Walter Williams today is the head of the Economics Department at George Mason University. Here we are 29 years later, and the day’s problems and answers remain the same. As a society we demand a basket of free goodies from the public largess. When the universal truth of the broken window fallacy smacks us in the face, those who sold us on the basket of free goodies offer a government program which somewhat offers to mitigate the results of the first disastrous governmental intervention into the free market system. The issue is demagogued and spun to make those advocating the reversal out to be cold heartless animals throwing grandma off of the proverbial cliff.
Walter Williams’ PBS documentary Good Intentions based on his book, The State Against Blacks (1982). The documentary was very controversial at the time it was released and led to many animosities and even threats of murder.
In Good Intentions, Dr. Williams examines the failure of the war on poverty and the devastating effect of well meaning government policies on blacks asserting that the state harms people in the U.S. more than it helps them. He shows how government anti-poverty programs have often locked people into poverty making the points that:
– being forced to attend 3rd rate public schools leave students unprepared for working life – minimum wages prevent young people from obtaining jobs at an early age – licensing and labor laws have had the effect of restricting entrance of blacks into the skilled trades and unions – the welfare system creates perverse incentives for the poor to make bad choices they otherwise would not
Dr. Williams presents the following solutions to these problems:
Failing Public Schools – Give parents greater control over their children’s education by setting up a tuition tax credit or voucher system to broaden competition in turn revitalizing both public and non-public schools
Minimum Wages – Remove the minimum wage from youngsters to give more young people the chance to learn the world of work at an early age instead spending their free time idle an possibly falling into the habits of the street
Restrictive Labor Laws, Jobs Programs – Eliminate government roadblocks that prevent new entrepreneurs from starting their own business
Welfare Programs – Enact a compassionate welfare system such as a negative income tax which would remove dependency and dis-incentives for the poor to get themselves out of poverty
Scholars interviewed in the documentary include Donald Eberle, Charles Murray, and George Gilder.
In watching Dr. Williams’ documentary from 30 years ago, something struck me. We, here in America often debate the issues of our day as if we live in a vacuum. We stand today at a crossroads, just like we have many times in our history. We can look to the big government solutions to our current crisis, or we can look to allowing the free markets to do this for us. When I say we do not live in a vacuum, what I meant is that we have tried both approaches before. One approach has never worked, and in fact always succeeded at making the problems worse. One approach has worked every time it has been tried. I am used to being called a, (insert your insult here,) for advocating the latter path. At some point however, I would just like to point out that while the liberal heart is undoubtedly in the right place, when your course of action invariably leads to the exact results you are complaining about, it becomes your own fault personally for refusing to try something else. Dr. Williams was vilified mercilessly for this documentary. No matter what names he was called, it does not detract from the fact that he was right. Walter Williams writes a weekly column, I find them reprinted at Investor’s Business Daily.
