The Economics of Freedom

One of the unhappy casualties of World War I was the old-fashioned treatise on economic “principles.” This was a work not too technical to be read by the intelligent layman, on the one hand, nor, on the other, like current textbooks, a choppy and oversimplified compilation of currently fashionable doctrine. One of the last of the species was Frank W. Taussig’s Principles of Economics, first published in 1911. The spirit of that book was revealed in a passage from the preface:

“I have tried in this book to state the principles of economics in such form that they shall be comprehensible to an educated and intelligent person who has not before made any systematic study of the subject. Though designed in this sense for beginners, the book does not gloss over difficulties or avoid severe reasoning. No one can understand economic phenomena or prepare himself to deal with economic problems who is unwilling to follow trains of reasoning which call for sustained attention. I have done my best to be clear, and to state with care the grounds on which my conclusions rest, as well as the conclusions themselves, but have made no vain pretense of simplifying all things.”

HH

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Henry Hazlitt

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One of the unhappy casualties of World War I was the old-fashioned treatise on economic “principles.” This was a work not too technical to be read by the intelligent layman, on the one hand, nor, on the other, like current textbooks, a choppy and oversimplified compilation of currently fashionable doctrine. One of the last of the species was Frank W. Taussig’s Principles of Economics, first published in 1911. The spirit of that book was revealed in a passage from the preface:

“I have tried in this book to state the principles of economics in such form that they shall be comprehensible to an educated and intelligent person who has not before made any systematic study of the subject. Though designed in this sense for beginners, the book does not gloss over difficulties or avoid severe reasoning. No one can understand economic phenomena or prepare himself to deal with economic problems who is unwilling to follow trains of reasoning which call for sustained attention. I have done my best to be clear, and to state with care the grounds on which my conclusions rest, as well as the conclusions themselves, but have made no vain pretense of simplifying all things.”