Walter E. Williams on Government Intervention and Individual Freedom

Williams discusses his libertarian philosophy.

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, Walter Williams speaks to a group of law students at the University of Virginia in 1992 and gives a general overview of his libertarian beliefs, which stem from his understanding that the state is a coercive actor. In his words, “Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of somebody else’s plan by the powerful elite.”

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 an expert on discrimination, labor policy, regulation, and South Africa as well as a well-​known columnist and the author of South Africa’s War Against Capitalism (1989), The State Against Blacks (1982), and More Liberty Means Less Government (1999).