autobiography, Up From The Projects.

recent articles

Rising Black Social Pathology

The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s big story Feb. 4 was about how a budget crunch at the Philadelphia School District had caused the district to lay off 91 school police officers. Over the years, there’s been no discussion of what has happened to our youth that makes a school police force necessary in the first place. The … Read more

Economic Chaos Ahead

Let’s think about the kind of mess that we’re in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of … Read more

Obama’s Racial Politics

There’s been a heap of criticism placed upon President Barack Obama’s domestic policies that have promoted government intrusion and prolonged our fiscal crisis and his foreign policies that have emboldened our enemies. Any criticism of Obama pales in comparison with what might be said about the American people who voted him in to the nation’s … Read more

Schools of Edukashun

  Larry Sand’s article “No Wonder Johnny (Still) Can’t Read” — written for The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, based in Raleigh, N.C. — blames schools of education for the decline in America’s education. Education professors drum into students that they should not “drill and kill” or be the “sage on the … Read more

Presidential Nonsense

  Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, “We can’t go back to this brand of you’re-on-your-own economics.” Throughout my professional career as an economist, I’ve never come across the theory of “you’re-on-your-own economics.” I’m guessing what the president means by — and finds offensive in — “you’re-on-your-own … Read more

In Greed I Trust

  Last week’s column started off asking: “What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done?” The answer is that human greed is what gets wonderful things done. I wasn’t talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I was talking about people trying to get as much … Read more

Is Greed Good?

  What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It’s really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it’s human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other … Read more

America the Gullible

  National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman has called for states to mandate a total ban on cellphone usage while driving. She has also encouraged electronics manufacturers — via recommendations to the CTIA-The Wireless Association and the Consumer Electronics Association — to develop features that “disable the functions of portable electronic devices within reach … Read more

China Trade: Myths vs. Reality

  Republicans and Democrats, liberals as well as conservatives, have bought into anti-Chinese trade demagoguery. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that tariffs against China are a “key part of our ‘Make It in America’ agenda.” During his 2010 campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called his tea party-backed Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, “a … Read more

Economic Fairness

  The most prevalent theme in President Barack Obama’s Dec. 6 Osawatomie, Kan., speech was the need for greater “fairness.” In fact, though the president never defined the term fair(ness), he used it 15 times. Explaining his new hero, Teddy Roosevelt, Obama said: “But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a … Read more

Free To Die?

  Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column titled “Free to Die” (9/15/2011), pointed out that back in 1980, his late fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman lent his voice to the nation’s shift to the political right in his famous 10-part TV series, Free To Choose. Nowadays, Krugman says, “‘free to … Read more

Ending Income Inequality?

Benefiting from a hint from an article titled “Is Harry Potter Making You Poorer?”, written by my colleague Dr. John Goodman, president of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, I’ve come up with an explanation and a way to end income inequality in America, possibly around the world. Joanne Rowling was a welfare mother … Read more

Should the Rich Be Condemned?

  Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, the phonograph, the DC motor and other items in everyday use and became wealthy by doing so. Thomas Watson founded IBM and became rich through his company’s contribution to the computation revolution. Lloyd Conover, while in the employ of Pfizer, created the antibiotic tetracycline. Though Edison, Watson, Conover … Read more

Poverty in America?

According to CBS News, “the number of people in the U.S. living in poverty in 2010 rose for the fourth year in a row, representing the largest number of Americans in poverty in the 52 years since such estimates have been published by the U.S. Census Bureau.” MSNBC said, “The U.S. poverty rate remains among … Read more

Ignorance Exploited

Many Wall Street occupiers are echoing the Communist Party USA’s call to “Save the nation! Tax corporations! Tax the rich!” There are other Americans, on both the left and the right — for example, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner — who call for reductions in corporate taxes. But the University of California, … Read more

Democracy Is Impossible

  After Moammar Gadhafi’s downfall as Libya’s tyrannical ruler, politicians and “experts” in the U.S. and elsewhere, including French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, are saying that his death marked the end of 42 years of tyranny and the beginning of democracy in Libya. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Gadhafi’s death represented an opportunity for Libya … Read more

Profits are for People

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are demanding “people before profits” — as if profit motivation were the source of mankind’s troubles — when it’s often the absence of profit motivation that’s the true villain. First, let’s get both the definition and magnitude of profits out of the way. Profits represent the residual claim earned by … Read more

Pitting Us Against Each Other

President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have led increasingly successful efforts to pit Americans against one another through the politics of hate and envy. Attacking CEO salaries, the president — last year during his Midwest tour — said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” Let’s look at CEO salaries, … Read more

Social Security Disaster

Politicians who are principled enough to point out the fraud of Social Security, referring to it as a lie and Ponzi scheme, are under siege. Acknowledgment of Social Security’s problems is not the same as calling for the abandonment of its recipients. Instead, it’s a call to take actions now, while there’s time to avert … Read more

The Financial Mess in the U.S. and Europe

What’s the common thread between Europe’s financial mess, particularly among the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), and the financial mess in the U.S.? That question could be more easily answered if we asked instead: What’s necessary to cure the financial mess in Europe and the U.S.? If European governments and the U.S. Congress … Read more

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