“The Dangers of Price Controls” by Henry Hazlitt – Imprimis, July 1972

A series of short posts summarizing my thoughts as I work my way through the archives of the Imprimis newsletter from Hillsdale college.

This issue of Imprimis is about price controls. The assertion being made is plain.

“The first thing to be said about wage and price fixing is that it is harmful at any time and under any conditions.”

I found that a number of books by Henry Hazlitt are available for free . Look at the bottom of this wikipedia entry for links. I already believe that the government has no business setting prices (this would not include profiteering during a disaster) . I am limiting my remarks to things that are either new to me or generate some new thought. Here are my take-aways.

• Nixon fixed prices in 1972 for a few months, I didn’t know that. I need to research the history of price controls in the United States. “Monetary History of the United States” by Milton Friedman looks like an interesting start. Sure hope that library has a copy!
• Pricing is an extremely complicated process and there is no reason to put confidence in a large federal bureaucracy for this task.
• There are potentially constitutional issues to consider.

Dec. 31, 2007 – Listening to some audio from Mises.org today and one of the books that is mentioned as required reading is Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” which is available online here. If you happen to be a homeschooler I hope you will consider a solid foundation in economics as part of your curriculum.

Click here to see more of my thoughts on economics.