Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams, with whom I haven't checked in with for quite a while, writes this week on the sanctity of the market.

"I don't know about you, but I always try to get the lowest prices for what I buy and the highest prices for what I sell, and that includes my labor services. Is such a practice immoral? Nobody is forced to sell me anything at my preferred price, nor are they forced to buy from me at my preferred price. If we indeed transact, the only thing a third party could conclude is that we both saw ourselves as being better off than our next best alternative, or why would we have voluntarily transacted?

You say: "OK, Williams, you're right. But where are you going? How many times have we heard the accusation that a corporation moved overseas to take advantage of lower-priced labor or hired cheaper-priced Indians with HB-1 visas to replace higher-priced American high-tech workers? You'd think that a desire for lower prices is somehow immoral. Why should a preference for low prices be OK for you and me, and not so for CEOs?"

You might say, OK, Gries, why are you wasting my time with Walter E. Williams? Because he is so enamored of the argument that money is the only true sign of value that he over steps boundaries other, more temperate writers do not. In this case, he makes it clear that the only questions a consumer should ask when approaching a product are monetary. Is this a price I am willing to pay or should I wait for a lower price.

What Mr. Williams seems not to understand is that there are prices beyond the obvious monetary ones. For example, in the case of the employer who moves as much of his company as he can over seas, he will get some short term Monetary Gain, but at the cost of hurting his employees. This has been described as a Job-less or even a Job Loss recovery. If the American working class and middle class are stretched tight, who will they buy Mr. Employer's products?

Beyond which there are moral costs. Surely the most efficient work force would be an enslaved one. In such a scenario all the employer is paying for is the bare necessities for his workers. An enslaved work force would be much much cheaper than almost any alternative (assuming you could keep the enslavement quiet). So what would keep a business person from creating an enslaved labor force?