Economics in One Lesson: 50th Anniversary Edition - Hardcover

Henry Hazlitt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0930073207 ISBN 13: 9780930073206

Publisher: Laissez Faire Books, 1996

Synopsis

This book has been the springboard from which millions have come to understand the basic truths about economics--and the economic fallacies responsible for inflation, unemployment, high taxes, and recession. H.L. Mencken called Hazlitt "one of the few economists in human history who could really write." Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek hailed this book as "a brilliant performance."

"If there were a Nobel Prize for clear economic thinking, Mr. Hazlitt's book would be a worthy recipient... like a surgeon's scalpel, it cuts through... much nonsense that has been written in recent years about our economic ailments." -- John W. Hanes, former Undersecretary of the Treasury

About this title

Reviews

This 50th-anniversary edition of Hazlitt's million-selling volume has been updated to include current statistics and an introduction by presidential aspirant Steve Forbes. This lay reader's guide has a place in all collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The following is the Foreword by Steve Forbes.

We have been inundated lately with a barrage of 50th anniversaries of important events--the dropping of the atomic bombs, Iwo Jima, VE and VJ days, Bretton Woods. And with this edition of Henry Hazlitt's best-known work we commemorate another. Five decades have passed since the publication of a book on economics so powerful in its clarity and simplicity that we can declare, without question, it has shaped our world.

With Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt provided a loaded arsenal for those who would do combat with the cloudy and mistaken economic wisdom of the day. In that respect, he is something of a refuter. He addressed every mayor economic fallacy, all prominently and widely held, and refuted them. He showed why protective tariffs are not protective, why minimum wage laws hurt those they are intended to benefit, and why government attempts to stabilize and fix prices throw them out of whack. And in doing so he advanced the notion that markets freed from government intervention can best serve and improve society.

In a period when the economics undergirding the New Deal were ascendant, Hazlitt emerged as one of the most successful proponents of free markets, and one of the most forceful opponents of the Keynesian nostrums dictating U.S. economic policy. From his perch as an editorial writer for The New York Times he gave the Roosevelt Administration fits. At The Nation, where he signed on as literary editor but wrote extensively on economics, he gave his editors similar fits. And as a regular columnist for Newsweek from 1946 to 1966 he helped educate millions about the rudiments of economics and the failures of widespread government intervention. As a sign of the times, today we would be rightly suspicious of any economics writer with that sort of resume.

Ludwig von Mises called him "our leader." Friedrich Hayek lauded him similarly. H. L. Mencken, not known for lavishing praise on many, revered Hazlitt as "one of the few economists in human history who could really write." But Henry Hazlitt was no economist. At least, not officially. No Ph.D.--or bachelor's degree, for that matter--adored his walls. Hazlitt's insatiable curiosity about the way the world works led him, self-taught, to an understanding of basic economics astonishing in its breadth and scope.

Edition details

• Publisher: Laissez Faire Books
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0930073207
• ISBN 13: 9780930073206
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 205