Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) 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.[1] He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service who has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy.
Roberts is a critic of Israel, calling Gaza "the world's largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations. Although Roberts praised Ronald Reagan, he has compared supporters of George W. Bush to "brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters." He has opposed the War on Drugs and the War on Terror stating it has "made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims". He believes the official explanation for the events on 9/11 is a "scientific impossibility".
He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship.
His writings frequently appear on OpEdNews, Alex Jones' Prisonplanet.com, Antiwar.com, the web site VDARE.com. LewRockwell.com, CounterPunch. He is a contributor to the American Free Press which is critical of the New World Order and Israel. Roberts has been featured as a guest on the Political Cesspool radio show.[2]
In order to create a coherent uncensored and unedited archive of Robert's writings, paulcraigroberts.org [3] was created by the The Institute For Political Economy and appeared in January 2012. His articles continue to appear in other venues, but are first available on this website along with links to relevant videos and books.
Roberts is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology 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.[4] 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[5] 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.[4] His influential 1978 article for Harper's,[6] while economic counsel to Senator Orrin Hatch,[7] had Wall Street Journal editor Robert L. Bartley give him an editorial slot, which he had until 1980.[8] He was a senior fellow in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then part of Georgetown University.[5]
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."[4] 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.[9] 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.[4]
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.
In 1987 the French 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.[4]
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.[4]
Roberts opposed the Iraq War 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.[10] He has said that supporters of George W. Bush "are brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters."[11]
In an article for Counterpunch magazine titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean", Roberts wrote that for 60 years, Israel 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 Americans’ health care, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."[12]
The pro-Jewish [Anti-Defamation League] has criticized Dr. Roberts as promoting anti-semitism for his increasing focus on "criticism of Israel and Jews" making his writings "popular with fringe publications on both the left and the right".[13] However, Dr. Roberts nominated Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper for the Nobel Peace Prize and he cautions against confusing a right-wing Zionist government with world Jewry. In one of his classic columns, "What Became of Western Morality?" (January 2005), he noted that it is Israeli newspapers, not American ones, that protest the Israeli government's atrocities against Palestinians:
"It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. Gideon Levy’s “The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again” was published in Haaretz on Dec. 29, not in the goyim press. Levy’s words—”Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom”—are not words that can appear in American print or TV media. Such words, printed in Israeli newspapers, never reach the goyim."
Dr. Roberts cautions against blaming all Jews for crimes of a right-wing government:
"The world will need to remember that although Israel is a Jewish state, it is a state whose policies many Jews find objectionable, just as a majority of American Jews oppose President Bush’s wars of aggression in the Middle East and his unconstitutional policies at home. We must not confuse Israel’s Zionist government with world Jewry, just as we must not confuse the American people with the war criminals in the Bush regime.
"Consider, who do you trust with your civil liberties, the U.S. Department of Justice or the ACLU’s phalanx of Jewish attorneys? [Dr. Roberts according to Who's Who In America is a member of the ACLU, a Jewish organization.]
"We must avoid the mistake that was made by blaming the German people for Adolf Hitler. It was the aristocratic German military that tried to remove Hitler. In contrast, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blocked the attempt to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Pelosi is a discredit to California, but shall we blame all of America for Pelosi’s defense of war criminals? How can we do so when U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich courageously read out the articles of impeachment on the House floor?
"Are all Americans guilty because Kucinich did not prevail?" [14]
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 administration 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.[15]
In a June 19–21, 2009 article in CounterPunch about the protests following the re-election of Ahmadinejad, Robert stated that while "the protests ... no doubt have many sincere participants," they "also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine. It requires total blindness not to see this."[16]
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 engineers and physicists 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.[17]
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."
When Anwar al-Awlaki, who was linked to some of the hijackers was killed by a drone attack, Roberts objected, calling it "The Day America Died". He wrote that although Awlaki was critical of "indiscriminate assaults on Muslim peoples" and "told Muslims that they did not have to passively accept American aggression", the US lacked evidence that either Awlaki was a real threat or an Al Qaeda operative[18]
- "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 Propaganda."[19]
- "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."[20]
"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."[19]
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 Arbitrage.
Though Roberts worked for the Reagan administration, which implemented a "zero tolerance" 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".[21]
Roberts asked "Is the War on Terror a Hoax", and claims it has "killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims in six countries". Roberts called the attacks "naked aggression" on civilian populations and infrastructure which constitute war crimes.]]".[21]
Roberts is seriously dismayed by what he considers the Republican Party'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.[22]
Roberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracy in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:
"The west prides itself that it is the standard for the world, that it is a democracy. But nowhere do you see democratic outcomes: not in Greece, not in Ireland, not in the UK, not here, the outcomes are always to punish the innocent and reward the guilty. And that's what the Greeks are in the streets, protesting. We see this all over the west. There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street... There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west. Revolution is the only answer... We are confronted with a curious situation. Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?"
[23]
On March 26, 2010, Roberts announced he was "signing off" as a journalist in a column titled "Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It".[24] However two months later another article by Roberts had appeared in counterpunch.org.[25]
On March 26, 2010, in a farewell column titled, "Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It,"[26] 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."
- ^ Roberts, Paul Craig (June 10, 2004). The Real Reagan Record (August 31, 1992). National Review. Retrieved on February 27, 2010.
- ^ "GUEST LIST". http://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/guestlist.php. Retrieved November 29, 2009.
- ^ www.paulcraigroberts.org
- ^ a b c d e f Biography - Paul Craig Roberts
- ^ a b The Bulletin, 30 January 1981, "Roberts nominated"
- ^ Paul Craig Roberts, "Disguising the tax burden: Little-known facts beneath the rhetoric of reform", Harper's, March 1978
- ^ Bruce Bartlett, Human Events, 28 January 2002, "'Rich' Pay More Than What's Fair.", 58(4), p14
- ^ Paul Craig Roberts, Washington Times, 17 December 2003, "Two who made a difference"
- ^ Toledo Blade, 19 January 1982, Treasury Dept. Economist Quits Post: Advocate of Tax-Cut Plan Going To Georgetown U
- ^ Paul Craig Roberts: Who Will Save America?
- ^ The Reality Beneath the Flag-Waving
- ^ Counterpunch
- ^ Syndicated Columnist Paul Craig Roberts Promotes Anti-Semitism Syndicated Columnist Paul Craig Roberts Promotes Anti-Semitism
- ^ 09-01- 2009 article
- ^ Infowars
- ^ Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?" Is This the Culmination of Two Years of Destabilization by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS]
- ^ Roberts, Paul Craig (2006-08-16). "What we know and don’t know about 9/11". Information Clearing House. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14566.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-06.
- ^ "the day america died". lewrockwell (London). October 3, 2011. http://lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts328.html.
- ^ a b Paul Craig Roberts: Who Will Save America?
- ^ VDARE.com: 08/16/06 - What We Know And Don’t Know About 9/11
- ^ a b Paul Craig Roberts, Drug War Has Militarized Your Local Police
- ^ The mother of all messes
- ^ Video Interview: Co-Founder Of Reaganomics, Paul Craig Roberts, "There Is Probably More Democracy In China Than There Is In The West" May 2011
- ^ "Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It" (counterpunch.org March 24, 2010)
- ^ Progressives Want "Direct Action" But a Disarmed Public by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS counterpunch.org June 18–20, 2010
- ^ http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03242010.html | Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It (March 24, 2010)
- Interviews and articles
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Roberts, Paul Craig |
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April 3, 1939 |
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Atlanta, Georgia |
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