“Racial discriminatory preferences do not explain all they are
purported to explain” is the central theme in economist Walter E.
Williams’ new book, Race and
Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?
That’s not surprising to anyone familiar with Williams’ work.
However, it is somewhat puzzling given his background, which he
chronicled last year in Up From
the Projects: An Autobiography.
Up From the Projects is one of those
rare books that you wish was at least 100 pages longer. It is
filled with politically-incorrect anecdotes, including the time
Williams appeared on a PBS program to discuss school vouchers.
During the show the host mentioned that Williams lived in the nice
suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland. A number of callers to the show
accused Williams of selling out by living among whites and demanded
to know why he didn’t live with his “own people.” Williams
writes:
I considered that question and comment stupid, and as I
sometimes do when confronted in that manner, I made light of them.
I told the questioner that I was getting old and my back was
bothering me, and for that reason, I wanted to live in a
neighborhood where I could simply park my car in front of my house
without having to carry the engine and battery in every
night.
Williams did face plenty of discrimination in his life,
including a beating from a Philadelphia police officer and a stint
in the Army, most of it spent at Fort Stewart, Georgia, in
1959-1961. Williams dealt with it by at times fighting back and at
other times creating mischief. When some of his fellow soldiers
warned him that he’d get into trouble, he’d respond, “What kind of
trouble? Is somebody going to paint me black and send me to
Georgia?”
Despite the obstacles Williams faced as a poor kid growing
up in Philadelphia, he received an excellent upbringing from his
mom. It appears that from her he received his penchant for seizing
opportunities when he saw them. Prior to being drafted, Williams
traveled to Los Angeles to visit his father, who had been absent
for much of Williams’ life. Williams saw L.A. as a land of
opportunity. He resolved to go back there after getting out of the
Army. After saving up some money, he and his wife Connie moved to
L.A. in December 1961.
Williams made the most of it, going to college and
eventually getting a doctorate in economics from UCLA. He considers
it fortunate that he got his degree before affirmative action took
hold:
Sometimes I sarcastically, perhaps cynically, say that I’m glad
I received virtually all of my education before it became
fashionable for white people to like black people. By that I mean I
encountered back then a more honest assessment of my strengths and
weaknesses. Professors didn’t hesitate to criticize me — sometimes
even to the point of saying, “That’s nonsense, Williams.”
Williams remarks that he became a libertarian by being
exposed to “tough-minded professors” who encouraged him to think
with his brain instead of his heart. In one instance, Williams told
an economics professor at UCLA that he believed that minimum wages
laws were a way to help the poor. The professor challenged
Williams, asking him if he cared about the intentions behind such
laws or its effects. If he was concerned about the effects, he
needed to read various studies “about the devastating effects of
the minimum wage on employment opportunities for minimally skilled
workers.”
It is that type of thinking that informs Race and
Economics. Finding discrimination to be an inadequate
explanation for the economic difficulties of blacks, Williams
examines the effect of government policies.
The “issue is not whether racial discrimination exists but
the extent to which it explains what we see today,” Williams
writes. He notes that while discrimination imposes costs on those
discriminated against, it also imposes costs on the discriminators.
A businessman who wants to hire only white workers will bear a cost
if he could hire black workers for cheaper. Free markets, Williams
argues, are the best friends of blacks. Markets pressure businesses
to avoid the cost of discrimination, since that cost makes it more
difficult for businesses to increase profits and provide customers
with lower prices.
Williams backs this up with a historical examination of
blacks in the U.S. during the 19th century. Blacks prospered in
many industries during that time, even in the South. If it was
possible for some blacks to achieve economic success when
discrimination was much worse than it is today, what explains the
economic difficulties of blacks in contemporary America?
Williams lays part of the blame on the welfare system,
which has done much to destroy the black family. But he spends the
majority of the book examining the various policies that restrict
the entry of people into the job market. Such policies will visit
the most harm on groups like blacks that lag economically since
they make it harder to acquire the entry-level, low paying jobs
that are the necessary first step in gaining experience in the job
market.
Sometimes the intent behind these laws was racist. In the
case of the Davis-Bacon Act, passed in 1931, the aim was limiting
black participation in the construction industry. By the early 20th
century, blacks had gained a major foothold in the construction
industry by working for lower wages than whites. Davis-Bacon forced
any construction company working on a federal project to pay its
workers much higher “locally prevailing wages.” Since construction
companies could no longer hire blacks at lower wages, it was no
longer economical to employ them. This was exactly what many
supporters of the law wanted. For example, Rep. John Cochran of
Missouri said that he had received many complaints about southern
contractors “employing low-paid colored mechanics and bringing the
employees from the South.” The then-president of the American
Federation of Labor, William Green, complained that “colored labor
is being sought to demoralize wage rates.” Prior to Davis-Bacon,
black and white unemployment rates in the construction industry
were similar. Afterwards, the black unemployment rate rose relative
to the rate for whites.
In other instances, the intent may be to improve safety,
an oft-cited justification for occupational licensure laws. From
barbers to taxi-cab drivers, over 800 professions in the U.S. have
a licensure requirement in at least one state. As Williams
notes:
Occupational licensing raises entry costs through various
minimum requirements: age, minimum secondary-school education,
special schooling, citizenship, and license fees. Nobody is
explicitly rejected; many decide not to try in the first place. The
requirements are more problematic for some demographic groups than
others. For example, the possession of a high school diploma will
impose a greater burden on those groups with a higher high school
dropout rate.
He tells the story of many minority entrepreneurs who are
trying to earn an honest living but are treated as criminals
because they run afoul of licensure laws.
Williams concludes that “numerous laws, regulations, and
ordinances have reduced or eliminated avenues of upward mobility
for many blacks.” He acknowledges that the solution of getting rid
of such barriers is easier said than done since there are many
interest groups that benefit from the reduced competition caused by
those barriers. But there is another obstacle, one that Williams
would probably acknowledge: the civil rights establishment has a
vested interest in promoting the belief that it is discrimination
that is holding minorities back. It has vast, well-funded empires
that depend on this belief. It has little interest in going after
such barriers because doing so could discredit the “racism is the
problem” meme. That probably won’t change until America comes to
its senses on the issue of race.
One can start by giving Williams’ books to friends and
family for Christmas.
