Talk:Economics in One Lesson

message: Added external links and put it in the category of "economics books." 149.68.105.112 14:47, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's why I did the reversion.  Thank you for identifying and correcting the problem. —SlamDiego←T 22:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links  

message: Isn't this book typically based on the concept of opportunity cost as economists see it?
If that is so we need to state that.Kendirangu 08:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, it does the concept of opportunity cost nigh unto death.  However, I have a bit of unease about your phrase “as economists see it”.  Most (alleged?) economists aren't particularly good with this concept (though they're much better than most other folk). —SlamDiego←T 06:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opportunity Cost 

message: I have read both [Carl Menger]'s "Principles of Economics" and Hazlitt's "Economics in one lesson". Perhaps this is not the place to start discussing it, but I cannot find a better place right now. The former book is definitely more scientific in that it defines the concepts under discussion. Hazlitt assumes all will commonly accept the basic economic terms as he understands them, although he makes some attempts at dissociating wealth from money, though even he falls prey to discussing key concepts in terms of money.
Both however leave the scientific trail early on to vehemently discuss governmental policies. I would accept that denouncing those would follow from a scientific treatise, but particularly Hazlitt moves into the battlefield immediately. He has all the right to do so, but it doesn't help to read the book as a scientific work. In particular, both Menger and Hazlitt are making an assumption which they do not further investigate: that men will always act in a rational way to the best economizing effect. Macro-economic tendencies should not just assume such behaviour. People are not always or even primarily driven by pure self interest. People behave in naïve ways, are genuinely altruïstic or stupid. Perhaps these behaviours are cancelled out on a larger scale and economics can further be studied under the assumption that it is aggregated self-interest, but it remains a strong assumption.
The most essential critique I have is the contradiction between the definition of wealth and the broken window fallacy. In Menger's defintion of wealth, abundant (non-scarce) goods that fulfill needs (such as air to breathe), are not calculated, since man attaches no value to those. This means that when they become scarce, as when air is so polluted that it becomes costly to purify it for consumption, the economy resulting from it will be counted as growth. This is a major form of the broken window fallacy. From this it results that scarcity should not affect wealth: all goods that fulfill needs, must be taken into account when counting one's wealth, and the wealth of mankind.
Apart from that, both books are tedious and repetitive, making their case in a way that reminds of the Bible or Koran. A modernized and genuinely scientific work is due to absorb these classics, clean them from redundancy, while keeping the valuable central lessons, which in Hazlitt's book is looking at all consequences of a measure or an event.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Knotwilg (talk • contribs) 11:05, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The assumption of rational economizing man and the paradox of scarcity and wealth