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152 reviews for:
Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
Henry Hazlitt
3.75 AVERAGE
152 reviews for:
Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
Henry Hazlitt
3.75 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
slow-paced
The middle’s pacing slowed to a gut-wrenching crawl discussing parity prices and union influence. Everything else was engaging and useful.
Has a different approach to basic economics by dissecting common fallacies first and analyzing long-term effects of those fallacies and the forgotten “unseen producer/consumer” second.
Has a different approach to basic economics by dissecting common fallacies first and analyzing long-term effects of those fallacies and the forgotten “unseen producer/consumer” second.
FYI, this is not an intro to economics, it is an argument for libertarian economics. sometimes I like to read things that I know I’m going to disagree with, to see if their arguments convince me. in this case, no.
‘mechanization/automation doesn’t kill jobs’ why? because it didn’t kill jobs during the industrial revolution (why do conservative economists always go back to Adam Smith???) in fact mechanization does kill jobs, and you can’t model the modern American economy after a few big towns in the UK pre-1900. obviously?
‘government spending is more inefficient than private spending.’ the author gives the almost insultingly simplistic example of two small town farmers who are competing for a piece of land. farmer a is pals with the local bankers and boy howdee, they think he’s a good guy and a great farmer. shiftless farmer b is not someone they’d loan money to — but those dumdums in the government do! and so farmer b gets the land, and he does really badly with it.
okay .... what would happen in the real world? farmer a is a corporation, not human, and farmercorp might plant a monocrop instead of a variety which depletes the soil less. they could even cause some kind of ... bowl of dust? farmercorp a might slowly start buying up all the land until there are only a few billion dollar big ag companies in the US, at which point there is no meaningful market competition! yayyyy the invisible hand.
at which point farmer B and his family have to go work for farmercorp A & probably stay in the (according to this author) terrible, evil public housing because farmercorp A is the only game in town and can pay its employees as little as it likes! but the public housing is the real villain because most of the tax money that built it comes from the rich dude who owns farmercorp A and he could be using that money to make more money! which means more barely minimum wage jobs for people who can no longer afford housing, food, or healthcare! we could have had it all!! gosh darn taxes!
etc.
‘mechanization/automation doesn’t kill jobs’ why? because it didn’t kill jobs during the industrial revolution (why do conservative economists always go back to Adam Smith???) in fact mechanization does kill jobs, and you can’t model the modern American economy after a few big towns in the UK pre-1900. obviously?
‘government spending is more inefficient than private spending.’ the author gives the almost insultingly simplistic example of two small town farmers who are competing for a piece of land. farmer a is pals with the local bankers and boy howdee, they think he’s a good guy and a great farmer. shiftless farmer b is not someone they’d loan money to — but those dumdums in the government do! and so farmer b gets the land, and he does really badly with it.
okay .... what would happen in the real world? farmer a is a corporation, not human, and farmercorp might plant a monocrop instead of a variety which depletes the soil less. they could even cause some kind of ... bowl of dust? farmercorp a might slowly start buying up all the land until there are only a few billion dollar big ag companies in the US, at which point there is no meaningful market competition! yayyyy the invisible hand.
at which point farmer B and his family have to go work for farmercorp A & probably stay in the (according to this author) terrible, evil public housing because farmercorp A is the only game in town and can pay its employees as little as it likes! but the public housing is the real villain because most of the tax money that built it comes from the rich dude who owns farmercorp A and he could be using that money to make more money! which means more barely minimum wage jobs for people who can no longer afford housing, food, or healthcare! we could have had it all!! gosh darn taxes!
etc.