Quotes from Henry Hazlitt

The proposal is frequently made that the government ought to assume the risks that are "too great for private industry." This means that bureaucrats should be permitted to take risks with the tax payer's money that no one is willing to take with his own.

When providing employment becomes the end, need becomes a subordinate consideration.

The only way we can get rid of this desire to cling to our prejudices, is thoroughly to convince ourselves of the superiority of the truth; to leave not the slightest doubt in our own minds as to the value of looking with perfect indifference on all questions; to see that this is more advantageous than believing in that opinion which would benefit us most if true, more important than "being consistent," more to be cherished than the comfortable feeling of certainty.

Naturalmente, cabe incidir en el error contrario. Al ponderar un cierto programa económico no debemos atenernos exclusivamente a sus resultados remotos sobre toda la comunidad. Es éste un error que a menudo cometieron los economistas clásicos, lo cual engendró una cierta insensibilidad frente a la desgracia de aquellos sectores que resultaban inmediatamente perjudicados por unas directrices o sistemas que a largo plazo beneficiarían a la colectividad.

the desperate need to get back to normal housing and other living conditions stimulated increased efforts. But this does not mean that property destruction is an advantage to the person whose property has been destroyed. No man burns down his own house on the theory that the need to rebuild it will stimulate his energies.

When they make it a main objective to increase exports, most of them do not realize that they necessarily make it a main objective ultimately to increase imports.

En todos los países, el interés de la inmensa mayoría de la población es y debe ser siempre comprar lo que necesita a quien vende más barato.»

No man burns down his own house on the theory that the need to rebuild it will stimulate his energies. After

Nothing is easier to achieve than full employment, once it is divorced from the goal of full production and taken as an end in itself. Hitler provided full employment with a huge armament program. World War II provided full employment for every nation involved. The slave labor in Germany had full employment. Prisons and chain gangs have full employment. Coercion can always provide full employment. Yet

Laméntase a menudo que los demagogos logren mayor asenso al exponer públicamente sus despropósitos económicos que los hombres de bien al denunciar sus fallos.

We can clarify our thinking if we put our chief emphasis where it belongs—on policies that will maximize production.

Únicamente el vilipendiado mecanismo de los precios es capaz de resolver el problema enormemente complicado de decidir con precisión, entre los miles de mercancías y servicios diferentes, qué cantidad y en qué proporción deben producirse.

la inflación es un impuesto oculto que redistribuye la renta desde una parte de la sociedad hacia el Gobierno

More and more people are becoming aware that government has nothing to give them without first taking it away from somebody else—or from themselves.

In an exchange economy everybody's money income is somebody else's cost.

El Estado jamás presta o da algo a los ciudadanos que previamente no haya obtenido de ellos mismos.

A certain amount of public works—of streets and roads and bridges and tunnels, of armories and navy yards, of buildings to house legislatures, police and fire departments—is necessary to supply essential public services.

La Economía se halla asediada por mayor número de sofismas que cualquier otra disciplina cultivada por el hombre.

post hoc ergo propter hoc

característica esencial de la inflación es infundir aliento a miles de engañosas ilusiones.>

If we try to run the economy for the benefit of a single group or class, we shall injure or destroy all groups, including the members of the very class for whose benefit we have been trying to run it. We must run the economy for everybody

La política que propugne dependerá de la postura particular que se adopte en cada momento. Porque cada cual es unas veces el Dr. Jekyll y otras Mr. Hyde.

A menudo, incluso hace más provechosa la especulación que el esfuerzo productor.

el sofisma básico de la «nueva» Economía, consiste en concentrar la atención sobre los efectos inmediatos de cierto plan en relación con sectores concretos e ignorar o minimizar sus remotas repercusiones sobre toda la comunidad.