Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics (Paperback)

by Henry Hazlitt (Author) "ECONOMICS IS HAUNTED by more fallacies than any other study known to man..." (more)
Key Phrases: sweater industry, government spenders, parity prices, United States, Social Security, Joe Smith (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
This 50th-anniversary edition of Hazlitt's million-selling volume has been updated to include current statistics and an introduction by presidential aspirant Steve Forbes. This lay reader's guide has a place in all collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Hazlitt was a remarkably lucid writer, and this short book is justly regarded as a classic....But it comes across even better in Jeff Riggenbach's interpretation. Riggenbach has a knack for making routine discursive sentences come alive...he could be a college professor lecturing, the kind of lecturer who really can teach. He sounds reasonable, engaging and thoroughly likeable. --AudioFile

If there were a Nobel Prize for clear economic thinking, Mr. Hazlitt s book would be a worthy recipient...like a surgeon s scalpel, it cuts through...much nonsense that has been written in recent years about our economic ailments. --J. W. Hanes (former undersecretary of the treasury) --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 218 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (December 14, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517548232
• ISBN-13: 978-0517548233
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (174 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #900 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

334 of 343 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Students Love Hazlitt!, May 17, 2001

By	Scott A. Kjar (Kenner (New Orleans), LA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I teach Principles of Microeconomics, and I always use this book for extra credit. Students who hate reading long, boring, stuffy text books always like Hazlitt, and give him high reviews every single semester. The very readable chapters are short (about 3-6 pages in most cases), and told in story form to make Hazlitt's point. This makes it possible for even freshmen with notoriously short attention spans to read the day's chapter.

Hazlitt's "one lesson" is simple, and told in Chapter 1. The rest of the chapters are all stories in which the lesson plays a prominent role. In short, Hazlitt doesn't merely tell us the lesson, he actually shows us the lesson -- over and over and over, until we've got it.

With stories on tariffs, minimum wage, rent controls, taxes. unions, wages, profits, savings, credit, unemployment, and so much more, Hazlitt takes some of the most difficult economic concepts and makes these easily accessible to the lay person who has no economic training, background, or even inclination.

It's one thing for me to recommend this book. It's quite another for my students to recommend it semester after semester. I can imagine no higher praise.

94 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I've missed my life's calling., July 12, 2001

By	Aaron Jordan (Salt Lake City, Utah) - See all my reviews

I should have studied economics. Hazlitt's book is remarkably readable, coherent, and logical. It just confirms that truth is usually understandable, whereas complicated obfuscation is usually the major alarm bell that tips you off when people are trying to shaft you. This guy really knows his stuff.

The one lesson is so simple that it takes about five minutes to read the chapter about it. The rest of the book lists various scenarios in which that lesson applies. The general principle of the lesson applies so naturally to various specific cases that it simplifies economics immensely. Hazlitt must have studied logic as well as economics.

The one lesson is simply this: economic planning should take into account the effects of economic policies on all groups, not just some groups, and what those effects will be in the long run, not just the short run. That's it. That's the lesson. Fallacious economic policies almost invariably seek to benefit one group at the expense of all others, or to bring about short-term benefits at the expense of long-term benefits. With this as his thesis, Hazlitt examines the numerous manifestations of such fallacies in different situations.

His chapters are short, his prose is easy to follow, and his logic is compelling. I've never taken an economics class in my life, yet I had no trouble following the reasoning in this book. This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand basic economics and the keys to widespread prosperity in the long run.

70 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent primer in basic economics, November 26, 2001

By	James P. Brett "Publius" (Valrico, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The average American knows very little about economics or monetary theory. That's why they tend to believe whatever they see and hear on their televisions. By reading this short book, you'll gain a basic understanding of economics, and an explanation of the many myths that are taken as truths.

In the final chapter of this book, Hazlitt revists his work 30 years later (he was writing in 1978, and the book came out originally in 1946). He surmises that during that period, nothing was learned. If anything, he says, subjects related in the book (wage rates, price controls, government "make work") have become more political. I wonder what Hazlitt would say now.

You need to read this book in order to appreciate the real consequences of actions your government wants to take. The theme emphasized over and over in the book is that actions must be thought through to see what the long term effects will be, not just the highly visible short term ones.