Henry Hazlitt's Work

These books are must read for anyone interested in the dismal science
- Sathish Neel

Thinking as a Science (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1916; 2nd ed., Los Angeles: Nash Publishing Corp., 1969)

Thinking clearly and logically is the secret of learning, Hazlitt says. He offers the reader many ideas for developing his powers of thinking -- by concentrating, talking, and keeping a notebook handy to jot down ideas. He recommends books on how to reason and think.

In Hazlitt's 1969 epilogue, he said if he were to revise the book he would further stress, among other things, the importance of language, perseverance, learning what has already been discovered, and writing. "Good writing is the twin," he wrote, "of good thinking. He who would learn to think should learn to write." Again he recommends books.

The Way to Will Power (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1922)

After asserting that there is no such thing as the "will," young Hazlitt proceeds to offer a sensible guide for developing "will power" -- by choosing worthy goals, aiming at them with determination, and developing good study and work habits.

A Practical Program for America, ed. by Henry Hazlitt (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1932)

When this book was published, the economy was in the midst of depression and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was governor of New York and had not yet run for President. Hazlitt was then editor of The Nation, from which these essays were taken. Except for Hazlitt, the authors were all looking for ways to improve the economy by amending national legislation. Hazlitt advocates free trade and recommends the repeal of all barriers to trade.

The Anatomy of Criticism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1933)

Written at a time when Hazlitt was doing many book reviews, this book presents his philosophy of criticism. The discussants in a trialogue, a three-sided conversation, present their rationales for criticizing books, novels, poetry, paintings, sculpture, and the like. After discussing the relative merits of seeking objective standards, or relying exclusively on a critic's subjective values, the discussants recognize that certain standards evolve on the basis of tradition, public opinion, ideas, ethical and moral views, and so on.

A New Constitution Now (New York: Whittlesey House/ McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1942; 2nd ed., revised, New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1974)

Hazlitt deplores our constitutional checks and balances that divide power and authority and make it difficult to assign responsibility. He prefers a parliamentary form of government with executive and legislative powers combined more or less as in the British cabinet system, not fully developed until well after our Constitution was written. With no fixed period of office in a parliamentary form of government, the people may throw the "ins out if they are dissatisfied." Hazlitt suggests various changes in the franchise, the make-up of Congress and the Supreme Court, methods for amending the Constitution, and so on. He quotes John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, James Bryce, and other thinkers.

In 1974, when Hazlitt revised this book, he dropped some of the minor reforms he had suggested in order to concentrate on his advocacy of a parliamentary form of government. With a parliamentary form of government, popular disaffection with an administration at any time would require it to face the electorate promptly. Then if the voters expressed a lack of confidence, that administration would fall and have to relinquish control. Hazlitt contends that this would have saved us the "nightmare of Watergate" and Richard Nixon's near-impeachment. Control would have passed from Nixon's hands without a serious crisis. Whether or not one agrees with Hazlitt, his views are worth studying.

Economics in One Lesson (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946; Pocket Books, 1948; special edition for The Foundation for Economic Education, 1952; revised and updated paperback, New York: MacFadden Bartell Corp., 1962; Westport, Conn.: Arlington House, 1979)

An economic "classic." The role of an economist, Hazlitt says, is to consider not only the consequences of an action that are "seen," but also its "unseen" consequences. Hazlitt proceeds to analyze the "unseen" consequences of various government programs such as legally-fixed minimum wage rates, price controls, government spending, and the like.

Will Dollars Save the World? (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1947)

After World War II, when the productive machinery of the warring nations was in a shambles, the world clamored for U.S. grants and loans. But, Hazlitt points out, the harm had been done not only by enemy bombing but also by inflation and economic controls. Hazlitt gives 17 reasons why Marshall Plan dollars will not save the world.

To restore production, radical policy changes must be made to repeal government interventions. The supreme irony is that the only country in the world today that is really producing anything -- and for whose goods the rest of the world is therefore clamoring -- is almost the only country that does not have government production targets, "but merely turns out goods in the volumes and proportions determined by supply and demand, free prices and free profits." (p. 53) Hazlitt outlines a positive program to restore production in the devastated countries.

The Great Idea (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951; rev. ed., published as Time Will Run Back: A Novel About the Rediscovery of Capitalism, New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1966; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, Inc., 1986)

A fictional account set in the future when the entire world is under a single Communist dictator. His only son, Peter, heir to the dictatorship, had been raised by his mother who opposed Communism. When Peter's father dies and he takes over, he encounters problems due to central planning. Conservatives in the Politburo oppose changes. But with the support and advice of one sympathetic Politburo member, he succeeds in introducing private property, free market prices, competition, and freedom of opportunity. Step-by-step they dismantle the controls. Fighting erupts between the two factions and there is a mild love story. A delightful way to learn some economics. The ending of the 2nd edition is modified slightly to make it somewhat more optimistic.

The Free Man's Library (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1956)

An annotated bibliography of books that Hazlitt recommends to gain an understanding of the philosophy of the free market, limited government, private property system.

The Failure of the "New Economics" : An Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1959; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, Inc., 1983)

John Maynard Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) became the "gospel on which practically all post-depression economic instruction has been based." Yet even Keynes' followers found it "a badly written book, poorly organized ... not well suited for classroom use." (Paul Samuelson, quoted by Hazlitt, p. 2.) Moreover, when Hazlitt analyzed it, he was "unable to find in it a single important doctrine that is both true and original. What is original in the book is not true; and what is true is not original." (p. 6) Nevertheless the book has had a tremendous influence. Hazlitt, therefore, proceeded to do something that had never been done before, to critique the Keynes book, chapter by chapter, on the basis of subjective, marginal utility (Austrian) economic theory.

The Critics of Keynesian Economics, ed. by Henry Hazlitt. (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1960; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, Inc., 1984)

In the course of writing The Failure of the "New Economics," Hazlitt encountered several noteworthy articles that criticized Keynes' ideas. This anthology of the best of those includes essays by such well-known economists as B. M. Anderson, Arthur F. Burns, F. A. Hayek, W. H. Hutt, Frank H. Knight, and Ludwig von Mises. As if to underline Keynes' lack of originality, two papers by pre-Keynes critics -- Jean Baptiste Say (1767-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) -- are included.

What You Should Know About Inflation (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1960; 2nd ed., with statistics and tables updated to 1964, D. Van Nostrand Co., 1965)

Hazlitt defines inflation as an "increase in the supply of money and credit." (p. 1) A general increase in prices, he says, is "made possible... only by an increased supply of money." (p. 6) To dramatize the unreliability of governments to "manage money and maintain its value," Hazlitt quotes 12 denials by Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps that the British government would devalue the pound (pp. 22-24), denials made during the 20 months immediately prior to the British government's September 18, 1949, devaluation. Hazlitt then proceeds to attack one inflationist fallacy after another.

The Foundations of Morality (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1964; 2nd ed., Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1972)

"{M]orality is older," Hazlitt says, "than any living religion and probably older than all religion." (p. 352) The role of the moral philosopher, therefore, is not to proclaim or maintain any particular religious faith. "His function is rather, to insist on the rational basis of all morality." (p. 353)

Hazlitt sees a common denominator in law, morals (ethics), and manners. Manners are "minor morals; they rest on the same principles as do morals or ethics -- sympathy, kindness, consideration of others. " (p. 75) Law is a minimum ethics, "a circle with the same center as moral philosophy." (p. 69). Hazlitt covers a great deal of material in this book. He reviews the classical literature on morality and ethics, and examines the teachings of the various religions. He discusses social cooperation and the need for general rules. The moral philosophy he sets forth is "utilitarian ... [i]n the sense that all rules of conduct must be judged by their tendency to lead to desirable rather than undesirable social results." (p. xii)

Man vs. the Welfare State (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, Inc., 1983)

The welfare state encompasses a mix of popular government interventions. In this book Hazlitt analyzes many of them -- government spending, social security, progressive taxation, foreign aid, price controls, negative income taxes, planning, guaranteed employment -- and he describes their devastating effects on incentives, savings, investment, and production.As a warning of what can happen, he points to Uruguay, a "welfare state gone wild." He writes also of Herbert Spencer's prescient warning of "the coming slavery" (1884) due to Britain's incipient government intervention. In his final chapter, "What We Can Do About It," he recommends among other things that persons on relief be denied the vote so long as they remain on relief.

The Conquest of Poverty (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1973; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, Inc., 1986)

"The history of poverty is almost the history ....[U]ntil about the middle of the eighteenth century, mass poverty was nearly everywhere the normal condition of man." (pp. 13, 178) Attempts to alleviate poverty by government welfare and poor relief failed wherever and whenever tried -- in Rome, in England, in France, in Germany, and in the United States. The "conquest of poverty" is a product of the capitalistic system which protected private property and enabled people to "save and invest their savings in industries producing goods for the masses." (p. 214)

The Inflation Crisis, and How to Resolve It (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983)

Part I incorporates several of the more important chapters of What You Should Know about Inflation. In Part II Hazlitt analyzes and criticizes additional inflationist fallacies. Here are some of the chapter titles: "What Spending and Deficits Do", "What Spending and Deficits Do Not Do", "Where the Monetarists Go Wrong", "Inflation and Unemployment", The Specter of Unused Capacity", "Indexing: The Wrong Way Out", "Why Inflation Is Worldwide", "The Search for an Ideal Money", "Free Choice of Currencies."

From Bretton Woods to World Inflation: A Study of Causes and Consequences (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984)

Hazlitt's New York Times editorials, written at the time of the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, form the nucleus of this book. Hazlitt pointed out then that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), established at Bretton Woods, would be inflationary, hamper world trade, and retard economic recovery. Hazlitt was distrustful of any state or bank, including the IMF, which was empowered to issue paper money. Also included in this book are several later articles by Hazlitt which amplify his 1944 conclusions.

The Wisdom of the Stoics: Selections from Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Edited and with an introduction by Frances and Henry Hazlitt (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984)

In the course of Hazlitt's lifelong studies, he was impressed by the philosophy of the Stoics. Mrs. Hazlitt, Frances, researched their writings. Stoicism, founded by Zeno (c. 320-250 B.C.), a Phoenician, the editors write in their introduction, "is one of the permanent philosophies of life..., an indispensable element in any rational philosophy. Stoicism deals with the good and virtuous life. This book is a collection of aphorisms by three great Stoics from vastly different backgrounds. Seneca (c. 4 B.C.-65 A.D.), born in Spain, studied in Rome, gained favor, fame, fortune, then the enmity of Emperor Nero and was ordered to commit suicide. Epictetus (c. 55-130 A.D.), an ex-slave, became a favorite of Nero's, received his freedom, and later was expelled. Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.) was an Emperor. The maxims assembled here offer guidance to everyday living and are suitable for daily reading.