Paul Craig Roberts
Encyclopedia
Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist
and a columnist for Creators Syndicate
. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration
earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics
. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. He has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy. His writings frequently appear on OpEdNews
, Prisonplanet.com, Antiwar.com
, the web site VDARE
.com. LewRockwell.com
, CounterPunch
, and the American Free Press
. Roberts has been featured as a guest on the Political Cesspool radio show.
and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia
. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley
and at Merton College, Oxford University. His first scholarly article (Classica et Mediaevalia) was a reformulation of "The Pirenne
Thesis."
In Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971), Roberts explained the Soviet economy as the outcome of a struggle between inordinate aspirations and a refractory reality. He argued that the Soviet economy was not centrally planned, but that its institutions, such as material supply, reflected the original Marxist aspirations to establish a non-market mode of production. In Marx's Theory of Exchange (1973), Roberts argued that Marx was an organizational theorist whose materialist conception of history ruled out good will as an effective force for change.
From 1975 to 1978, Roberts served on the congressional staff. As economic counsel to Congressman Jack Kemp
he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill (which became the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy. His influential 1978 article for Harper's, while economic counsel to Senator Orrin Hatch
, had Wall Street Journal editor Robert L. Bartley
give him an editorial slot, which he had until 1980. He was a senior fellow in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
, then part of Georgetown University
.
From early 1981 to January 1982 he served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy
. President Ronald Reagan
and Treasury Secretary
Donald Regan
credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy." Roberts resigned in January 1982 to become the first occupant of the William E. Simon
Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
, then part of Georgetown University
. He held this position until 1993. He went on to write The Supply-Side Revolution (1984), in which he explained the reformulation of macroeconomic theory and policy that he had helped to create.
He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute
from 1993 to 1996. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution
.
In The New Color Line (1995), Roberts argued that the Civil Rights Act
was subverted by the bureaucrats who applied it and, by being used to create status-based privileges, became a threat to the Fourteenth Amendment
in whose name it was passed. In The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), Roberts documented what he saw as the erosion of the Blackstonian legal principles
that ensure that law is a shield of the innocent and not a weapon in the hands of government.
government recognized him as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism" and inducted him into the Legion of Honor
on March 20, 1987. The French Minister of Economics and Finance, Edouard Balladur
, came from France to present the medal to Roberts at a ceremony at the French Ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C.
President Reagan sent OMB Director Jim Miller
to the ceremony with a letter of congratulation.
In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism from the American Legislative Exchange Council
. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.
and writes frequently on the subject. On May 18, 2005, in response to the publication of the "Downing Street memo
," Roberts wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment
for lying to Congress about the case for war.
Roberts was also a critic of a potential Bush administration attack on Iran
. In an August 15, 2005 article, he states "Bush...dismisses all facts and assurances and is willing to attack Iran based on nothing but Israel
's paranoia."
Although his criticisms of Bush often seem to align him with the political left, Roberts continues to praise Ronald Reagan
and to endorse many of Reagan's policies, arguing that "true conservatives" were the "first victims" of the neoconized
Bush administration. He has said that supporters of George W. Bush "are brownshirts
with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters."
has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated charges that Gaza
is "the world largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department a "puppet" of the Israelis and the U.S. itself a "puppet state" of the Israelis. He concludes the article by claiming that "there’s no money for California
, or for American
s’ health care
, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."
were leading the United States into a nuclear confrontation with Russia
over the situation in Georgia and South Ossetia
. Roberts gave the conflict “almost total certainty if John McCain gets in office" and stated that the conflict would be in a timeframe of about two or three years.
Roberts comments on the "scientific impossibility" of the official explanation for the events on 9/11 and says those engineer
s and physicist
s who accept this theory are wrong. On August 18, 2006, he wrote:
On the (back) cover of Debunking 9/11 Debunking (2007) he is quoted:
Roberts adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party. "The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated."
.
" and "Just Say No
" policy on illegal drugs and increased spending to combat drugs, in 2007, he penned an article on the web site VDare.com criticizing the excess of the War on Drugs
which he termed the "militarization
of local police
".
's disregard for the U.S. Constitution
. He has even voiced his regret that he ever worked for it, avowing that, had he known what it would become, he would never have contributed to the Reagan Revolution.
in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:
Shortly thereafter, however, he resumed writing articles.
Interviews and articles
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
and a columnist for Creators Syndicate
Creators Syndicate
Creators Syndicate is an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers. It was founded in 1987 by Richard S. Newcombe, and is based in Los Angeles. Creators was one of the first syndicates to allow its clients to maintain creative control of their material...
. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics
Reaganomics
Reaganomics refers to the economic policies promoted by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s, also known as supply-side economics and called trickle-down economics, particularly by critics...
. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. He has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy. His writings frequently appear on OpEdNews
OpEdNews
OpEdNews is a United States-based progressive/liberal news, activism, and opinion website founded in 2003. The site claims 350 to 800,000 unique visitors, around 70 million hits every month, having over 44,000 registered members...
, Prisonplanet.com, Antiwar.com
Antiwar.com
Antiwar.com is a website devoted to opposing aggressive war, imperialism, and assaults on freedom associated with both. The editors describe their politics as libertarian. Their stated motiviation is, "to show how the imperialistic tendencies of the American government lead to a loss of civil...
, the web site VDARE
VDARE
VDARE.com, or VDARE, is a website that advocates reduced immigration, especially illegal immigration, into the United States. Former Forbes editor Peter Brimelow supports the site through his VDARE Foundation, also known as Lexington Research Institute Limited...
.com. LewRockwell.com
LewRockwell.com
LewRockwell.com is a 501 libertarian web magazine operated by Burton Blumert , Lew Rockwell , Eric Garris , and others associated with the Center for Libertarian Studies ; its motto is "anti-state, anti-war, pro-market"...
, CounterPunch
Counterpunch
Counterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
, and the American Free Press
American Free Press
The American Free Press is a weekly newspaper published in the United States.According to one former correspondent, the newspaper's direct ancestor was the publication The Spotlight, which ceased publication in 2001 when its parent company, Liberty Lobby, was forced into bankruptcy...
. Roberts has been featured as a guest on the Political Cesspool radio show.
Biography
Roberts is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of TechnologyGeorgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and at Merton College, Oxford University. His first scholarly article (Classica et Mediaevalia) was a reformulation of "The Pirenne
Henri Pirenne
Henri Pirenne was a Belgian historian. A medievalist of Walloon descent, he wrote a multivolume history of Belgium in French and became a national hero....
Thesis."
In Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971), Roberts explained the Soviet economy as the outcome of a struggle between inordinate aspirations and a refractory reality. He argued that the Soviet economy was not centrally planned, but that its institutions, such as material supply, reflected the original Marxist aspirations to establish a non-market mode of production. In Marx's Theory of Exchange (1973), Roberts argued that Marx was an organizational theorist whose materialist conception of history ruled out good will as an effective force for change.
From 1975 to 1978, Roberts served on the congressional staff. As economic counsel to Congressman Jack Kemp
Jack Kemp
Jack French Kemp was an American politician and a collegiate and professional football player. A Republican, he served as Housing Secretary in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1993, having previously served nine terms as a congressman for Western New York's 31st...
he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill (which became the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy. His influential 1978 article for Harper's, while economic counsel to Senator Orrin Hatch
Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch is the senior United States Senator for Utah and is a member of the Republican Party. Hatch served as the chairman or ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1993 to 2005...
, had Wall Street Journal editor Robert L. Bartley
Robert L. Bartley
Robert Leroy Bartley was the editor of the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal for more than 30 years. He won a Pulitzer Prize for opinion writing and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the Bush administration in 2003...
give him an editorial slot, which he had until 1980. He was a senior fellow in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank. The center was founded in 1962 by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University...
, then part of Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
.
From early 1981 to January 1982 he served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy
United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
The United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury is one of several positions in the United States Department of the Treasury, serving under the United States Secretary of the Treasury....
. President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and Treasury Secretary
United States Secretary of the Treasury
The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, which is concerned with financial and monetary matters, and, until 2003, also with some issues of national security and defense. This position in the Federal Government of the United...
Donald Regan
Donald Regan
Donald Thomas Regan ,was the 66th United States Secretary of the Treasury, from 1981 to 1985, and Chief of Staff from 1985 to 1987 in the Ronald Reagan Administration, where he advocated "Reaganomics" and tax cuts to create jobs and stimulate production.-Early life:Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts,...
credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy." Roberts resigned in January 1982 to become the first occupant of the William E. Simon
William E. Simon
William Edward Simon was a businessman, a Secretary of Treasury of the U.S. for three years, and a philanthropist. He became the 63rd Secretary of the Treasury on May 8, 1974, during the Nixon administration. He was reappointed by President Ford and served until 1977. Outside of government, he was...
Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank. The center was founded in 1962 by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University...
, then part of Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
. He held this position until 1993. He went on to write The Supply-Side Revolution (1984), in which he explained the reformulation of macroeconomic theory and policy that he had helped to create.
He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
from 1993 to 1996. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace is a public policy think tank and library founded in 1919 by then future U.S. president, Herbert Hoover, an early alumnus of Stanford....
.
In The New Color Line (1995), Roberts argued that the Civil Rights Act
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
was subverted by the bureaucrats who applied it and, by being used to create status-based privileges, became a threat to the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
in whose name it was passed. In The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), Roberts documented what he saw as the erosion of the Blackstonian legal principles
Blackstone's formulation
In criminal law, Blackstone's formulation is the principle: "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s.-Historical expressions of the principle:The...
that ensure that law is a shield of the innocent and not a weapon in the hands of government.
Recognition
In 1987 the FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
government recognized him as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism" and inducted him into the Legion of Honor
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
on March 20, 1987. The French Minister of Economics and Finance, Edouard Balladur
Édouard Balladur
Édouard Balladur is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 29 March 1993 to 10 May 1995.-Biography:Balladur was born in İzmir, Turkey, to an Armenian Catholic family with five children and long-standing ties to France...
, came from France to present the medal to Roberts at a ceremony at the French Ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
President Reagan sent OMB Director Jim Miller
James C. Miller III
James C. Miller III is a former U.S. government official and economist who served as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission between 1981 and 1985 and as Budget Director for President Ronald Reagan between 1985 and 1988...
to the ceremony with a letter of congratulation.
In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism from the American Legislative Exchange Council
American Legislative Exchange Council
The American Legislative Exchange Council is a politically conservative 501 non-profit Policy Organization, consisting of both state legislators and members of the private sector. ALEC's mission statement describes the organization's purpose as the advancement of free-market principles, limited...
. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.
Criticism of Bush
Roberts opposed the Iraq War2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
and writes frequently on the subject. On May 18, 2005, in response to the publication of the "Downing Street memo
Downing Street memo
The "Downing Street memo" , sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the "smoking gun memo", is the note of a secret 23 July 2002, meeting of senior British Labour government, defence and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified...
," Roberts wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment
Impeachment in the United States
Impeachment in the United States is an expressed power of the legislature that allows for formal charges against a civil officer of government for crimes committed in office...
for lying to Congress about the case for war.
Roberts was also a critic of a potential Bush administration attack on Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. In an August 15, 2005 article, he states "Bush...dismisses all facts and assurances and is willing to attack Iran based on nothing but Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's paranoia."
Although his criticisms of Bush often seem to align him with the political left, Roberts continues to praise Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and to endorse many of Reagan's policies, arguing that "true conservatives" were the "first victims" of the neoconized
Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism. Since 2001, neoconservatism has been associated with democracy promotion, that is with assisting movements for democracy, in some cases by economic sanctions or military action....
Bush administration. He has said that supporters of George W. Bush "are brownshirts
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters."
Israel
In an article for Counterpunch magazine titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean", Roberts wrote that for 60 years, IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated charges that Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
is "the world largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department a "puppet" of the Israelis and the U.S. itself a "puppet state" of the Israelis. He concludes the article by claiming that "there’s no money for California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, or for American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
s’ health care
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."
Neoconservatives and the South Ossetia War
In an interview on August 27, 2008, on a broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, Roberts stated that he believed that influential neoconservatives affiliated with the Bush administrationGeorge W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
were leading the United States into a nuclear confrontation with Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
over the situation in Georgia and South Ossetia
2008 South Ossetia war
The 2008 South Ossetia War or Russo-Georgian War was an armed conflict in August 2008 between Georgia on one side, and Russia and separatist governments of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other....
. Roberts gave the conflict “almost total certainty if John McCain gets in office" and stated that the conflict would be in a timeframe of about two or three years.
September 11, 2001 attacks
Of the 9/11 Commission Report he wrote in 2006, "One would think that if the report could stand analysis, there would not be a taboo against calling attention to the inadequacy of its explanations." (see Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission Report). He has reported what he says are findings by experts that conclude there is a large energy deficit in the official account of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, and says that this deficit remains unexplained.Roberts comments on the "scientific impossibility" of the official explanation for the events on 9/11 and says those engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
s and physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
s who accept this theory are wrong. On August 18, 2006, he wrote:
I will begin by stating what we know to be a solid incontrovertible scientific fact. We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to “pancake” at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false... Since the damning incontrovertible fact has not been investigated, speculation and “conspiracy theories” have filled the void.
On the (back) cover of Debunking 9/11 Debunking (2007) he is quoted:
Professor Griffin is the nemesis of the 9/11 cover-up. This new book destroys the credibility of the NIST and Popular Mechanics reports and annihilates his critics.Book Cover Quote
Roberts adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party. "The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated."
US media
- "Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of PropagandaMinistry of propagandaAn agency or ministry of propaganda is the part of a government charged with generating and distributing propaganda.Though governments routinely engage in propaganda, ministries with the word "propaganda" in their name have become progressively more rare since the end of World War II, as a result...
." - "The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media. Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives—not by journalists—whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers. Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home."
Society
"If I had time to research my writings over the past 30 years, I could find examples of partisan articles in behalf of Republicans and against Democrats. However, political partisanship is not the corpus of my writings. I had a 16-year stint as Business Week's first outside columnist, despite hostility within the magazine and from the editor's New York social set, because the editor regarded me as the most trenchant critic of the George H.W. Bush administration in the business. The White House felt the same way and lobbied to have me removed from the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies... In their hatred of "the rich," the left-wing overlooks that in the 20th century the rich were the class most persecuted by government. The class genocide of the 20th century is the greatest genocide in history."Outsourcing jobs
Roberts has testified before the US–China Commission and written many articles pointing out that the offshoring of high productivity, high value-added jobs in manufacturing and professional services is dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that made the U.S. an opportunity society. Consequently, he is an opponent of Global Labor ArbitrageGlobal labor arbitrage
Global labor arbitrage is an economic phenomenon where, as a result of the removal of or disintegration of barriers to international trade, jobs move to nations where labor and the cost of doing business is inexpensive and/or impoverished labor moves to nations with higher paying jobs...
.
War on Drugs
Though Roberts worked for the Reagan administration, which implemented a "zero toleranceZero tolerance
Zero tolerance imposes automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are...
" and "Just Say No
Just Say No
"Just Say No" was an advertising campaign, part of the U.S. "War on Drugs", prevalent during the 1980s and early 1990s, to discourage children from engaging in recreational drug use by offering various ways of saying no. Eventually, this also expanded the realm of "Just Say No" to violence and...
" policy on illegal drugs and increased spending to combat drugs, in 2007, he penned an article on the web site VDare.com criticizing the excess of the War on Drugs
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
which he termed the "militarization
Militarization
Militarization, or militarisation, is the process by which a society organizes itself for military conflict and violence. It is related to militarism, which is an ideology that reflects the level of militarization of a state...
of local police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
".
Republican Party
Roberts is seriously dismayed by what he considers the Republican PartyRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
's disregard for the U.S. Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. He has even voiced his regret that he ever worked for it, avowing that, had he known what it would become, he would never have contributed to the Reagan Revolution.
American democracy and oligarchy
Roberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracyDemocracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:
Cessation and resumption of journalistic activism
On March 26, 2010, in a farewell column titled, "Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It," Roberts effectively announced his journalistic retirement. The article, published at Counterpunch.org, begins: "There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest." It proceeds to a bitter chronicle of the demise of American intellectual integrity, particularly that of financial journalists and economists. These have been thoroughly corrupted by monetary inducements to misrepresent and ignore what has been, in effect, the systematic dismantling of the nation's productive life, in the name of globalization. He holds the members of his own journalistic profession largely responsible for abetting relentless outsourcing of American industry, thereby gutting the American middle class and effectively dooming the nation's future. He describes his own ostracism from mainstream media access, the consequence of his relentless and unflinching criticism of the demolition process over the past decade. His column ends, "The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off."Shortly thereafter, however, he resumed writing articles.
Books
- Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971, 1990) ISBN 0-8419-1247-5
- Marx's Theory of Exchange, Alienation, and Crisis (1973, 1983) ISBN 0-03-069791-3
- The Supply Side Revolution: An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington (1984) ISBN 0-674-85620-1
- Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy (1990) ISBN 0-932790-80-1
- The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America (1997) ISBN 0-19-511176-1
- The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy (1995) ISBN 0-89526-423-4
- The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice (2008) ISBN 0-7615-2553-X
- How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds (2009) ISBN 978-1-84935-007-5
Articles
- CounterPunchCounterpunchCounterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
- Creators SyndicateCreators SyndicateCreators Syndicate is an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers. It was founded in 1987 by Richard S. Newcombe, and is based in Los Angeles. Creators was one of the first syndicates to allow its clients to maintain creative control of their material...
- LewRockwell.comLewRockwell.comLewRockwell.com is a 501 libertarian web magazine operated by Burton Blumert , Lew Rockwell , Eric Garris , and others associated with the Center for Libertarian Studies ; its motto is "anti-state, anti-war, pro-market"...
- Antiwar.comAntiwar.comAntiwar.com is a website devoted to opposing aggressive war, imperialism, and assaults on freedom associated with both. The editors describe their politics as libertarian. Their stated motiviation is, "to show how the imperialistic tendencies of the American government lead to a loss of civil...
- VDAREVDAREVDARE.com, or VDARE, is a website that advocates reduced immigration, especially illegal immigration, into the United States. Former Forbes editor Peter Brimelow supports the site through his VDARE Foundation, also known as Lexington Research Institute Limited...
- World News Daily Information Clearing House
External links
- Column archive (2003-2009) at Antiwar.comAntiwar.comAntiwar.com is a website devoted to opposing aggressive war, imperialism, and assaults on freedom associated with both. The editors describe their politics as libertarian. Their stated motiviation is, "to show how the imperialistic tendencies of the American government lead to a loss of civil...
- Column archive (2006-2010) at Creators SyndicateCreators SyndicateCreators Syndicate is an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers. It was founded in 1987 by Richard S. Newcombe, and is based in Los Angeles. Creators was one of the first syndicates to allow its clients to maintain creative control of their material...
- Column archive (1995-present) at LewRockwell.comLewRockwell.comLewRockwell.com is a 501 libertarian web magazine operated by Burton Blumert , Lew Rockwell , Eric Garris , and others associated with the Center for Libertarian Studies ; its motto is "anti-state, anti-war, pro-market"...
- Column archive (1995-2009) at Vdare.com
- Profile at SourceWatchSourceWatchSourceWatch is an internet wiki site that is a collaborative project of the liberal Center for Media and Democracy...
- Nomination of Paul Craig Roberts To Be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, President Ronald Reagan, January 30, 1981
Interviews and articles
- Paul Craig Roberts interviewed on Alex Jones Show regarding active nuclear threat within next 2-3 years
- Paul Craig Roberts interviewed by Webster Tarpley
- Roberts' first article calling for Bush's impeachment
- Chuck Harder Interviews Paul Craig Roberts
- A Brief Interview with Paul Craig Roberts
- Downloadable audio interview with Scott HortonScott Horton (lawyer)Scott Horton is a New York attorney known for his work in human rights law and the law of armed conflict, as well as emerging markets and international law. He graduated Texas Law School in Austin with a JD and was a partner in a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler...