Hazlitt: "Saving the X Industry"
Walter Block, "Mr. Libertarian, Jr.," (who recently got into trouble by the PC police)* frequently jokes in interviews and lectures that he is truly a moderate. He does not always advocate voluntary, peaceful relationships as the only relationships that are justifiable and defendable. (Those men are extremists.) He allows an exception to this rule. Thus, he is a moderate. What one exception is that? That people be forced to read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, or another similar book.
Because I'm an extremist, I cannot advocate this. (Haha.) Though, I do hope that you all order this book. Or, if you already own it and have read it, buy a few to give as Christmas gifts. Iterating what I have said before on this blog, this book is very relevant today. A case in point is the discussion on American automakers.
Instead of attempting to out-do (or copy), in my own feeble way, Hazlitt, maybe I should just quote him directly. After all, I am just a midget compared to him. And I will not waste my finite time trying to match his elegance.
Here is Henry Hazlitt:
“It is obvious in the case of a subsidy that the taxpayers must lose precisely as much as the X industry gains. It should be equally clear that, as a consequence, other industries must lose what the X industry gains. They must pay part of the taxes that are used to support the X industry. And customers, because they are taxed to support the X industry, will have that much less income left with which to buy other things. The result must be that other industries on the average must be smaller than otherwise in order that the X industry may be larger.
“But the result of this subsidy is not merely that there has been a transfer of wealth or income, or that other industries have shrunk in the aggregate as much as the X industry has expanded. The result is also (and this is where the net loss comes in to the nation considered as a unit) that capital and labor are driven out of industries in which they are more efficiently employed to be diverted to an industry in which they are less efficiently employed. Less wealth is created. The average standard of living is lowered compared with what it would have been.”
(Excerpt from Chapter XIV: "Saving the X Industry.")
