A truism among free-marketeers is that collectivism is flawed because it flies in the face of human nature. But many writers on our side also ignore a key aspect of human nature. They write about politics and economics as if they were logic or mechanics. Pull lever X for output Y. Disseminate the evidence of capitalism’s success and collectivism’s failures, and the capitalist paradise, in time, will come.
A truism among free-marketeers is that collectivism is flawed because it flies in the face of human nature. But many writers on our side also ignore a key aspect of human nature. They write about politics and economics as if they were logic or mechanics. Pull lever X for output Y. Disseminate the evidence of capitalism’s success and collectivism’s failures, and the capitalist paradise, in time, will come.
During patriotic holidays, the news media applaud the Founding Fathers. But rarely does anyone mention some important facts about them: that they were smugglers, tax evaders, and traitors.
Not only is this important, it is also praiseworthy; it produced the most advanced civilization ever known.
The press is resounding with acclaim for the accession to Power of Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Fed; economists from right, left, and center weigh in with hosannas for Alan’s greatness, acumen, and unparalleled insights into the “numbers.” The only reservation seems to be that Alan might not enjoy the enormous power and reverence accorded to his predecessor, for he does not have the height of a basketball player, is not bald, and does not smoke imposing cigars.
To most Americans, economists don’t leap instantly to mind as treasures, let alone national treasures. Whether making arrogant and fallacious mathematical predictions; filling the minds of college students with Keynesian and socialist buncombe; or giving a theoretical cover to State inflation, taxation, regulation, and spending—the typical economist is not a friend of liberty.
As long as bureaucrat-bashing remains sport royal, there is hope. But how much? Even now, confronting bureaucracy’s relentless encroachments and entanglements, whoya gonna call?
The Institute thanks Margit von Mises for her gracious permission to print excerpts from this un-published talk. ed.
This special edition of the Free Market is devoted to Henry Hazlitt
Henry Hazlitt: Giant of Liberty
For more than seven decades, Henry Hazlitt has taught the economics of freedom. With pathbreaking theoretical work and a unique ability to communicate with the non-economist—shown forth especially in his Economics in One Lesson—he has both advanced Austrian economics and made it accessible to everyone.
Ever since Black, or Meltdown, Monday October 19th, the public has been deluged with irrelevant and contradictory explanations and advice from politicians, economists, financiers, and assorted pundits.
Let’s try to sort out and rebut some of the nonsense about the nature, causes, and remedies for the crash.
Myth One
It was not a crash, but a “correction.”
