The Failure of the New Economics

Henry Hazlitt

• Publisher: Rare Treasure Editions
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781774648513
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

Henry Hazlitt did the seemingly impossible, something that was and is a magnificent service to all people everywhere. He wrote a line-by-line commentary and refutation of what he considered to be one of the most destructive, fallacious, and convoluted books of the century. The target here is John Maynard Keynes's "General Theory, " the book that appeared in 1936 and swept all before it. In economic science, Keynes changed everything. He supposedly demonstrated that prices don't work, that private investment is unstable, that sound money is intolerable, and that government was needed to shore up the system and save it. It was simply astonishing how economists the world over put up with this, but it happened. He converted a whole generation in the late period of the Great Depression. By the 1950s, almost everyone was Keynesian. But Hazlitt, the nation's economics teacher, would have none of it. And he did the hard work of actually going through the book to evaluate its logic according to sound conservative and libertarian logical reasoning. The result: a nearly 500-page masterpiece of exposition. With this book The Failure of the New Economics we have a perfect analysis of Keynesian economics that "destroys the whole Keynesian theory".

Table of contents

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• CHAPTER I-INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER II-POSTULATES OF KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS
• CHAPTER III-KEYNES VS. SAY’S LAW
• CHAPTER IV-OVERTURE
• CHAPTER V-“LABOR UNITS” AND “WAGE UNITS”
• CHAPTER VI-THE ROLE OF EXPECTATIONS
• CHAPTER VII-“STATICS” VS. “DYNAMICS”
• CHAPTER VIII-INCOME, SAVING, AND INVESTMENT
• CHAPTER IX-“THE PROPENSITY TO CONSUME”: I
• CHAPTER X-“THE PROPENSITY TO CONSUME”: II
• CHAPTER XI-“THE MULTIPLIER”
• CHAPTER XII-“THE MARGINAL EFFICIENCY OF CAPITAL”
• CHAPTER XIII-EXPECTATION AND SPECULATION
• CHAPTER XIV-“LIQUIDITY PREFERENCE”
• CHAPTER XV-THE THEORY OF INTEREST
• CHAPTER XVI-CONFUSIONS ABOUT CAPITAL
• CHAPTER XVII-“OWN RATES OF INTEREST”
• CHAPTER XVIII-THE GENERAL THEORY RESTATED
• CHAPTER XIX-UNEMPLOYMENT AND WAGE-RATES
• CHAPTER XX-EMPLOYMENT, MONEY, AND PRICES
• CHAPTER XXI-PRICES AND MONEY]
• CHAPTER XXII-THE “TRADE CYCLE”
• CHAPTER XXIII-RETURN TO MERCANTILISM?
• CHAPTER XXIV-KEYNES LETS HIMSELF GO
• CHAPTER XXV-DID KEYNES RECANT?
• CHAPTER XXVI-“FULL EMPLOYMENT” AS THE GOAL
• CHAPTER XXVII-“THE NATIONAL INCOME APPROACH”
• CHAPTER XXVIII-THE KEYNESIAN POLICIES
• CHAPTER XXIX-SUMMARY
• A NOTE ON BOOKS
• APPENDIX A-THE 1919 PROPHECIES
• APPENDIX B -AMERICAN ICE CO.
• APPENDIX C -COMPARISONS OF MARKET PRICES OF SOUTHERN RAILWAY CO. DEFERRED ORDINARY SHARES
• APPENDIX D-INTEREST RATES AND BUSINESS CYCLES