Now you can read the most dangerous book ever written

[jmowreader]

http://jim.com/econ/chap01p1.html

I have said on innumerous occasions that the most dangerous book ever written by the Hand of Man, not counting the Bible, is Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.

The book is dangerous for two reasons: as a very early entrant into the field of conservative economics, the book inspired generations of people like Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke; and as an economist, Henry Hazlitt is completely full of shit.

[readmoreoften]

1. hey thanks! /nt

[Journeyman]

2. Alan Watt's wrote about the Bible in this vein in 1973. . .

when he published an essay in Playboy titled:


The World's Most Dangerous Book

by Alan W. Watts

For many centuries the Roman Catholic Church was opposed to translating the Holy Scriptures into the "vulgar tongue." To this day, you can still get rid of a Bible salesman by saying, "But we are Catholics and, of course, don't read the Bible." The Catholic hierarchy included subtle theologians and scholars who knew very well that such a difficult and diverse collection of ancient writings, taken as the literal Word of God, would be wildly and dangerously interpreted if put into the hands of ignorant and uneducated peasants. Likewise, when a missionary boasted to George Bernard Shaw of the numerous converts he had made, Shaw asked, " Can these people use rifles?" "Oh, indeed, yes," said the missionary. "Some of them are very good shots." Whereupon Shaw scolded him for putting us all in peril in the day when those converts waged holy war against us for not following the Bible in the literal sense they gave to it. For the Bible says, "What a good thing it is when the Lord putteth into the hands of the righteous invincible might." But today, especially in the United States, there is a taboo against admitting that there are enormous numbers of stupid and ignorant people, in the bookish and literal sense of these words. They may be highly intelligent in the arts of farming, manufacture, engineering and finance, and even in physics, chemistry or medicine. But this intelligence does not automatically flow over to the fields of history, archaeology, linguistics, theology, philosophy and mythology which are what one needs to know in order to make any sense out such archaic literature as the books of the Bible.

This may sound snobbish, for there is an assumption that, in the Bible, God gave His message in plain words for plain people. Once, when I had given a radio broadcast in Canada, the announcer took me aside and said, "Don't you think that if there is a truly loving God, He would given us a plain and specific guide as to how to live our lives?"

"On the contrary," I replied, "a truly loving God would not stultify our minds. He would encourage us to think for ourselves." I tried, then, to show him that his belief in the divine authority of the Bible rested on nothing more than his own personal opinion, to which, of course, he was entitled. This is basic. The authority of the Bible, the church, the state, or of any spiritual or political leader, is derived from the individual followers and believers, since it is the believers' judgment that such leaders and institutions speak with a greater wisdom than there own. This is, obviously, a paradox, for only the wise can recognize wisdom. Thus, Catholics criticize Protestants for following their own opinions in understanding the Bible, as distinct from the interpretations of the Church, which originally issued and authorized the Bible. But Catholics seldom realize that the authority of the Church rests, likewise, on the opinion of its individual members that the Papacy and the councils of the Church are authoritative. The same is true of the state, for, as a French statesman said, people get the government they deserve.

Why does one come to the opinion that the Bible, literally understood, is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Usually because one's "elders and betters," or an impressively large group of ones peers, have this opinion. But this is to go along with the Bandar-log, or monkey tribe, in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books , who periodically get together and shout, "We all say so, so it must be true!" Having been a grandfather for a number of years, I am not particularly impressed with patriarchal authority. I am of an age with my own formerly impressive grandfathers (one of whom was a fervent fundamentalist, or literal believer in the Bible) and I realize that my opinions are as fallible as theirs.

<snip ~ and a lot more>

On edit, forgot the link: www.metaphoria.org/ac4t9909.html

[Alexodin]

3. Wow Journeyman that essay absolutely rocks!!!

Thanks for the link I am circulating it among friends. Its great when someone puts so much common sense together in one place like that. I might quibble about small items here and there but overall that is a very valuable piece of writing.

[Journeyman]

5. Alan Watts was a remarkably astute scholar. . .

with an incredible breadth of spiritual knowledge, rooted mainly in Eastern thought but well-versed in that of the West as well. It's been 33 years since I originally read this essay. It still forms, in large measure, my understanding of the Bible's place in our society. And to think, I picked up that issue to look at the pictures!

[ComerPerro]

4. Does he talk about the magical Free Market

and how, even though the Invisible Hand is so powerful, we still need to give massive handouts to large corporations just to make sure they stay on top?

Or, my favorite, why CEO's are justified in making such outrageous fortunes while their employees barely scrape by because their salaries are not guaranteed like their employees (who can easily be laid off or terminated without recourse) but are instead driven by market forces and success (which is apparently why Ken Lay made off with millions while ruining thousands of lives).

There is also the argument that the very wealthy are rewarded for their risks, but for some reason for the very wealthy we need to take all the risk out of investing and insure that they will keep making millions.


Captialism to a conservative is meerly justification for excessive greed.

[jmowreader]

6. Hazlitt would march to the White House and strangle Bush

I mean it. He would take that little cocksucker out on the front porch and just choke the shit out of him right on CNN.

Hazlitt is completely full of shit, but at least he appears sane. Bush, on the other hand...a Repuke congressman, back in the 1980s, made just the most hilarous assessment of Reagan's economic policies. I don't remember who it was, but I do remember what he said:

I can't say that they throw around money like a bunch of drunken sailors on shore leave. The sailors are spending their own money.

And as we all remember, there are only three differences between Reaganomics and Dubyanomics: Reagan never dreamed of pushing his economic program to the extremes Bush has; Reagan stopped the experiment when it was clear that Reaganomics doesn't work; and Reagan didn't start a protracted war after he ran the treasury dry.

And after he was done squeezing Bush's scrawny neck, he'd turn all his ire on bastards like the late Kenny Boy Lay, Dennis Kozlowsky, and the Wal-Mart Waltons. There is a very long passage in this book about the compensation of labor--how labor is compensated based on its value to the enterprise. That shit doesn't happen anymore, and Hazlitt would be aghast. Today, labor is compensated based on how cheaply it can be had.

And while we're on the subject of Wal-Mart...I'm gonna buy a copy of that Wal-Mart attack DVD we were talkin' about over the winter, dig Hazlitt up, glue magnets to his belly, wrap wires around him, play the DVD and put him back in the ground; the flow of electricity caused by Hazlitt's spinning in his grave will light up Seattle. (I would also show him the results of Reaganomics, except that I only want him to turn at 3600rpm.)

Enough of fiscal sanity. What's wrong with Hazlitt?

The first example he gives, he calls the "broken window fallacy." In it, someone breaks the baker's display window. The baker pays the glass company $250 for a new one--money he'd saved up for a new suit. Because of the casualty, the community is "poorer" by one suit.

Okay...let's go at this from another angle.

What, exactly, do glass companies do when they're not replacing broken glass? Most work on new construction--especially in 1946, when this book was originally written. By requiring a crew of glaziers to stop working on the new service station or the new pharmacy for a day to replace the bakery's broken window, the community is deprived of the use of that business for one day longer than necessary, and the man who owns the business on which construction work has come to a halt because the windows aren't installed pays an unnecessary day's interest on his construction loans...and the other building trades being employed to construct the new business stand idle for a day while the glass company is at the bakery replacing a window. (And here's a real devil's dilemma: fifty men stand idle because the millwork is unable to be installed. Should the construction foreman release the men for a day, a day in which they will draw no pay, or should he choose to employ his men at cleaning the jobsite, maintaining their tools, or some other non-billable labor?)

The tailor is a popular man. He is also a very slow man. He takes one week to make a suit. It seems that since the baker doesn't have enough money to purchase a suit this week, a young man recently graduated from the Harvard School of Business is being fitted for his first professional suit now. After it is finished, he will be able to work at the bank. He is now able to benefit the community a week sooner than he would have were the baker, who only wears suits on Sunday, able to purchase his suit today.

Back to the baker. His new window has motivated him to paint his bakery in fresh, modern colors. His rejuvenated shop encourages people to buy more baked goods from him, hence allowing him to save the money for a new suit faster than before. The baker's goods are very delicious, and eating them makes people happy. These happy people purchase fresh flowers to accompany their baked goods, which increases sales at the florist's shop.

Now the florist also has the money to purchase a new suit. Where do they go? Not to the local tailor; that man has a line two years long stretching out the door of his shop. But in the next town there is a man who employs many seamstresses; they can produce 100 suits per week. While in the next town purchasing their suits, they speak to a newspaper reporter about the quality of their town and the many things a traveler will enjoy doing there. People from the second town begin to visit the baker and florist's town, spending money while there. This increases employment in their own town...and, because the baker's reputation spreads quickly, also increases sales at the bakery. (The baker appears to have a suit fetish, for he travels to other towns to purchase suits, spreading the word about his town as he goes, and soon has so much money he can hire enough people to run his shop in his absence. He now spends his days wearing fine suits, visiting the forty bakeries he has opened in various parts of the state, and talking up his town all over the region.)

None of these things are any more contrived than the idea that if the baker has to buy a window instead of a suit, the community will be deprived. (Well, maybe in Hazlitt's world they are, but a tailor who makes suits so poorly he only has one customer--who appears not to have any business insurance, or who was stupid enough to buy insurance with a $500 deductible in 1946--will go out of business very quickly.)