Posted on 10/16/2006 10:59:18 AM PDT by kenn5
Bryn Mawr, Pa. - Walter E. Williams, a George Mason University economics professor and author, spoke last Thursday at a lecture organized by the Wynnewood Institute on the role of the federal government in a free society.
"I'm going to say many things that break with conventional wisdom," he opened in a speech where he advocated private property, free enterprise and state secession. "I'm going to sound mean and uncaring."
Fairness and justice are concepts used to justify growing the federal government, Williams said, but the Constitution doesn't give Congress the power to tax for nearly three-fourths of what it spends, such as farm subsidies, food stamps and midnight football.
"Some will say, 'that Williams guy is being very narrow and the Constitution is a Living Document,'" he said, but "that is the same as saying we do not have a constitution at all ... How many of you would like to play poker with me [when] the rules are 'living'?"
Williams quoted James Madison, known by many as the Father of the Constitution, in 1794 when he said he couldn't find authority for Congress to spend money for the purpose of benevolence. The federal government exists only to protect private property and free enterprise, Williams said. Taxation is crucial, he added, because "Taxes represent government claims on private property."
In 1902, federal, state, and local government spending was $1.7 billion and the average citizen paid $60 a year in taxes. From 1787 until 1920, all government spending amounted to three percent of the GNP, except during wartime.
Now federal spending alone is $2.7 trillion, Williams said, and state and local spending is slightly over $1 trillion. The average citizen pays $8,000 in taxes per year.
From Jan. 1 until May 8, five months out of the year, the government decides how our earnings are spent. Williams likened this to slavery in the sense that someone works all year and someone else decides how the fruits of his or her labor will be used. So in effect, Americans are nearly halfway towards economic slavery.
Williams then defined capitalism as a system "where individual liberty was best protected." Individuals may pursue their own self-interests "so long as they do not violate the property rights of others." Capitalism relies on voluntary exchange.
Williams also quoted James Madison in the Federalist No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined" and limited to national defense and foreign commerce.
Therefore, the role of federal government in a free society is confined to five things: protection against foreign and domestic threat, adjudication of legal disputes, disbursement of few public goods, and constitutional order.
"For the last half century or so, free enterprise has been under unrestrained attack," Williams said. "Americans have contempt for economic liberty."
But economic liberty is "threatened not by its failure but by its success." It was so successful in reducing traditional human sufferings such as disease, pestilence, and gross hunger and poverty that Americans no longer became concerned with them but with other problems that they were less willing to tolerate. These include equality, sex and race concerns, and healthcare.
To achieve these so-called new rights, Williams said, Americans paid less attention to protecting individual liberty. He cited Social Security's Payroll Tax: "Here is someone telling me and you how much to set aside each week for retirement." He asked what would happen if the government began telling us how much to set aside for housing or food: "The latter is totalitarianism."
He added, "I am not saying we're totalitarian yet, but if you ask me which direction we're heading," whether towards liberty or government control, "the answer must unambiguously be the latter."
"The primary justification for intrusion into private property and economic freedom... can be found in people's desire for the government to do good... It's nice to think that the government can do good," Williams said. But "government has no resources of its very own... The only way for government to give someone a dollar is, [through] intimidation, threat, and coercion, take that dollar from someone else."
To illustrate his point, he asked the audience to imagine what would happen if an individual did privately the same thing the government does. If a person stole from another person in order to help a homeless person, we call that theft, even though it was done out of benevolence. But if the government does the same thing through social welfare, "there is no conceptual distinction between both acts," except that one is illegal theft and the other is legal theft.
What is legal is not a good guide for American society because what is legal is not always moral, Williams said. He used slavery as an example of a legal institution that was immoral.
"I believe in charity," Williams said. "I believe that reaching into one's own pockets to help your fellow man is praiseworthy and laudable, but reaching in someone else's pockets is wrong."
He used the comparison of seduction versus rape. Seduction is a voluntary exchange, "if you make me feel good, I'll make you feel good." Rape is an involuntary exchange. "If you don't make me feel good, I'm going to make you feel bad."
But what if these social welfare programs were popular among most Americans? "The framers intended us to be a republic, not a democracy... gang rape is no better than individual rape." By "gang rape" Williams meant majority rule.
Williams then spoke about the demand that some citizens have for the government to offset the powers of industrial giants: "That's nonsense. The only way Exxon can get a dollar from me is if I give it to them... Big business can get dollars from us [if they] first get permission from our elected representatives to rip us off."
By "permission" Williams meant special privileges that are most often "anti-competition, pro-monopoly, pro-control and coercion."
Do-gooders "believe they have superior wisdom to the masses," Williams said. "They have what they consider to be good reason for restricting the freedom of others, [but] every tyrant believed that he had good reason to restrict the freedom of others. Tyrants do not trust that people will behave the way they want."
"Do-gooders don't realize that most good is not done in the name of good," Williams said. For instance, the driving motivation for people to work is greed. "Why would farmers in Idaho make personal sacrifice to make sure New Yorkers have potatoes? Do you think they do this because they love New Yorkers?"
He answered his own question in the negative. Farmers do it for their own benefit, but as a result, the public good is promoted. "How much meat and potatoes do you think New Yorkers would have if people [had no motive but their own virtue]?" Williams asked, "I'd be worried about them."
Williams also offered a personal example of how greed promotes the common good through capitalism, in this case, for the benefit of future generations. He explained how he spent $300 planting trees on his home property instead of personal consumption. "What have future generations ever done for me? There's no quid pro quo... There will be some kid in 2050 swinging on my trees and eating my pears and apples." So why did he do it? So his property value would increase and earn more money the day he decides to sell it.
"What if the government owned the house?" he asked, or charged a 75 percent transfer tax when he decided to sell, then he wouldn't care to plant trees or maintain its value.
What about environmental protection? "I don't give a hoot," Williams said. If biologists claim that 93 percent of all organisms that lived on the earth are extinct, why complain about 93.5 or 93.6 percent? He asked.
Williams said that he once saw the bald eagle in the zoo when he was 35 years old and didn't care to see it for another 35 years. "How come people aren't marching for the chicken?" he asked, referring to endangered species activists. No one cares for domestic animals because people own them while no one owns wildlife animals. Therefore, no one's wealth is at stake if they die. Williams suggested that people would likely be more interested in preserving wildlife animals if they were owned.
It was the rise of capitalism that produced a more humane society, Williams argues, before there was capitalism, looting, plundering, and enslaving were the order of the day. "Every group in the nation feels that the government owes them a special favor," he said, "College professors love to get $500,000 [in government grants] to do a study on poverty."
Williams quoted H.L. Mencken, the twentieth-century journalist and pundit of the Baltimore Sun, on the definition of an election: "Government is a broker and pillager and every election is an advance auction on the sale of stolen goods."
Williams said we can blame the politicians a little bit for the way things are, but the bulk of the blame lies with us.
For instance, someone running for the U.S. Senate who didn't promise voters anything except to spend within the Constitutional limits would never get elected Williams said. "Once legalized theft begins, it pays for everyone to get involved."
However, all is not lost. "It's not too late for us to wake up. Americans have never messed up for so long. We've always managed to get our act together."
He recalled how he once asked F.A. Hayek, the economist and political philosopher who won the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, what law he would enact to help America if he could only enact one. Hayek responded, "Congress cannot do for one American what it cannot do for all Americans." In other words, Congress could not enact any special favors or projects.
"There is a glimmer of hope in the horizon," Williams said after mentioning how the balanced budget amendment that he co-authored with several other prominent thinkers failed to pass Congress in the 1980s and 90s. That hope is the Free State Project, a private group of conservatives and libertarians that are attempting to woo 20,000 like-minded citizens to move to New Hampshire. Once there, they will restore a government that only protects individual liberties in both state and federal government.
Williams also voiced his support for the possibility of state secession. "There would have been no union if states didn't believe they had the right to secede," he said. Without secession, "then there's no limit to what the federal government can do. It's like telling my wife that she can't divorce me."
A man after my own heart. Maybe HE will run for Prez.
As he has been doing for a good many years now!
The Problem is that far to few are LISTENING!
I wish that he would but he won't as he knows that he would be excoriated by the MSM and because, rightly or wrongly, he does not believe a black man can be elected president.
I e-mailed Mr. Williams 2 years ago and asked him to run. He was very nice about it bu in no uncertain terms let me know he wasn't interested!
He was very nice about it bu in no uncertain terms let me know he wasn't interested!
That's a shame.
Maybe I'll vote for him anyway.
I'm not as optimistic as Dr. Williams. With public schools and big media pushing the socialist agenda and uncontrolled immigration from countries with corrupt political systems, too many voters either oppose, don't care care or don't understand what Williams is talking about.
ROFLMAO. Not Williams' line (a quote), but still qualifies as the line of the day.
I enjoy him when he substitutes for RUSH.
Also, a good read can be found on a similar topic:
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: A 'right' to someone else's labor?
see:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jan-25-Sun-2004/opinion/23052861.html
Dr. Williams is great! And very tall -- I once had the honor of dining with him, only to discover that he is 6' 7". He also lit up a stogie in the non-smoking Carolina Coffee Shop...
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