Jason Hartman interviews Walter E Williams, Professor of Economics at George Mason University and author of American Contempt for Liberty. They discuss the state of the United States and how it is becoming a country of people who hate liberty and want to take from others and take for themselves. The increased reliance on government and the sense of entitlement ravaging this nation is leading to many issues. Walter’s solution is to have less government.
Announcer 0:01
This show is produced by the Hartman media company. For more information and links to all our great podcasts, visit Hartman media.com.
Announcer 0:11
Welcome to the holistic survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The holistic survival show is your family’s insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. sudden change or worst case scenario, you’ll be ready. Welcome to ballistic survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.
Jason Hartman 0:59
It’s my pleasure to welcome Dr. Walter E. Williams. You’ve heard his name. He is a professor john M. Olin, distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University. He’s the best selling author of up from the project’s race in economics, Liberty versus the tyranny of socialism, and his most recent book, American contempt for liberty. Walter, welcome. How are you? Well, thank you, I’m doing fine. It’s good to have you on the show. Does America really have a contempt for liberty watching the news? It would, it would sort of seem so
Walter E Williams 1:30
we have a deep moral problem in our country. And the moral problem is, is that most Americans think that it’s okay, for the Congress of the United States to forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another American. And indeed, that accounts for roughly two thirds, three quarters of the federal budget, that is, when I say, forcibly using one American to serve another, I mean, that is Congress’s taking the earnings of one American and give it to the farmers giving it to food stamps, or bailing out businesses foreign aid. And that’s the forcible use of one person to serve the purpose of somebody else. And, and indeed, the forcible use of one person serve the purpose of somebody else is a fairly good working definition of slavery
Jason Hartman 2:16
couldn’t agree more. You didn’t mention health care. But of course, that’s all over the news for the last decade, you know, people somehow think they have a right to that or right to force other people to pay for their health care.
Walter E Williams 2:28
That is right. A lot of people don’t know the what a right is, versus a wish that is a right is something that exists simultaneously among people. And it does not impose an obligation on you. That is, my right to free speech imposes no obligation on another person, except that I’m not in appearance. But if you say I have a right to something I did not earn, well, that does impose an obligation on another. That is, it requires another person not to be able to keep as much as he did earned because the government takes it away from him and gives it to me. And so it’s a misuse of the term right? No matter if like, if we use my rights to free speech, if we use the same term that people say rights to health care, well, my right to free speech would require others to provide an auditorium for me to vide microphone, my right radio station would require others to pay my airfare, hotel accommodations, etc, etc. So,
Jason Hartman 3:28
yeah, absolutely. I mean, we also have the right to peaceably assemble. But that doesn’t mean that when you want to have an assembly or a demonstration, that other taxpayers have to pay for your travel to get there and your hotel room to stay there. Right.
Walter E Williams 3:42
That is absolutely right. So when people say about healthcare, I like seeing the terminology that they wish everybody had to healthcare. And I also wish wish that as well.
Jason Hartman 3:54
Yeah, absolutely. You know, is there any going back from the world we live in? Now? It just seems that we’ve gone the pendulum always swings back and forth throughout the decades throughout the centuries. But it seems as though as Bill Boehner says politics always lists like a ship listing and sailboat, you know, to the left, right. It doesn’t seem like there’s really any going back. Because once you have this situation where people have voted themselves, the Treasury, nobody’s gonna ever give that up, right? You have these iron triangles that just give they just can’t be broken. It seems like
Walter E Williams 4:30
yeah, I think you’re right. And some people ask me, Well, what can be done? And I asked the question is, I have a question back at them. I say, are American people any different as human beings, from the Romans, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the British, these are great empires of the past, but they went down the tubes, mostly for the same reason, bread and circuses, and are the American people any different and I suggest that American people are no different. People who were citizens of those great empires in the past, right? Yeah,
Jason Hartman 5:05
I would agree. But people are gonna argue, look, we’re a rich country. I mean, you know, nobody should be without health care. Nobody should be living on the street. We have enough. And interestingly, the people who say that they don’t seem to want to contribute their own money to the costs. That’s right.
Walter E Williams 5:22
I personally believe that we should help our fellow man and helping one’s fellow man by reaching into one’s own pockets to do so is praiseworthy, helping one’s fellow man by reaching into somebody else’s pockets, is worthy of condemnation. And for the Christians among us, they have to remember that when God gave Moses the eighth commandment, he didn’t I mean, Thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in United States Congress.
Jason Hartman 5:51
That’s a good way to put it. I love it. But it’s so sad. In other words, it would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
Walter E Williams 5:57
And but by the way, in 1887, at Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in London, if someone had suggested that Great Britain would become a third rate nation, challenged on the high seas by a six or eight nations, Argentina and almost lose, you would have been put in the insane asylum, that it was inconceivable at the time Great Britain would ever go down the tubes. It was the mightiest nation on the face of the earth. They used to say that the sun never set on the British crown. That’s for sure.
Jason Hartman 6:28
That’s for sure. We’ve got this huge problem. You know, you talk in the book about the national Ponzi scheme. Are you referring to Social Security or just the general financial mismanagement of the country?
Walter E Williams 6:41
No Social Security, Social Security is a is a Ponzi scheme. And it would be illegal if it weren’t done. If it was done by anybody else other than Congress. Bernie Madoff actually made a comment that that’s where he got the idea.
Jason Hartman 6:57
I don’t know if he was just being sarcastic. But it’s pretty interesting. So talk to us a little bit about the economic side of the equation, because this all plays into economics. And many of our listeners are, are interested in that, you know, these politicians as you talk about exploiting economic ignorance, they think it’s just give out goodies and get reelected. That’s basically the game buy votes. Where are we and where are we going? Is the tide turning it all with the present administration, or
Walter E Williams 7:26
I don’t think the tide is turning, I think if anything is getting worse, and it doesn’t have anything do so much with the friends present administration. But it turns out that amongst so many Americans, socialism is becoming increasingly attracted to them. Bernie Sanders is pushing it. And you look at the former governor of Colorado, said that socialism is not the way and he got booed out of the sign. Yeah,
Jason Hartman 7:51
I saw that clip. That’s unbelievable. Yeah.
Walter E Williams 7:54
And the issue is, is that people don’t know what socialism is. That is socialism is government ownership and or control over the means of production. And wherever that has been tried, it has led to ultimate disaster. And we see it in our own backyard in places like Cuba, or and most recently, Venezuela, and you’ve seen all over the world. And you know, like the Nazi ism, Hitler’s was the National Socialist Labour Party. That’s what Nazi saying
Jason Hartman 8:23
everybody forgets that Hitler was a socialist. And with a lot of Fleet with a lot of promises. Yeah. Well, I mean, socialism and its ugly, big brother communism are responsible for the deaths have easily over 100 million people in the last century.
Walter E Williams 8:39
Oh, yeah. Easily, yes. Oh, well over 100 million people. And Matter of fact, the greatest murderers were Stalin and Mao Zedong, they murdered more people such that it makes Hitler look like a Boy Scout. The number of people that were murdered, and a lot of people will say, Well, no, we’re not talking about the Soviet Union. And China, we’re talking about places like Sweden or Denmark. And the minister, Prime Ministers of Denmark and Sweden have said, we’re not a socialist country. That is, they have a market but they have a huge welfare state, but they have a free market economy. But if like America’s socialist would not like very much the way Sweden operates, that is, Sweden has a voucher system, school voucher system. And that’s the last thing that American socialists want.
Jason Hartman 9:27
They don’t want people to have any choices for their education.
Walter E Williams 9:29
Right? That’s right, except with abortion. That’s what they their idea choices with abortion, but but Sweden has relatively little regulation. It’s easy to get a license to operate and to get in the business. And same thing with Denmark. And so socialism has been a disaster. And I think one of the things about it, is that it sounds so good. That is everybody from each according to their ability and to each according to their need. That just sounds wonderful. Yeah, but wherever strike.
Jason Hartman 10:04
It’s failed every place on earth and every time in history, it’s totally oppressive, obviously. But it seems like people can make a better argument for some degree of redistribution. When you have this situation we have now in America where the middle class is getting hollowed out, it seems to be under attack from all sides. The rich are like the super mega rich nowadays, is it fair to say you have over 100 million dollars, you should pay a wealth tax of 3% of your net worth every year or something like that?
Walter E Williams 10:42
Well, all depends whether you earned it that is if you earn something that’s the term is that is, if you look at the wealthy people in our country, for the most part, they did things that satisfied their fellow man, they did things that made their fellow man’s life better off, such as Bill Gates, me with all the work that he’s done with Microsoft, and all this kind of stuff. He became rich, he didn’t take anybody’s money, they voluntarily forked over $400, for his windows program, and other programs. And so people who make their filament better off, make his life more livable, make his life longer, I don’t think that they should be held up for ridicule and scorn and mistreated. The big thing in our country, or anywhere in the world is that in a free economy in a free market, one becomes wealthy by serving his fellow man. That’s what you’re doing. That’s what I’m doing. We work and we do things that make our filament better off. And so the people who should have really cool and scorn heaped upon them, are the parasites in our society, the people who seek to live at the expense of other people, the people who seek the business bailouts, or crop subsidies or food stamps, those are the people, the people who are parasites. Those are the people who should have scorn hate upon them. And by the way, when people talk about redistribution, that’s what thieves do. A thief redistributes income that they take from you and puts it in his own pocket. Absolutely. And so Congress does the same thing. But we put a nice name on it. redistribution of income. Yeah. Right.
Jason Hartman 12:24
And I certainly agree with you, Walter, with everything you’re saying. We all know, though, in practice, it’s a lot more complicated, right? things do get more complicated than the principles company look, well, here. Here’s what I’m saying. Just hear me out for one second. Okay. And listen, I I agree with you, okay. But the concept of, you know, monopolistic practices, crony capitalism, you know, this all just gets really watered down.
Walter E Williams 12:50
Yes. And that’s wrong, right? Yeah. crony capitalism. I agree.
Jason Hartman 12:54
Of course, I don’t either, but it happens. And company like Microsoft, because you use the example, these companies nowadays, because of the way technology has changed, they can develop such incredible scale. I mean, just look at take it into this realm. And I have a feeling we might agree on this, the big tech companies, right, it seems like there’s arguments on both sides of the aisle to bust these companies up. And I have to tell you, I agree with it. I, you know, I think they’re just too big. They’re bigger than a lot of countries, they control our speech, you have no recourse against Google, if they D platform, you Twitter, they can just decide they don’t like what you’re saying. And it’s not like the government, you have no free speech rights.
Walter E Williams 13:35
Well, the point is, if you’re if you’re looking for a monopoly, the greatest monopoly, and the abuse of power is in the federal government.
Jason Hartman 13:44
Of course, it is, of course.
Walter E Williams 13:47
We support that, to help you understand where I’m coming from. When I think about things, my initial premise, starts off with, we each own ourselves that is, I am my private property, and you are your private property. Now, if you make the assumption of self ownership, then certain things tomorrow and certain things MRO the reason why rape and murder is immoral, is because you violate private property right. to interfere with peaceable voluntary exchange violates private property. And so these companies that are very, very big, if they became big through the Marketplace, as opposed they’re becoming big, through special advantages heaped upon them by government, I have no problem with bigness. That is, the bigness shows that they have been successful in serving the film and that is
Jason Hartman 14:43
why we like everything that they do. They’ve been relatively successful and they And so long as the government does not prevent others from entering the market to compete with them. Then that’s the name of the game. Well, interestingly, Mark Zuckerberg is calling for regular elation. And, you know, I think he’s doing that because regulation always has the consequence intended or not of keeping other new entrants out of the market. Look at Wall Street. Right? Yeah, exactly. There’s no startup culture on Wall Street. There’s no one that’s going to come and compete with Goldman Sachs. There’s just very little innovation because there’s no startup culture, you know, and so Facebook now that they’re huge, and they have the money to comply with regulations, they’re just gonna say, well regulate us. And then, you know, nobody else can start their own thing, you know, to compete.
Walter E Williams 15:34
So who would you blame for that? Right, but
Jason Hartman 15:37
on the way up, I agree with you, you know, they have a product that the public wanted, etc, etc. But now that they’re big, they’re abusive. That’s all
Walter E Williams 15:46
they become abusive, because they’re able to use government to rig the rules of the game. They’ve
Jason Hartman 15:53
got lobbyists galore, it’s disgusting. Google, Google, and Facebook, especially Google has they have lobbyists coming out of their ears in that company? It’s ridiculous. They’re lobbying, lobbying government, the handout capital of the world is Washington DC, of course,
Walter E Williams 16:08
we elect these people. And they congressmen are allowing themselves to be lobbied and persuaded by these big interests. You blame the Congress? You blame the politician? Absolutely. Yeah. But But you know, you can’t blame a company or a company, you might say, well, gee, they shouldn’t do that. But if they can use their power to do it, well, you have to fight the people who give them the power to do it. Yeah, no. It’s just like, people blame politicians for our problem. But politicians are doing precisely what the American people elect them to office, do. The American people elect politicians office, to give them something that belongs to somebody else, or give them a special privilege. That’s a night another American. So we can say that politicians should be more of a statesman. But that’s what they do. And any politician who does not do what the American people want them to do. He’ll be running for office. One example, just as you I’ll do it very quickly, is that if I were running for the Senate, from the state of Virginia, and I go back and forth across state of Virginia, I say, look, I read the Constitution, don’t expect from me bring back a higher education, highway construction funds, and farm subsidies, etc, etc. Because it’s not in the Constitution. Do you think I would get elected to the office from Virginia? Yeah, right. No, I wouldn’t. And the tragedy of it, is that the people of Virginia, would we doing exactly the right thing by not electing me to office because if I don’t bring back billions of dollars of handout money, it doesn’t mean that Virginians will pay a lower federal income tax. All that it means is that North Carolina will get it instead, that is once legalized theft begins, it pays for everybody to participate in it.
Jason Hartman 17:57
Yeah. It’s pretty scary. I mean, we need the idea of lobbying is people have the right to address the government. Right, and to get the government’s here, but with these giant companies with the corporate interest, it’s been it’s just the whole thing’s been maligned. I mean, hardly any individuals go to Capitol Hill to lobby. Right. It’s all commercialized.
Walter E Williams 18:18
You know, here’s my question to you. Should congressman be in the business of creating favors for some Americans and denying them to other? Course not. Okay. So that’s where you focus your energy on these people who are granting favors and, and special conditions to some Americans, because they’re giving a lobby, they’re contributing to their political campaigns? That’s what we need to go after. Yeah. And but we’re saying we’re gonna blame the companies for using their lobbyists to try to get a special favor from the Congress. And so what we should do, we should get Congress out of the business of granting special favors and bareback. I was talking to a very famous economist, he’s long deceased, Friedrich Hayek. And we were having dinner. And I said, What do you think we should do? What’s the best thing? If you can make one law that would help all Americans? What would it? What would I
Jason Hartman 19:13
say about that
Walter E Williams 19:15
giveaway? He said he would enact a law that Congress cannot do for one American, what it does not do for all Americans. That is he said he gave an example, if Congress pays some people not to raise pigs, then if you give money to everybody in the country, that’s not reason B.
Jason Hartman 19:34
That’s a great point. Yeah, the subsidy, the farm subsidies would just go to everybody, not just the farmers, right? Because I you know, I’m not making cheese. So why don’t I get some money for not making cheese
Walter E Williams 19:46
Right, right. Yeah. So see what we ignore. We ignore the fact that all these lobbyists, they’re in Washington that because of the weather, they’re in Washington to twist the arms of congressmen say if you Do this for us. We’ll do that for you. Right. And it just does not benefit all Americans equally.
Jason Hartman 20:05
Yeah, no question about it. Walter, give out your website,
Walter E Williams 20:08
Walter E. Williams calm and there’s a lot of my publications there and videos and things like that. That might be interesting to the listener. Are
Jason Hartman 20:18
you still filling in for rush limbaugh? I haven’t been listening to this show lately. But are you Do you still fill in?
Walter E Williams 20:22
I did that for 20 years. Yeah.
Jason Hartman 20:26
I always enjoyed you and Mark Stein
Walter E Williams 20:28
a lot. Yeah. Mark Stein still does. Yeah, fantastic.
Jason Hartman 20:31
Just want to ask you, I kind of asked you a lot of questions threw a lot at you. But is there anything you want to say to people just wrap it up for us with anything? Maybe I didn’t ask you or whatever comments you have,
Walter E Williams 20:42
I say that we’ll solve our problems. only way we can solve our problems as a nation is to convince our fellow Americans on the moral superiority of personal liberty. And the main ingredient for personal liberty is limited government. That’s exactly what the founders of our nation visualize of federal government that was limited in power and scope. And it was a Thomas Paine who said that government under the best of circumstances is a necessary evil under the worst and intolerable one. And that’s what we’re facing. We’re facing an all powerful government. we’re encountering some of the problems that you’re that you’re mentioning, we’re counting the the lobbyists and getting special favors and government spending. And just one final point, you know, if you read the Federalist Papers, the federalist papers were written by Madison, john J. and Hamilton to try to convince the American people to ratify the Constitution, which was not a very easy job to do. And in federalist paper, 45, James Madison was trying to tell the nation what was in the Constitution, what the constitution would provide. And I’m virtually quoting him and all these quotes are on my website. He says that the powers that we have delegated to the federal government are few and well defined, and restricted mostly to external affairs. Those left with the people and the states are indefinite and numerous. Now, if you turn that upside down, you’d have what we had today. That is the powers of the Federal gasi
Jason Hartman 22:20
are numerous. Yeah.
Walter E Williams 22:22
And those are the people in the states are, are restricted.
Jason Hartman 22:25
That is a sad case. And I hope that tide turns because it is. It is just ridiculous. The way it’s gone so far, but I’m glad there are people like you out there, Walter, spreading the word. So thank you so much for coming on. Okay. And thank you for inviting Yeah, my pleasure. And it’s Walter Williams. Calm right. That is right. Yeah. All right, everybody, check out his his great books and all that’s on in all the usual places, and thanks for joining us. T
hank you so much for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss any episodes. Be sure to check out the show’s specific website and our general website heart and Mediacom for appropriate disclaimers and Terms of Service. Remember that guest opinions are their own. And if you require specific legal or tax advice, or advice and any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional. And we also very much appreciate you reviewing the show. Please go to iTunes or Stitcher Radio or whatever platform you’re using and write a review for the show we would very much appreciate that. And be sure to make it official and subscribe so you do not miss any episodes. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.