Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest & Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
by Henry Hazlitt
Rating: 4.0 / 5 · Read · Finished 2018-08-18
I’m pretty liberal, so I wanted to hear a conservative perspective on capitalism. I think this does a great job of highlighting an important principle: that every economic intervention favors some and hurts others. I agree with a lot of his arguments. But I think he ignores a lot of important facts, and makes a lot of assumptions.
(1) He assumes agents in the economy have perfect information and will make the best decision for their own self interests (2) He ignores harm to the environment (3) He assumes taking from one group to give to another is always bad (4) He lived during a time in the U.S. where income inequality was much less extreme, which colors his ideas about fairness