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'''''Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays''''' represents some of [[Murray Rothbard]]'s most advanced and radical theorizing on topics impacting on human liberty.
{{Infobox Book
| name          = Economics in One Lesson
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image        = [[File:Economics in one lesson 2007 ed cover.jpg|175px]]
| image_caption = Cover of 2007 edition
| author        = [[Henry Hazlitt]]
| illustrator  =
| cover_artist  =
| country      = United States
| language      = [[English language|English]]
| series        =
| subject      = [[Economics]]
| genre        =
| publisher    = Harper & Brothers
| pub_date      = 1946
| english_pub_date =
| media_type    =
| pages        = 218
| isbn          = 0517548232
| oclc          = 167574
| dewey            =
| congress        =
| preceded_by  =
| followed_by  =
}}


==Summary==
'''''Economics in One Lesson''''' is the seminal work of [[Henry Hazlitt]]. First published in 1946, it is based on [[Frédéric Bastiat]]'s essay ''{{lang|fr|Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas}}'' (English: "[[That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen|What is Seen and What is Not Seen]]"). It was written to expose the popular [[Fallacy|fallacies]] of its day. It became his most enduring contribution.<ref name="Rockwell_Hazlitt">Rockwell, Llewellyn H., Jr. [http://mises.org/about/3233 "Biography of Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993)"], referenced 2010-06-24.</ref>
Appearing first in 1974, this volume looks beyond conventional left-right thinking and hence contributes to the groundwork for the current intellectual challenge against centralized social and economic management.


The book's title comes from the lead essay, which argues that [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian theory]] always results in a politics of [[Statism|statist]] control because it is founded on revolt against the ontological structure of reality itself. According to Rothbard in this lead essay, statist intellectuals attempt to replace what exists with a Romantic image of an idealized primitive state of nature, an ideal which cannot and should not be achieved, according to Rothbard. The implications of this point are worked out on topics such as market economics, child rights, environmentalism, feminism, foreign policy, redistribution and others.
== The Lesson ==


[[Roy Childs]] writes in the Foreword: <blockquote>"For until Rothbard's work is carefully studied by every advocate of liberty, the value of his contributions to the libertarian system cannot be fully appreciated and, moreover, the unity and true historical context of libertarianism will not even be fully grasped."</blockquote>
Hazlitt attacked the fallacies of his time by analyzing each in light of the titular "one lesson." This lesson is the the same as the fundamental lesson of [[Frédéric Bastiat]]'s [[parable of the broken window]]: that one's economic analyses must go beyond what is seen to what is unseen, or beyond the obvious, localized, and short-term effects of an action or policy to its subtler, wider reaching, and long-term consequences. The failure to take these latter into account is known as "the broken window fallacy" in reference to Bastiat's parable. Hazlitt viewed this as the supreme economic error, and it was this, in manifold manifestations, that he set out to expose in ''Economics in One Lesson''. As Hazlitt explained in the book's first part:


==Table of contents==
<blockquote>
[one main factor] that spawns new economic fallacies every day . . . is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.<ref name="feeorg2005">Hazlitt, Henry. [http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/Economics_in_one_lesson.pdf'' Economics in One Lesson'' (PDF)], Foundation for Economic Education, 2005-04-01, via www.fee.org on 2010-11-12, p. 3.</ref>
</blockquote>


*Prefaces
==Contents==
** Introduction to the Second Edition, by David Gordon (2000)
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed"
** Introduction to the First Edition, by Murray Rothbard (1974)
! Contents&nbsp;
** Foreword to the 1974 Edition, by Roy A. Childs, Jr.
|-
*Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature
|
*Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty [http://www.mises.org/story/910
'''PART ONE: THE LESSON'''
*The Anatomy of the State
*Justice and Property Rights
*War, Peace, and the State
*The Fallacy of the Public Sector
*Kid Lib
*The Great Women's Liberation Issue: Setting it Straight
*Conservation in the Free Market
*The Meaning of Revolution
*National Liberation
*Anarcho-Communism
*The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View
*Ludwig von Mises and the Paradigm for Our Age
*Why Be Libertarian?
*Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor [http://www.mises.org/fipandol.asp (Full chapter text in HTML format)] Link also includes a 6-part postscript (Introduction and parts I-V) written circa 1991.


==Publishing history==
'''PART TWO: THE LESSON APPLIED'''
* 2.  The Broken Window
* 3.  The Blessings of Destruction
* 4.  Public Works Mean Taxes
* 5.  Taxes Discourage Production
* 6.  Credit Diverts Production
* 7.  The Curse of Machinery
* 8.  Spread-the-Work Schemes
* 9.  Disbanding Troops and Bureaucrats
* 10. The Fetish of Full Employment
* 11. Who's "Protected" by Tariffs?
* 12. The Drive for Exports
* 13. “Parity” Prices
* 14. Saving the X Industry
* 15. How the Price System Works
* 16. “Stabilizing” Commodities
* 17. Government Price-Fixing
* 18. What Rent Control Does
* 19. Minimum Wage Laws
* 20. Do Unions Really Raise Wages?
* 21. “Enough to Buy Back the Product”
* 22. The Function of Profits
* 23. The Mirage of Inflation
* 24. The Assault on Saving
* 25. The Lesson Restated


* Auburn, Alabama: [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]]. 2000. Paperback. ISBN 0-945466-23-4.
'''PART THREE: THE LESSON AFTER THIRTY YEARS'''
* Washington, D.C.: [[Libertarian Review]] Press. June 1974.
|}
{{Rothbard books}}
 
==See also==
* ''[[Lessons for the Young Economist]]''
* ''[[Economics for Real People]]''
* ''[[How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes]]''
* ''[[Basic Economics]]''
 
==References==
{{Reflist}}
 
==Links==
{{store|http://mises.org/store/Economics-in-One-Lesson-P33.aspx}}
{{academy|http://academy.mises.org/courses/economic-reasoning/|Economic Reasoning}}
* ''Economics in One Lesson'' 1952 special edition for [[Foundation for Economic Education|FEE]]:
** [http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson/ Full text links]
** [http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/Economics_in_one_lesson.pdf Full text in PDF]
* ''Economics in One Lesson'' 1978 second edition:
** [http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/contents.html Full text in HTML]
* ''Economics in One Lesson'' 2007 edition:
** [http://mises.org/books/economics_in_one_lesson_hazlitt.pdf Full text in PDF]
* [http://mises.org/daily/3102 "Economics in One Lesson Is Still Relevant"] by [[Art Carden]], October 2008.
* [http://blog.mises.org/14406/economics-in-one-lesson-the-video-series/ Economics in One Lesson, The Video Series] by [[Jeffrey Tucker]], October 2010.
 
* Related courses
** [http://academy.mises.org/courses/economic-reasoning/ Economic Reasoning] [[Mises Academy]] course by [[David Gordon]]
 
* {{wplink}}
 
[[Category:Writings of Henry Hazlitt]]

Latest revision as of 00:22, 8 December 2012

Economics in One Lesson  

Cover of 2007 edition
Author(s) Henry Hazlitt
Country United States
Language English
Subject(s) Economics
Publisher Harper & Brothers
Publication date 1946
Pages 218
ISBN 0517548232
OCLC Number 167574

Economics in One Lesson is the seminal work of Henry Hazlitt. First published in 1946, it is based on Frédéric Bastiat's essay Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas (English: "What is Seen and What is Not Seen"). It was written to expose the popular fallacies of its day. It became his most enduring contribution.[1]

The Lesson

Hazlitt attacked the fallacies of his time by analyzing each in light of the titular "one lesson." This lesson is the the same as the fundamental lesson of Frédéric Bastiat's parable of the broken window: that one's economic analyses must go beyond what is seen to what is unseen, or beyond the obvious, localized, and short-term effects of an action or policy to its subtler, wider reaching, and long-term consequences. The failure to take these latter into account is known as "the broken window fallacy" in reference to Bastiat's parable. Hazlitt viewed this as the supreme economic error, and it was this, in manifold manifestations, that he set out to expose in Economics in One Lesson. As Hazlitt explained in the book's first part:

[one main factor] that spawns new economic fallacies every day . . . is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.[2]

Contents

See also

References

  1. ↑ Rockwell, Llewellyn H., Jr. "Biography of Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993)", referenced 2010-06-24.
  2. ↑ Hazlitt, Henry. Economics in One Lesson (PDF), Foundation for Economic Education, 2005-04-01, via www.fee.org on 2010-11-12, p. 3.

Links

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-Economics in One Lesson

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