Long before Charles Murray took on the topic, Henry Hazlitt wrote an outstanding book on poverty that not only provided an empirical examination of the problem but also presented a rigorous theory for understanding the relationship between poverty and income growth.
He examines poverty in the ancient world, the poor laws of England, the advance of the middle class in the United States, the failure of welfare programs, the fallacies associated with income redistribution, and the relationship between population and poverty.
Its 20 chapters are outstanding essays that make for a well-integrated text on the topic, one which holds up as prophetic in every way, having foreshadowing welfare reform but also pointing the way toward even more radical reforms. The way out of poverty, he explains, is freedom, and freedom alone. 240 pages plus index.
242 pages, 6" x 9", paperback
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
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Relevant Insight into Today's War on Poverty,
This review is from: Conquest of Poverty (Paperback)
"The Conquest of Poverty" is a typical example as to why Henry Hazlitt has become one of the most influential economists over the last half century.
In an easily readable style, Hazlitt begins by first demonstrating the difficulty of objectively defining poverty, and how that problem hasn't stopped bureaucrats from executing public policy to combat it. He then recounts how societies have tried to alleviate poverty in the past - starting with ancient Rome, moving through England's "Poor Laws," and finally to modern-day America - all the while, using sound economic principles to demonstrate why each attempt failed. This part in particular is a stark commentary on how man keeps making the same mistakes in trying to eradicate poverty by not learning from history - even by policy-makers in America today. He then tackles several individual topics such as the minimum wage, the affect of unions, income redistribution, government job programs, socialism, etc., and analyzes why each not only fails to reduce poverty, but actually exacerbates it. Finally, he discusses what the roles of the public and private sectors should be in alleviating poverty. Since the book was written in 1973, it doesn't expound on the major economic events that have occurred since - like Jimmy Carter's "stagflation," which put a stake through the heart of Keynesian economics, and Reagan's successful supply-side revolution, which vindicates much of Hazlitt's economic philosophy. However, Hazlitt's historical analysis of man's attempt to eliminate poverty, as well as his analysis and conclusions of America's present attempt to do so, are transcendant - applying today just as they did in the early 1970s. This is a must-read for any serious scholar of economics in general and poverty in particular.
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