Obama for President

Are Americans Pro Slavery?

Walter Williams
1:00 am Eastern
© 2008  <!-- end copyright -->

Let's do a thought experiment asking whether Americans are for or against slavery. You might say, "What are you talking about, Williams? We fought a war that cost over 600,000 lives to end slavery!" To get started, we might find a description that captures the essence of slavery. A good working description is: Slavery is a set of circumstances whereby one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor.

The average American worker toils from Jan. 1 to the end of April, and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor for that period. Federal, state and local government through the tax code, take what he produces. A small portion of the fruits of his labor is used to provide for the constitutional functions of government. Most of what's taken, up to two-thirds, is given to some other American in the forms of farm and business subsidies, social security, Medicare, welfare and hundreds of other government handout programs. As in slavery, one person is being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person.

You might ask, "Williams, aren't you a bit off base? Slavery means that you are owned by another person." Who owns a person is not nearly important as who has the rights to use that person. In other words, a plantation owner having the power to force a black to work for him would have been just as well off, and possibly better off, not owning him. Not owning him means not having to bear medical expenses and loss of wealth if the slave died. During World War II, Nazis didn't own Jews, but they had the power to force them to labor for them. Not owning Jews meant that working and starving them to death had little cost to the Nazis. The fact that American slaves were owned, with prices sometimes ranging from $800 to $1,300, meant that owners had a financial stake in the slave's well-being and they were not worked and starved to death.

You might argue that my analogy is irrelevant because unlike American slaves and Nazi concentration camp inmates, we can come and go as we please, live where we want, buy a car, clothes and other things with the money left over after the government gets four months' worth of our earnings. But, does that make much of a difference?

During slavery, visitors to the South often observed "a great many loose negroes about." Officials in Savannah, Mobile, Charleston and other cities complained about "nominal slaves," "virtually free negroes" and "quasi-free negroes" who were seemingly oblivious to any law or regulation. Frederick Douglass, a slave, explained this phenomenon when he was employed as a Baltimore ship's caulker: "I was to be allowed all my time; to make bargains for work; to find my own employment, and to collect my own wages; and in return for this liberty, I was … to pay him (Douglass' master) three dollars at the end of each week, and to board and clothe myself, and buy my own caulking tools."

There are some benefits to being a quasi-free person such as Frederick Douglass. There are two ways U.S. Congress might force me to serve the purposes of another American. They might force me spend a couple of hours each day actually working, without compensation, for another American. Or, they might forcibly take a portion of my earnings so that American can hire someone. I see myself as being better off with Congress doing the latter – taking a portion of my earnings and giving it away.

Some might be put off by my thought experiment and consider it an illegitimate use of the term "slavery." At what point should we consider ourselves a quasi-free American – when government takes two-thirds or three-quarters of our earnings?

Think it would be easier if you told me what you're beliefs of socialism describes and how it may be contrary to what Jesus or for that matter Mohammed described

I see what you mean now.  I was thinking of the fact that most of these socialist countries secular.  But, if we're talking about "what would Jesus do?", yeah, he'd be a socialist to some extent. 

I can't speak for Ghandi, but I don't believe Jesus would be an advocate of socialism.  Sure, he mandates that we give everything away to help the poor, among other things, but in the end He lets the individual decide whether he will comply or not.

This is a contradiction.  First you say he'd "mandate" that the poor were taken care off then you say that he wouldn't force anyone to comply. 

Jesus didn't force anybody to do anything

Nope, and he wouldn't do it now, that's the religious right's job. 

You might say, "What are you talking about, Williams? We fought a war that cost over 600,000 lives to end slavery!"

Yup, there a lot of ignorant people that would say that, but it's not true.  "We" didn't fight a war to end slavery. 

John Hawkins: You do a fantastic job filling in for Rush Limbaugh. Are we going to see a Walter Williams radio show coming up anytime soon?

Walter Williams: No, I've been teaching for about thirty-five years and that would require a career change; I'm not quite ready for it. I've been offered jobs a couple of times...

This says a lot about this Williams guy.

John Hawkins: As an economics professor, you're well-qualified to give an opinion on the latest Bush tax cut. What do you think about it?

Walter Williams: Well, I don't know how well qualified I am, but one of the key things we can do for economic growth in our country, even if we're not just coming out of a mild recession, is to do things that reduce the cost of capital formation and give people incentive to take risk. One of the things that the Bush administration called for is the elimination of the tax on dividends. Dividends represent return from people taking risks. If you raise the return from people taking risks, then people will take more risks. If you lower the cost of capital formation, more capital will be formed and it benefits the ordinary person.

One way you can explain this is if you see highway construction and you see one employee using a big earth mover and another employee using a shovel, then you say, "who gets the higher pay?" Well, the guy with the earth mover. Why? Not because contractors like earth mover drivers or because they're unionized, but because they're more productive. He just produces more in an hour's worth of work. Why does he produce more? Because he has more capital working with him. The big earth mover is a piece of capital. So anything that reduces the cost of capital will give firms incentive to buy more of it and it benefits not only firms, but workers as well in terms of higher wages. So, the elimination of the tax on dividends, speeding up the depreciation allowances, they are things that will lower the cost of capital. I would also like to see President Bush lead Congress in getting rid of the corporate income tax because the corporate income tax is just a devious tax on the American people. Corporations don't pay any taxes, only people pay taxes. Corporations are legal fictions, as such they're tax collectors.

How's that working out so far, professor?

This is pretty funny.  It's from a Feb. 28, '08 press conference with dubya.  How in the hell this guy hasn't been painted as a out of touch, spoiled elitist (elitis by family name, not thought) is beyond me. 

Transcript:

QUESTION: What’s your advice to the average American who is hurting now — facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing –

BUSH: Wait a minute. What did you just say? You’re predicting $4 a gallon gas?

QUESTION: A number of analysts are predicting $4 a gallon gasoline this spring when they reformulate.

BUSH: That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.

QUESTION: Yes, sir. […]

QUESTION: Any restrictions on who can give? Will you take foreign money for this?

BUSH: Yes, probably take some foreign money, but don’t know yet. We just haven’t — we just announced the deal. And I, frankly, have been focused elsewhere, like on gasoline prices and, you know, my trip to Africa, and haven’t seen the fund-raising strategy yet.

And so, the answer to your question is really I can’t answer your questions well.

"You work three jobs?  … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that."<o:p> </o:p> —President George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005  

And Obama is the elitist?

Current "Bushisms":

"And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place." --George W. Bush, Mesa, Arizona, May 27, 2008

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief p