The Causes of Inflation

The reviewer has been familiar with Mr. Henry Hazlitt’s writings over many years, but particularly remembers some of his articles in the years just after the war, when wartime price controls were being terminated, but loud voices were clamoring for their return. In terse and forceful paragraphs Mr. Hazlitt pointed out the extreme practical difficulties of carrying out anything like general price control; and also that, insofar as it was carried out, the results were likely to be harmful, discouraging production rather than checking price increases.

Mr. Hazlitt’s writings on such subjects over a period of years, which originally appeared as short columns in Newsweek, are assembled in his new book, What You Should Know about Inflation (Van Nostrand, $3.50). The warnings about price control have to be repeated. Few if any qualified academic economists will specifically support price control (apart from a not very convincing essay written by Professor Galbraith in 1946, when he was a Price Controller in Washington). Too many of them, however, are willing to support political programs which advance price control as a solution for our present problems.

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Colin Clark

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The reviewer has been familiar with Mr. Henry Hazlitt’s writings over many years, but particularly remembers some of his articles in the years just after the war, when wartime price controls were being terminated, but loud voices were clamoring for their return. In terse and forceful paragraphs Mr. Hazlitt pointed out the extreme practical difficulties of carrying out anything like general price control; and also that, insofar as it was carried out, the results were likely to be harmful, discouraging production rather than checking price increases.

Mr. Hazlitt’s writings on such subjects over a period of years, which originally appeared as short columns in Newsweek, are assembled in his new book, What You Should Know about Inflation (Van Nostrand, $3.50). The warnings about price control have to be repeated. Few if any qualified academic economists will specifically support price control (apart from a not very convincing essay written by Professor Galbraith in 1946, when he was a Price Controller in Washington). Too many of them, however, are willing to support political programs which advance price control as a solution for our present problems.