Customer Reviews

Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Henry Hazlitt has done the layman a huge favour in writing this book. Unfortunately, it is not only the layman who desperately needs this book. It is the world's politicians, the presidents of central banks, and those who control monetary policy who have severed their moorings with common sense and are now afloat on a raging sea of market fall-out and who don't understand how they got there who need to read this book, like, yesterday.

A proponent of Austrian Economics (the free market, self-governed through the law of supply and demand, with minimal gov't intervention), Hazlitt puts forth an irrefutable case against the foggy-headed reigning economic model of the day - Keynesianism. He does this by effectively exposing and refuting the many fallacies which Keynesians embrace as orthodoxy. Where Keynes is complex and convoluted, Hazlitt is simple and straightforward. And unlike Keynes, whose work wreaks of ivory-tower arrogance and elitist snobbery, Hazlitt writes with everyday wisdom and appeals to the common sense of the average person who knows instinctively that you can't improve your financial standing by plunging into debt in order to spend your way to affluence. If only our governments understood this.

At the heart of Hazlitt's book is the principle that true economics must consider the general effect over the long term of any policy it enacts. It is from the solid foundation of this principle that Hazlitt attacks all modern economic fallacies which, he argues, all have at their heart the problem of looking only at the effects of a policy on one special group in the short term. And Hazlitt reminds us that what would be foolish for household finances is all the more foolish for a nation since it the same foolishness magnified a million times over. Along with his use of common sense and plain logic, Hazlitt effectively uses statistics to prove his points (mercifully he limits his use of statistics, unlike many modern writers who use almost nothing but).

If Keynes is the alchemist wizard who has masterfully entranced his economist minions through a combination of academic sophistry and elitist intimidation, Hazlitt is the plain speaking sage who breaks the spell by speaking words that ring true with every person's experience of the real world and the economic forces at work within. This is not only a great place to begin one's study of economics but it is something that politicians and voters alike should have to re-read every election year before they cast their ballots. If we had been doing that up until now, we would not be in the economic disaster we currently are.

Of the positive reveiews, they seem to be amazed that someone can define economics. It's not really rocket science, and, in an age of plenty, it's not really about scarcity. It's about individuals making choices to maximize value. They may be bad choices, uniformed choices or perverse choices, but they have, in the final analysis, impact limited to the individual. And in most cases result in some level of increased individual satisfaction.
The real danger, according to Hazlitt, is when the choices of a few people, with same kinds of fallacies noted above, are coercive, enforced by government or monopolies. Which leads us to to the negative reviews.
The negatives, if we can be allowed to throw out the obvious loser rants, seem to be concerned mainly with rapacious corporations, free trade among inequal countries and natural monopolies. While these are certainly provide distortions of individual choice and informed consent, they do in the long run tend to be self correcting -- see government-sanctioned coal and oil monopolies. The real interest is in how to minimize the effects of these diseconomies.
Hazlitt would argue that they are self-correcting via the collective effect of individual choices. The Marxists would argue that action based upon the sceeding of individual choice to a collective power is the solution. Surely, if we can assume there is no absolute, theoretical winner in this debate, we can look to the real world, based upon the actions of multiple forms of government and millions of individuals to provide some guidance on which path leads to the most for the most.
To that end, I would challenge you to read Hazlitt's book and a Marxist equivalent like Ivan Ilich's "Tools for Conviviality" and then, accepting both as plausibly complete and material, match them against your experience of recent history and your hopes for your personal future.

I have no background in economics, so this book was very helpful. I feel as though I gained a grounding in the area and a much better understanding of the world!

Recommend to anyone :)

This is a simple, but amazingly profound, mind blowing introduction to some basic economic principles. The principles outlined here are quite simple, and yet it seems so many people today can not grasp these basic truths.

Granted this book is a bit dated, but most of it is still useful and much of it seems as if it were written today.

I sincerely wish more politicians and voters today would read this book, it would go a long way toward restoring some knowledge of basic economics and some common sense to the decisions that get made on the political sphere.

There are many economics books that are so dense that I would take no delight in reading nor would I feel comfortable recommending to someone who is not already an economics wonk. However, with this title, I have no such reservations. I can wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone. I guarantee it will be enlightening in at least one or two areas!

Henry Hazlitt's book starts with a single lesson-that economics means looking beyond the immediate effects of any act or policy to the consequences of it for everyone. The rest of the book is a series of short chapters giving examples of the application of this lesson.
Hazlitt's lesson in itself is great. I wish it were better known. His examples vary in quality. Some are a bit dated; natural for a book which mostly dates to 1946. The chapter on rent control is as relevant today as ever. The discussion of the cost of war and other types of destructive activities punctures a misconception that is still common. In his discussion of unemployment, however, he fails to mention immigration and population growth as part of the cause.
The section on tariffs is good as far as it goes. The problem with his analysis is that transportation today is in effect heavily subsidized. Oil companies and the like don't have to pay for the air pollution and climate change caused by their products, or for roads, or for the armies protecting the oil flow. Subsidized transportation costs make nonsense of the idea that local and imported goods are really on the same footing. Free trade with countries having non-existent environmental laws simply sets up a race to the bottom, with responsible companies heading for bankruptcy and irresponsible companies destroying the economic foundations of their own countries.
Hazlitt swallows whole the idea that growth in GNP is always good and can continue indefinitely. Given that GNP doesn't include the costs of pollution, resource depletion, the effects of population growth, or quality of life, this is very questionable. Hazlitt needs to apply his own "one lesson" here.
Hazlitt states in his first sentence that economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. I tend to agree. Hazlitt points out some of them and does it in a very readable way. Hazlitt fails with some of the other fallacies. Read the book, but read it with a grain of salt.

Having poor public schooling on economics, I decided to pick this book up. This is the perfect starter book for anyone wanting to learn about economics. Relatively short book, just goes through major topics each chapter. Short and to the point.

After this book, I would recommend "Naked Economics" by Charles Wheelan. I started off reading Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell, and in comparison, this is a much easier read. I think I might have started backwards. =).

A must read for beginners.

Don't buy the audio version from audible.com .

Their programming skills are terrible. I could not download some of the books I bought, could not burn into cd the ones I could download, and forget about making it work with an mp3 player, unless you're lucky.

I know about 5 people who bought stuff from there and only one had the luck of downloading a working file and burning it successfully to a cd.

The quality of the narrations is awful, at least in the books I managed to hear (only on windows media player, nothing else worked). If you're used to books on cd or tape, you're up for a big disappointment buying from audible.

On top of all that, they have the worst customer service I have ever witnessed. The site was not working right when I tried to purchase there for the first time. I sent them a message with no answer.

In a second attempt, I bought the stuff and some files never downloaded (which means they just stole my money and I don't know what I can do since I don't live in USA). I sent another message with no answer again.

Then their weird program, which turns Windows Media Player automatically on instead of working alone, showed no compatibility to Itunes and no possibility of burning cds or dreaming about hearing books on Ipod. I sent them a third message and nothing. A fourth and guess what? Nothing again.

So I am at least trying to warn other people here to avoid being caught by such scheme. I hope Amazon gets rid of audible as soon as possible. I always got great service from Amazon and the affiliated bookstores, or even other stores selling electronics, health products and others, but audible is just the worst company I ever wasted my money with. Too bad we cannot give notes to them like with the affiliated booksellers.

Sorry by the poor text, I am just mad with them.

This work is a solid value for the price charged. It integrates some common sense Economics principles with classics by Adam Smith and others. The author starts by explaining how public works projects benefit the local economy in the short term while paying for themselves over the long term in terms of toll revenues and additional taxes . He believes that high taxes tend to discourage badly needed investment. Machinery does displace workers in the short term; however, the incremental productivity
has a permanent benefit. What would we do today without cars?
or planes?

Tariffs tend to benefit producers at the expense of consumers.
Prices are determined by the dynamics of demand and supply.
Rent control has benefits but the downside tends to discourage new building. Unions tend to provide for local employment while at the same time providing pay equity and benefits for the
membership.

This book is a solid value for economists, households, students of economics , journalists and a whole host of constituencies.

"Economics in One Lesson", Henry Hazlet's, book makes a powerful and persuasive argument in favor of a free market economy. Written in a very lucid style "Economics in One Lesson" makes the usually dry subject of economics easily understandable and a pleasure to read. Hazlitt doesn't obfuscate the truths of matters with cumbersome graphs and math. For non-economists like my self it makes a great introductory book to the subject. Even though the book was published in 1946, the topics covered by Hazlitt are still pertinent and examine issues that still confound us more than 50 years later. Chapters include inflation, tariffs, taxation, price fixing, labor unions, savings, and the importance of profits, rent control, and more.

As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found "Economics in One Lesson" a great book for anyone who wants to understand basic economic theory.

For the person who thinks economics is a dismal science, this is one of the best short introductions available.