Economic Beat: A Dismal Day at the Beach by Gene Epstein (Barron’s, July 7, 2003):
Speaking of capitalism, economist George Reisman’s magnum opus, Capitalism, is still the War and Peace of economic treatises, and truly a work of genius. I say that even though I still think parts of the book are wrongheaded and cranky. But in most of its 1046 pages, the book amazes you for the way it settles once and for all just about every question anyone ever posed about economics, and for the utter clarity of its presentation. Reisman sells a CD-ROM version of his book, which I recommend buying, since the volume itself looks like an unabridged dictionary. As one who often rereads parts it, I’ve found it convenient to print out two or three chapters for train or airplane reading.
If I were teaching a 10-week course in economics, I’d assign Gene Callahan’s Economics for Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School. (I’d assign Reisman’s book for a two-semester course.) I also commend it to folks in search of a good read on the joys of economic insight.
The first half of the book sets forth basic principles; the second shows how the myriad ways of interfering with the market make matters worse, sometimes much worse. Callahan cites the “health-care crisis” as a prime example of how “the problems resulting from one intervention tend to lead to calls for other interventions to fix those problems.” While the hated HMOs are generally viewed as creatures of capitalism, these “strange entities” are just a response to the soaring costs arising from the government-instituted system of third party payments...
As a welcome antidote to the reverential regard the economics establishment holds for its sainted godfather, John Maynard Keynes, I strongly recommend two brilliant articles available for free on the Ludwig von Mises Institute Website (anyone who doesn’t know who Mises was should be ashamed of himself), Mises.org.
Start with the late Murray Rothbard’s entertaining tour de force, “Keynes, the Man,” a devastating portrait of an “extraordinarily pernicious and malignant figure,” as the author rightly puts it. Then experience the surgical skill employed by Rothbard’s disciple, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, in “The Misesian Case Against Keynes,” and see if you agree with the author’s conclusion that the Keynesian revolution was one of the 20th century’s “foremost intellectual scandals.” I did.
