Walter E. Williams on the Decline of Morality in Society

Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is a well-​known columnist and the author of South Africa’s War Against Capitalism (1989), The State Against Blacks (1982), Do the Right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks (1995), and More Liberty Means Less Government (1999).

In this video from a 1994 Atlas Economic Research Foundation event, economist and columnist Walter E. Williams talks about the coercive power of government and its role in undermining social moral priorities. Williams says that this happens when government lumps trivial offenses (he uses an example of Virginia residents being fined for not recycling) with barbaric ones.

Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is a well-​known columnist and the author of South Africa’s War Against Capitalism (1989), The State Against Blacks (1982), Do the Right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks (1995), and More Liberty Means Less Government (1999).