… is from page 109 of my late, great colleague Walter Williams’s 1982 book America: A Minority Viewpoint (original emphasis):
Poverty is no mystery. Poverty has been, and remains, man’s standard dish throughout history at most places in the world. Affluence is the mystery. Why is it that a small portion of the world’s population for only a tiny part of its history is exempt from the fate that has befallen the rest of the world?
DBx: Yes.
Adam Smith inquired into the causes of the wealth of nations because he understood that poverty is humanity’s default mode. Do nothing or act in the countless ways that are foolish and you’ll suffer poverty. For you to become wealthy you must not only act, but act prudently, creatively, and with determination. And of course what’s true for you, an individual, is true for any group of individuals.
……
On this date – March 31st – in 1936 my late, great colleague Walter Williams was born.
