The book's title-What You Should Know About Inflation-only hints at the extent of the issues that Hazlitt addresses. He presents the Austrian theory of money in the clearest possible terms, and contrasts it with the fallacies of government management. He takes on not only the Keynesians but also the monetarists, as well as anyone who believes that government debt accumulation and manipulation of interest rates are harmless.
So this book is about far more than inflation. He touches on a wide variety of macroeconomic topics, any area of economic policy that is related to the monetary regime, including budget and trade issues, as well has the economic history of inflation.
Particularly interesting is the final section of the book in which Hazlitt critiques various proposals for monetary reform and then presents his view.
What is Hazlitt's own idea for monetary reform? He wants competitive monies, which he believes will be based in precious metal. He doesn't demand that governments get out of the monetary business altogether but merely that government permit everyone to choose to use any money and make any form of contract.
Hazlitt lays out a scenario that he believes will lead to a 100 percent gold standard rooted in private coinage. In effect, he argues that private markets can do for money what private services have done to a whole host of government ones: outcompete and displace them.
It is a challenging thesis, particularly because it doesn't depend on any reform other than freeing the market.
160 pages, 6" x 9", paperback with index and introduction
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This classic on inflation explations todays' return of inflation,
This review is from: What You Should Know About Inflation (Paperback)
We have inflation again, the result of the Federal Reserve Board increasing the value of gold from the $350/ounce average from 1981 to 2001 -- to around $950 in mid-2009, as I write. That's about 200% inflation, which we see in the tripling of oil and gas prices -- and will soon see in the tripling of the price of everything else. (The recession has only retarded inflation in these areas, not ended it.)Hazlitt, whom H.L. Mencken once called one of the few economists who could write clearly, wrote this little book in the late 1960s, as the inflationary spiral of the mid-1960s to 1981 was just beginning. It's a little gem and an excellent companion to his classic, "Economics in One Lesson." It isn't really dated at all, as the same economic errors are repeated throughout history. Like Ron Paul today, Hazlitt insists that the only way to prevent inflation is to return to the gold standard. He writes: "Nothing has more clearly demonstrated the need for the gold standard than its abandonment. Since that occurred, in Britain in 1931 and in the United States in 1933, the world has been plunged, both in wartime and in peacetime, into a sea of paper money and unending inflation." Sound familiar? 1968 = 2009
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clear, concise and right on the money,
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This review is from: What You Should Know About Inflation (1960) (Paperback)
What a brillant book ! Hazlitt does a great job of explaining how inflation is developed. An increase in the supply of money and credit and the expectations of it continuing is what inflation is all about. What is incredibly scary is the this book was written in 1960.. what would Hazlitt think about today's Federal Reserve decisions? The book does a wonderful job of explaining inflation and also a great case (again) for the gold standard. One thing he does write and I don't agree is that inflation "redistributes" wealth.. HUH? Inflation hits the poor harder than the rich. So many great concepts about the economy, this book is a very good use of your time.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review of Hazlitt on Inflation,
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This review is from: What You Should Know About Inflation (Paperback)
Hazlitt's writing is always crisp and informative. He adds to the Case Against the FED.
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