In the last few weeks, 2 advocates of pro-capitalist thought has passed away - Walter Williams and Dick Rowland.
In the era when the younger generation is more fascinated by socialism, and when capitalism's reputation is tainted by association with over-rated real estate mogul and failed soon-to-be-ex-president Donald Trump, people need reminders on the positive sides of capitalism.
Walter Williams
In 1989 the Cato Institute and Praeger published Walter’s book South Africa’s War against Capitalism. In it he showed, with detailed economic and historical analysis, that South Africa’s apartheid regime was not “capitalist,” as its critics often believed. Rather, “South Africa’s apartheid is not the corollary of free‐market or capitalist forces. Apartheid is the result of anticapitalistic or socialistic efforts to subvert the operation of market (capitalistic) forces.”
"The Secret Shame" report didn't say why the black/white achievement gap was smaller in conservative cities compared to their progressive counterparts. But permit me to make a suggestion. An Education Week article reported that in the 2015-16 school year, "5.8% of the nation's 3.8 million teachers were physically attacked by a student." The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics show that in the 2011-12 academic year, there were a record 209,800 primary- and secondary-school teachers who reported being physically attacked by a student. A National Center for Education Statistics study found that 18% of the nation's schools accounted for 75% of the reported incidents of violence, and 6.6% accounted for half of all reported incidents. These are schools with predominantly black student populations. My guess is that part of the reasons black academic achievement is greater in conservative cities is that schools are less tolerant of crime whereas schools in progressive cities make excuses.
For most people, education is one of the steppingstones out of poverty, and it has been a steppingstone for many black people. Today, decent education is just about impossible at many big-city public schools where violence, disorder, disrespect and assaults on teachers are routine.
The kind of disrespectful and violent behavior observed in many predominantly black schools is entirely new. Some have suggested that such disorder is part of black culture, but that is an insulting lie.
and this
That behavior and conduct is relatively new. Meet with black people in their 70s or older, even liberal politicians such as Charles Rangel (age 90) and Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (85), Alcee Hastings (83) and Maxine Waters (82). Ask them whether their parents would have tolerated their assaulting and cursing of teachers or any other adult
Supporters of a $15 minimum wage are now admitting that there will be job losses. "Why shouldn't we in fact accept job loss?" asks New School economics and urban policy professor David Howell, adding, "What's so bad about getting rid of crappy jobs, forcing employers to upgrade, and having a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed by that?" Economic Policy Institute economist David Cooper says: "It could be that they spend more time unemployed, but their income is higher overall. If you were to tell me I could work fewer hours and make as much or more than I could have previously, that would be OK."What's a "crappy job"? My guess is that many of my friends and I held the jobs Howell is talking about as teenagers during the late 1940s and '50s. During summers, we arose early to board farm trucks to New Jersey to pick blueberries. I washed dishes and mopped floors at Philadelphia's Horn & Hardart restaurant, helped unload trucks at Campbell Soup, shoveled snow, swept out stores, delivered packages and did similar low-skill, low-wage jobs. If today's arrogant elite were around to destroy these jobs through wage legislation and regulation, I doubt whether I and many other black youths would have learned the habits of work that laid the foundation for future success. Today's elite have little taste for my stepfather's admonition: Any kind of a job is better than begging and stealing.
If pursuing profit is greed, economist Walter Williams told me, then greed is good, because it drives us to do many good things. “Those areas where people are motivated the most by greed are the areas that we’re the most satisfied with: supermarkets, computers, FedEx.” By contrast, areas “where people say we’re motivated by ‘caring’” — public education, public housing etc. — “are the areas of disaster in our country.... How much would get done,” Williams wondered, “if it all depended on human love and kindness?”
Star Parker on William's thoughts on the "morality of markets" https://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2020/12/09/dr-walter-williams-prophet-of-freedom-n2581244
He spoke about "the morality of markets." He put it this way in one interview: "The areas that we have the greatest satisfaction or the fewest complaints are places like the supermarket or the clothing store, or in computers or cell phones. And what's the motivation of the producers? It's for profit. But look at the areas where we are dissatisfied -- it's public education, it's the city sanitation department, it's the public transportation, it's the motor vehicles department. Look at the stated motivation in these areas: it's where there is caring but where there is no profit motive."
The profit motive, he continued, "forces the producer to try to find what people want, and to produce what they want. At the same time, it forces them to provide human wants in a way that economizes on the usage of scarce resources."
What about the availability of guns? It turns out that for most of our history, a person could walk into hardware and department stores or a gun store, virtually anywhere in the United States, and purchase a rifle or pistol. The 1902 Sears mail-order catalog had 35 pages of firearm advertisements. Other catalogs and magazines from the 1940s, '50s and '60s were full of gun advertisements directed to both youngsters and parents. "What Every Parent Should Know When a Boy or Girl Wants a Gun" was published by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Another magazine advertised "Get This Cowboy Carbine with Your Christmas Money." Just a few states even had age restrictions for buying guns. Private transfers of guns to juveniles were unrestricted. Often a 12th or 14th birthday present, from a father to his son, was a shiny new .22 caliber rifle.Today, there is far less availability of shotguns, rifles and pistols than any time in our history. That historical fact should raise the question: Despite the greater accessibility to guns in previous decades, why wasn't there the kind of violence we see with today's far more restricted access to guns? Have rifles and pistols changed their behavior from yesteryear and they are now out committing mayhem and evil? To answer in the affirmative can be dismissed as pure lunacy. Thus, if guns haven't changed, then it must be that people have changed. Half-witted psychobabble such as stopping children from playing schoolyard games like cops 'n' robbers and cowboys 'n' Indians won't do much. Calling for more gun restrictions, gun-free zones and other measures have been for naught.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. Moral standards of conduct have been under siege in our country for over a half a century. Moral absolutes have been abandoned as guiding principles. We've been taught not to be judgmental, that one lifestyle or set of values is just as good as another. We no longer hold people accountable for their behavior and we accept excuse-making. Problems of murder, mayhem and other forms of anti-social behavior will continue until we regain our moral footing.
All of this might be a shocker if the only suggested reading on race relations, crime & economics you hear about are books by left-leaning authors like Ibram Kendi or Michael Eric Dyson. This is not to dismiss all of their insights (some of which is valuable), but to note that they have nowhere near the monopoly on African-American thought.
Williams passed away on 12/2/2020 at the age of 84.
tributes to Walter Williams
his daughter Devon Williams: A Eulogy for My Father, Walter E. Williams (townhall.com)
by Thomas Sowell: https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2020/12/02/walter-e-williams-19362020-n2580965
by Larry Elder: https://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2020/12/10/remembering-walter-williams-friend-and-mentor-n2581298
by Star Parker: https://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2020/12/09/dr-walter-williams-prophet-of-freedom-n2581244
by Nick Gillespie: https://reason.com/2020/12/02/i-just-do-my-own-thing-walter-williams-rip/
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Dick Rowland
