Economics in One Lesson

A Lifetime Economics Lesson por Robert Murphy:

This book may change your life. I know, because it changed mine.

Hazlitt’s book lives up to its title: It truly teaches you economics in one lesson. What’s even more surprising is that “the lesson” itself is embedded in the first chapter, taking but a few pages. The bulk of the book then applies the lesson in a variety of situations, showing how the original simple insight provides sound guidance on just about every hot-button economic issue of the day.

.. Indeed, his accomplishment is even more amazing. For within the opening pages — where Hazlitt lays out “the lesson” — you will find that he crystallizes it in a single sentence. To wit, “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”

Economics in One Lesson first appeared in 1946, and Hazlitt himself acknowledged his debt to Frédéric Bastiat, who wrote in the 19th century. Even so, the book’s analysis is still relevant today, because the fallacies it explodes keep coming back with every news cycle.

Yet the present volume is not intended for professional economists. Instead, Hazlitt — a journalist by profession — wrote Economics in One Lesson for the layperson who desperately needs a framework for understanding the economy ..