The Free Market 5, no. 12 (December 1987)
This special edition of the Free Market is devoted to Henry Hazlitt
Henry Hazlitt: Giant of Liberty
For more than seven decades, Henry Hazlitt has taught the economics of freedom. With pathbreaking theoretical work and a unique ability to communicate with the non-economist—shown forth especially in his Economics in One Lesson—he has both advanced Austrian economics and made it accessible to everyone.
Henry Hazlitt, a formidable scholar-journalist whom H. L. Mencken called “one of the few economists in human history who could really write,” is the author of 25 books and thousands of columns and articles. He also arranged Ludwig von Mises’s professorship at New York University and the publication of Human Action and three other Mises books by Yale University Press.
Like Mises, Henry Hazlitt combines courage, genius, and gentleness with an unbending adherence to principle. Today, at a very young 93, he is still at work extending the scholarship of freedom. The Mises Institute has been fortunate indeed to have this great man as a friend and supporter since its earliest days.
On October 17th in New York City, more than 150 people gathered to pay homage to this extraordinary person at the Institute’s Fifth Anniversary Dinner held in his honor. In this special Henry Hazlitt issue of the Free Market, we have reproduced the homages and messages delivered at the dinner, and Henry Hazlitt’s own captivating talk.
If there were justice in journalism, Henry Hazlitt would have been showered with the Pulitzer and other prizes. But he was not, which matches his treatment by the economics profession.
To help carryon his ideas, we have established the Henry Hazlitt Fund for Economic Journalism to give promising young journalists a chance to· study real economics.
Media bias against sound money and the free market can’t be cured overnight. But the educational programs sponsored by the Hazlitt Fund will have a lasting effect for good.
“The Meaning of Mises”
The Institute’s Fifth Anniversary Conference, “The Meaning of Ludwig von Mises,” broke new ground in Misesian scholarship on October 16–17 at Pace University in New York City.
Dr. Walter Block of the Fraser Institute compared the Misesian 100% gold standard with other allegedly free-market theories.
Professor Richard Ebeling of the University of Dallas spoke on Mises’s demonstration that socialism is an irrational form of social organization, and on the economists who anticipated some of his ideas.
Professor Roger Garrison of Auburn University discussed “Mises and His Method.” Mainstream economics believes that mathematics and statistics alone can yield economic theory. But Austrian economics relies on logic and reason for its theory.
Dr. David Gordon of the Mises Institute presented and built upon Mises’s critique of false doctrines of history which rely on determinism and relativism, for example Marxism, which teaches a historical “dialectic” instead of a history built on human action.
Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, presented a comprehensive apriori deductive approach to Austrian economics, the Misesian theory of knowledge, and a laissez-faire public policy.
Professor Murray N. Rothbard of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, talked about “Mises as Hero,” a ringing tribute to the greatest mind of his time and principled activist for liberty.
Professor Mark Skousen of Rollins College discussed those who predicted the Great Depression, and noted that one of the few who did was Mises.
And Professor Leland Yeager of Auburn University defended Mises’s and Hazlitt’s theory of ethics, rights, and law.
The papers—which will also include contributions by Professors Roger Arnold of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Israel Kirzner of New York University, and Joseph Salerno of Pace University—will be published by Lexington Books under the title “The Meaning of Ludwig von Mises.”
Messages and Talks From the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Fifth Anniversary Celebration and Tribute to Henry Hazlitt
Margit von Mises, Chairman Ludwig von Mises Institute
This evening we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and give thanks to a tireless champion of the free market and free society, Henry Hazlitt....
I remember very well the day I met Lew Rockwell, the Institute’s president, for the first time Lew told me he had heard the tape of a speech of mine in which I pleaded for the founding of an institute exclusively working for the Austrian theories of the free market. He asked for my permission to use my husband’s name, since he was prepared to found such an institute. At the same time he asked for my help, which I promised to give, if he would promise never to leave the Institute, but to make it his life’s work. This he promised, and so this meeting led to the founding of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
That the Institute has its Fifth Anniversary today is solely the work of Lew Rockwell. Through his effectual administration, his indefatigable diligence, his thorough knowledge of people, and his love for liberty, the Ludwig von Mises Institute has reached its present state.
I have a special wish for the Institute which I want to tell you about. A Ludwig von Mises Institute needs a permanent location in the cultural center of the United States..., New York City. I hope that the many friends of Ludwig von Mises and the Institute will take up the idea, and will provide the Institute in the near future with a presentable house.
I myself cannot give it to the Institute, but tonight I promise that when I have to go, it shall receive the Ludwig von Mises bronze head, done so masterfully by Nellie Erickson... , which I have now in my apartment. In my thoughts I see the statue standing on a pedestal in the entrance hall of the building in New York City.
This evening is devoted to Henry Hazlitt. Therefore as the widow of Ludwig von Mises, the widow of one of Hazlitt’s best friends, I send him greetings and all good wishes.
John Denson, Vice Chairman Ludwig von Mises Institute
It is a distinct privilege for me to join with all of you in honoring Mr. Henry Hazlitt tonight. Ludwig von Mises once remarked:
The intellectual leaders of the people have produced and propagated the fallacies which are on the point of destroying liberty and western civilization. What is needed to stop the trend toward socialism and despotism is common sense and moral courage.
Henry Hazlitt, through seven decades, has demonstrated the unflinching moral courage mentioned by Mises. He has also presented the ideas of the free market and individual liberty in concise, common-sense terms, which could be understood by the general reader.
When I studied economics at Auburn University in 1955, I was taught only Keynesian ideas. My intuition told me that what I was being taught was not correct, and that it would lead to the destruction of individual freedom. However, I had no intellectual ammunition with which to reply or rebut. It was not until several years later, when I was in law school, that I discovered Henry Hazlitt’s column in Newsweek. It was several years after this that I was introduced to the ideas of Ludwig von Mises and read both Human Action and Socialism. I have often wondered if I would ever have made the commitment to tackle those two large volumes without first having absorbed Henry Hazlitt.
Now we have come 180 degrees at Auburn University. In 1982, two years after I became a trustee, I began to work with Lew Rockwell who had just formed the Mises Institute. We worked together to establish Auburn University as an academic base of the ideas of Ludwig von Mises. The economics department at that time already had a strong contingent of free-market economists and several Misesian scholars. Now the ideas of Mises and Hazlitt are there.
Today on the drawing board at Auburn University are the plans for a new building for the College of Business that will include the Economics Department and a prominent place for the Mises Institute, which will provide it a permanent home for its academic endeavors.
Mr. Hazlitt, those who love liberty will always owe you a debt of gratitude. You have been a prime mover for over 70 years in the sometimes lonely struggle to establish correct economic principles. You have clearly demonstrated the common sense and moral courage that Ludwig von Mises stated would be necessary to change the trends that were on the point of destroying liberty and Western civilization. There are many hopeful signs that the tide is turning toward the ideas that you and Ludwig von Mises had advocated for many decades.
I am proud to join with all of those present, as well as the many thousands who could not attend, in saying thank you for your courage, for your intellect, for your integrity, and for your love of individual freedom.
Murray N. Rothbard, Vice President Ludwig von Mises Institute
This is a marvelous occasion, but why haven’t there been 20 of these dinners?
In my own case, I was a Hazlittian years before I was a Misesian. In fact, before I had heard of von Mises I knew about Henry Hazlitt. When I was first getting interested in free-market economics, during and just after World War II, Harry was all over the place—in Newsweek, on radio and later television—lucid, sound, brilliant, and decisive, carrying the free market message. And he was the only one.
H. L. Mencken said that Harry Hazlitt was one of the few economists who could write, and that was certainly true. He also got me into a lot of trouble. My first teaching job was at Baruch College, City University of New York, in J 948, before I had heard of von Mises. I was teaching principles of economics—this was before the micro/macro junk came in, so it was in the good old days. We used a fairly decent pre-Keynesian textbook. As a supplement we used Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, which, of course, was great. But we also had to use a monstrous little left-wing book refuting Harry’s book. So on the first day I denounced the left-wing book and told my students not to bother reading it. I was immediately reported to the dean and got in hot water.
Another of my favorites of Harry’s is his novel The Great Idea. It came out in 1951, and was later reissued as Time Will Run Back. This is the great economic novel. The hero falls heir to a world dominated by Soviet dictatorship and starts realizing that things are totally mucked up. Step by step he rediscovers the free market. It is a marvelous lesson in Austrian economics. For example, in what other novel is there a critique of mathematical attempts that try to claim that socialism can calculate? I got an emotional thrill out of this novel, especially when the hero discovers through the market that money is really a gold gram.
In addition to being a writer, a radio/television performer, and a novelist, Harry is also a great scholar. One who is horribly underrated and undervalued. This evening only just begins to rectify the balance.
His great contribution to economics is the Failure of the “New Economics,” which came out in 1959. It was a devastating demolition, paragraph by paragraph, of Keynes’ General Theory. He followed it up with Critics of Keynesian Economics.
There are many other contributions to scholarship by Harry. One of them I particularly like is his Man vs. The Welfare State, 1969, the only good critique of Milton Friedman’s proposal to replace the welfare state with an even worse welfare proposal called the negative income tax....
This is just a slight sketch of Harry’s scholarly and literary accomplishments.... He is also a magnificent person. God bless you, Harry.
Ron Paul, Distinguished Counsellor Ludwig von Mises Institute
I am honored to help praise Henry Hazlitt. But first I want to compliment Lew Rockwell for a great five years with the Mises Institute.
I was one of the first people that Lew came to when he decided to start the Institute and, of course, I did what I could to help. I was a bit skeptical, but Lew, you have proved yourself, and I think it is great.
I, too, Murray, was very much impressed with Henry Hazlitt’s Time Will Run Back. We all know about 1984 and Brave New World. Yet Henry Hazlitt wrote a great novel on how to restore freedom. Toward the end of the book, there is a wonderful statement that I would like to quote:
If you forbid what is harmful to others, you have a big enough job for any government to take care of. More-over, you have definite logical boundaries to that job. But if you begin to demand altruism, legally, there are no logical limits until everybody has been forced to give away all he has earned or all he has earned above those who have earned less, and then you are back again to the point where no one has any incentive, whatsoever, to earn or produce anything....
Any society worth living in must of course be infused with a spirit of generosity and benevolence. It can not depend solely on negative virtues, on people’s merely respecting one another’s liberty or their abstaining from deceit or violence. I concede all of that to be true, but it isn’t the function of the government to force people into these positive virtues, it couldn’t do it if it tried and the attempt would merely lead to horrible abuses. These positive virtues must come from within the society, itself, and that is merely another way of saying that they must come from within the individual.
In politics today, conservatives want to make individuals better through government, whereas liberals want to make society better by redistributing the wealth. Both approaches lead to the omnipotent state.
In the early 1980s, when I was in Congress fighting the IMF bill appropriations, I called Henry Hazlitt to find out what people said about the IMF when it began. Mr. Hazlitt had been alone in warning the country about the IMF. He mailed me his articles from the 1940s. Possibly I made the suggestion to him, but not too long after, I saw From Bretton Woods to World Inflation.
I marvel at individuals who can buck the tide. At the very time of the Bretton Woods meeting, he called it the road to world-wide inflation. Unfortunately, not enough people listened. But fortunately, with our knowledge of Austrian economics today, the spirit of benevolence he talks about in his novel, the spread of Austrian economics, and the leadership of the Mises Institute, I am optimistic in the long-run.
And all of us who care about the long run owe a very great debt to Henry Hazlitt.
Mark Skousen Rollins College
It is really great that we are gathered here to honor Henry Hazlitt, author of the magnificent Economics in One Lesson, the book that every economist I know wanted to write....
Several months ago I was talking on the phone to Murray’s favorite economist, Paul A. Samuelson, about the paradox of thrift. All of you who have been taught from the Samuelson book know about the paradox of thrift: that savings is bad, that it reduces consumption, and that it is bad for the economy. I said, “Henry Hazlitt refutes the paradox of thrift in Economics in One Lesson.” Paul said, “Ah, but Henry Hazlitt is not an economist.”
“Peter Drucker echoes Hazlitt in several of his books.” “Well,” said Paul, “Drucker is not an economist either.”
“What about Irving Fisher, who said one week before the stock market crash that stocks have reached a permanent plateau?” “Oh,” Paul said, “he was not a stock market expert.” “Yes,” I said, “he was an economist!”
Of course, that just shows what the Keynesians know. Henry Hazlitt is a very great economist. But, as the old phrase has it, a man’s measure is the work he does and not the title he holds. That is especially true when it comes to Henry Hazlitt, for his accomplishments have been abundant and stunning.
Lord Acton said: “At all times, sincere friends of freedom have been rare and its triumphs have been due to minorities.” Henry Hazlitt has been one of those friends, and one of that minority. However, as Josh Billings noted, “As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.”
