Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
by Henry Hazlitt
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Book Summary Information
Author: Henry HazlittEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1988-12-14
ISBN: 0517548232
Number of pages: 218
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780517548233
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
Book Review: A Must-Read Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Hazlitt wrote that "the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups. Nine-tenths of the economic fallacies that are working such dreadful harm in the world today are the result of ignoring this lesson. Those fallacies all stem from one of two central fallacies, or both: (1) that of looking only at the immediate consequences of an act or proposal, and (2) that of looking at the consequences only for a particular group to the neglect of other groups."
Throughout his work, Hazlitt provides tremendous examples for each of the common myths of bad economists and politicians. The beauty of this work is that Hazlitt explains concepts and observations that appear to be complex in such simple terms that even the US Congress could understand, such as:
"The world is full of so-called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing. They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that is can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off because `we owe it to ourselves' [but] ultimately every dollar of government spending must be raised through a dollar of taxation."
Other truths that Hazlitt espouses seem to be common sense, unless of course you are an elected official:
- "Taxation for public housing destroys as many jobs in other lines as it creates in housing."
- "The government spenders forget that they are taking the money from A in order to pay it to B."
- "Government lenders will take risks with other people's money (the taxpayers') that private lenders will not take with their own money." (e.g. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)
- (Government lenders) "will throw the available capital into bad or at best dubious projects." [e.g. A.I.G. and the Wall Street bailouts]
- "If the loans we make to foreign countries to enable them to buy our goods are not repaid, then we are giving the goods away. A nation cannot grow rich by giving goods away. It can only make itself poorer," and losses will be paid by increased taxes on everybody.
Hazlitt provides a terrific example of economics using initially Robinson Crusoe, then Swiss Family Robinson, and finally modern society concluding that "everything, in short, is produced at the expense of forgoing something else." He provides a detailed, yet concise explanation of the supply chain, subsidies, unions, price controls, and wages offering great clarity in this statement: "In an exchange economy everybody's money income is somebody else's cost. Every increase in hourly wages, unless or until compensated by an equal increase in hourly productivity, is an increase in costs of production."
One of the final sections of this book focuses on the dangers of inflation and the theory of the Keynesians, who have contributed so significantly to the current fiscal mess in Washington D.C. "The more sophisticated advocates of inflation, in brief, are disingenuous. They do not state their case with complete candor; and they end by deceiving even themselves. They begin to talk of paper money, like the more naive inflationists, as if it were itself a form of wealth that could be created at will on the printing press. They even solemnly discuss a "multiplier," by which every dollar printed and spent by the government becomes magically the equivalent of several dollars added to the wealth of the country." Yet the fictitious multiplier doesn't. It is merely results in a larger debt that must be repaid through heavier taxes. And continuous injections of new money lower the purchasing power of everyone. Sadly, Hazlitt's observation that government has nothing to give, without first taking it away from someone else, has not yet been learned by the American taxpayer.
Hazlitt's writing on secondary consequences of fiscal decisions is brilliant and as applicable today as it was when first written.
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Summary of Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
A simple, straightforward analysis of economic fallacies that are so prevalent they have almost become a new orthodoxy.Economics Books
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