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 Comments on Hazlitt's Economics in one Lesson
Economics in One Lesson is not only easy to read, clear, and to the point. It is reassuring for those people whose common sense is often challenged by the opinions of professional economists and policy makers. It has become a classic more for the coherence of its postulates and their elaboration, than for the math, the graphs, and the jargon that often hide behind a veil of technicalities the actual simplicity of economics.
 Economics demystified
I read this book in college (some 50 years ago), and it's basic precepts have stuck with me all those years, and have helped me reduce complex issues to fundamental truths. You won't find details of the complexities of all of today's problems, but it will help you better understand them and give you a strong starting point from which to approach them, and to brush aside all the political BS that surrounds them. Politicians and economists-all of them-like to surround their public positions with their own idealogy. This book will help sort out the core issues. You might still agree with the ideology, but at least you will know it when you depart from the basics.
Frighteningly Prophetic
An easy to understand overview of economics and, when considering the condition we are in today, scary! It explains a great deal about our current economic problems though originally written in the 40's.
 Misleading title
This book has two major problems.
One, its title is misleading. You think you are getting a quick, shortened version of an economics class, but what you are really getting is a conservative, free market view of the economy. If the title had been, Reasons Why The Free Market Is Better For The Economy, I would have a lot less problem with this book. Balanced, Hazlitt is not, and he takes a lot of potshots at Keynes with only the occasional quick nod to the problems the free market can run into. It's not that I disagree with a lot of his arguments, it's that you don't get both sides.
Two, it's out of date. It was written in the 1940's. Oh, it's been updated alright. In the 1970's. A lot of economic events have occurred since the 1970's and the conservative view has some explaining to do.
If you really want a balanced view of the economy you can check out . It's balanced, although a bit scatter shot. For a pretty balanced book, but with a left lean, try by Heilbroner and Thurow, it tells a more cohesive story than 50 Ideas.
Send a copy to every member of Congress and the White House...
The lesson: "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."
In other words, fallacious economic policies almost always 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. Using clear prose and compelling logic, Hazlitt explains how "the lesson" is applied to various scenarios such as division of labor, savings, credit, minimum wage laws, and tariffs. Though this book was written over 50 years ago, the issues the book cover are just as relevant if not more today.
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(based on 225 reviews)
