Race & Economics How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?

There is no question that black Americans have suffered gross violations of basic human rights in the forms of slavery, discrimination, and personal violence. But, says Walter Williams, an acknowledgment of these injustices, and of current residual discrimination, does not help to evaluate what is, or is not, in the best interest of blacks today. In Race and Economies, Williams applies an economic analysis to the problems black Americans have faced in the past and present to show that that free-market resource allocation, as opposed to political allocation, is in the best interests of minorities.

Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a nationally syndicated columnist. He is the author of several books and more than sixty articles that have appeared in such scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review, and Social Science Quarterly and popular publications such as Reader's Digest, Regulation, Policy Review, and Newsweek.