Economics in One Lesson

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Summary: Read it
Review: A great educational primer on economics. It's not an enjoyable read per se, but once you read it you never quite forget it. Every bad liberal idea -- minimum wage laws, rent control, etc. -- is explained, and all is constantly brought back to the central thesis. Accessible to just about anyone.

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Summary: This is one of the best books ever written.
Review: Hazlitt explains the one fallacy that underlies almost every misconception about economics. Anyone can understand this book, and those with econ backgrounds will love it even more.

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Summary: Educated me in ways no economics textbook ever did
Review: I have read this little classic several times and give copies to people who I think would appreciate learning about secondary consequences relating to economics. What I find doubly enriching is that a person can apply the insights of learning about secondary consequences in their own lives -- about the decisions they make that will have lasting consequences that they didn't think about before taking action. The bottom line is that it is sad that so many people don't know about this book. It should be required reading in our high schools.

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Summary: Best Book on Economics for the Layman Ever Written
Review: Hazlitt opened my eyes to economic reality far better than all of my college economics professors put together. It's unfortunate that there isn't a Nobel Prize for non-academic economists because Hazlitt would have won hands down. In one short, very readable book he strips away all of the political demagoguery and irrationality that surrounds the conventional mythology of economics.

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Summary: An economics primer that will turn your world inside out.
Review: The best economics book I've ever read and, as a business writer, I've read a lot of 'em. Eye opening. It will challenge all your assumptions about rent control, tarrifs, government programs, the "stimulate benefits" of war, hurricanes, earthquakes. I guarantee if you read this book with an open mind, Hazlitt will change the way you look at the world. Should be required reading in every highschool or college Econ. 1 class. And, a bonus, Hazlitt is a clear, concise writer. Best of all there's not a chart or an equation in the whole darn book

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Summary: Good But Some Holes
Review: 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.

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Summary: Fun, easy, and important read
Review: I have a BA in economics and am currently in a PhD program in economics so this stuff wasn't new to me. That being said, it was definitely a worthwhile read because, as Hazlitt points out, even economists often lose sight of some of the most fundamental concepts that he demonstrates.

Also, as a teaching assistant for a university level introductory macroeconomics class, this book is invaluable. Most of the quarter is spent developing a Keynesian model of the economy but, with excerpts from this book, I can inform my students of other side of coin. In my opinion, understanding the concepts in this book should be a prerequisite to any study of Keynesian theory. I can just imagine students who have taken an introductory macroeconomics course espousing the powerful way the government can stimulate the economy, but without understanding the way a free market works and the benefits that come along with it. I'm not a Keynes basher at all--I just think understanding how a free market economy works is much more important than the idea that government can stimulate aggregate demand. While setting out to demonstrate common economic fallacies, Hazlitt also paints a lucid picture of the free market and illuminates some of the hard to see implications of the way the invisible hand works.

Also, this book is so well written that anyone could easily read it very quickly and understand all of the concepts without any background in economics.

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Summary: Economics in a nutshell - never boring again!
Review: This is, in my opinion, the most important introduction to economics ever written. I began to read with some doubt that it could be of any interest. It not only captured my interest but set me on a path of new discovery making a subject I formerly considered so much witchcraft into a subject that permeates virtually every aspect of our lives. It is the founding theory that can make us a truly free people or enslaved to economic failures.

It is a book for every citizen before he votes or runs for even the office of dog-catcher. Read and follow it with Hayek's _Road to Serfdom_ for even greater understanding.

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Summary: Set your exepectations before you buy this
Review: The value of this book depends on what you expect out of it. I bought this book so I can get a good idea about basic economics in general not about government economic policies. But this book essentially goes about picking one government policy after another (like tax cuts, protection of industries, price fixations, minimum wage etc) and goes about telling us why such artificial measures are not right and why the economy should in general be left to free market forces.

As such, the book was a kind of disappointment for me - in not meeting my requirements. Though I should say that by itself, the contents of the book are quite good and generally enlightening.


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Summary: Lucid, clear, well-written, and irrefutable
Review: This book is extremely good. Its prose is extraordinarily lucid, its arguments are clear and irrefutable, and its organization and development are superb.

I have only two complaints. First: in the Introduction there are a few thinly veiled and unsupported pot shots taken at major economists with whom Hazlitt disagrees (Keynes). Second: The title of the book is misleading. This book is a polemic and not a survey of the field of economics.

I should also address the very silly criticisms made against this book by some of the other revewiers. Most of these critical reviewers entirely misunderstand the point of the book. The book is intended as a lucid refutation of certain extremely common anti-capitalist economic fallacies. That is all. Thus, criticisms like "this book fails to address: game theory, natural monopolies, the pricple-agent problem, labor market friction, some advanced math technique, etc" are simply irrelevant. It would be an absurd detour were Hazlitt to address those things when they aren't the topic of his book, and aren't relevant to the fallacies he's refuting. None of the fallacies he refutes use game theory, even if economics in general does. And "this book is simple and doesn't advance economics in any way" is another ridiculous criticism, because OBVIOUSLY any book entitled "[subject] in one lesson" or "intro to [subject]" is not intended to advance the state of the science.

In its intended purpose, which is to refute certain specific fallacies and in so doing explain a certain kind of thinking, this book succeeds incredibly well.