Economics in One Lesson: Part 3 | Jeffrey M. Herbener

Recorded during the 2008 Mises University, Jeffrey Tucker interviews Jeffrey Herbener on the topic of Henry Hazlitt's classic book "Economics in One Lesson." This is the third in a series of twelve interviews with leading Austrian Economists discussing each chapter of Hazlitt's book.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Hazlitt
• One
• Lesson
• Herbener
• Mises
• Institute
• Interview
• Freedom
• Liberty
• Property
• Peace
• Auburn

[harryogre]

I watched this series when it first came out. I gave each video 5 stars.

It inspired me to order and re-read the book.

Then last week with all the BS being spewed at us by the government and the media over Obama's bail-outs and stimulus package, I picked up the book and read it again.

Its less than 200 pages and can be easily read in two settings.I read it in a couple hours.

Wow.

Its like Hazlitt wrote it last week.

[sbuttgereit]

Your premise is false. The government doesn't 'spend' on tax cuts because the money didn't belong to it in the first place; unless you mean to say we're really all slaves/serfs to a ruling elite and that, by their graciousness, we either are allowed to keep some portion of our production or receive a hand out to reward our patronage. Feudalism, even when democratically sanctioned, is an immoral system. It seems to me the moral burden is yours to justify taking the property of others by force.

[cashmore30]

the interviewer looks like a creep

[RKAddict101]

So basically all taxes are income taxes in the sense that they discourage production. Is the point they were trying to make after that that (regardless of the previous statement) some taxes are better than others if they are more revenue-neutral?

[SuperGuitarman69]

If everyone would read Hazlitt's economics in one lesson, carefully examined their personal political views, open their mind to the possibility that indeed they have been wrong all of their lives, submit to the truth and logistics if it? There would only be conservatives and libertarians left in the United States. I am a graduate of economics. I was hammered in economic theory. In reality, this book in essence is all anyone needs to understand how economics works in a nutshell. It's beautiful

[stealthswimmer]

transformation itself is subsumed within production. In the economic sense, transformation itself is not consumption because you don't gain utility from it. You gain utility when someone pays for it and when it only has value because it's going some end product that has value for people.

Furthermore, you must own what you consume or rent the services of others to consume(if such consumption is transformation) the things you need to be transformed. People are owners more often than consumers.

[OctoBox]

Stealth: No -- "production" is a subset of consumption.

To "produce" you must consume assets (trasform), to pay the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur must "consume" knowledge to come up with the innovation. The raw inputs to create the end must be "consumed" (transformed).

Man consumes (use, waste, diminish, transform). Production is the "end" of a long line of consumption and the beginning of a whole new line of consumptive-profit or transformation.

[stealthswimmer]

If transformation is a type of consumption, that doesn't change the fact that things must be produced before they can be consumed. It simply means some consumption is subsumed within the production process. Much like collectivism is subsumed within individualis/capitalism.

[OctoBox]

Stealth: A "product" of humanity.

We "consume" before we "produce" -- hahahahaha.

You proved my point again, smile.

Use - Waste - Transform

Once God shot his creative wad into the universe all "production" stopped. From that point on it's Use - Waste - Transform.

Meditate on that one.

[stealthswimmer]

well there you go, lol

[OctoBox]

:-)

The definition test always comes up -- don't feel bad you are in good company. I had a Rothbardian tell me consumption was not transformation, smile.