Results tagged “economics” from Eagle Forum Collegians

Too often the public is given different forecasts for the same issue. What can be done to sort through these conflicting opinions? Hazlitt suggests taking a step back from the contradictions that arise with special-interest analyses and review all the interests involved. 

Too often, nonvisible groups are forgotten, sometimes on purpose, and sometimes because people just don’t explore every side of an issue. The visible groups are the interests being helped by a policy, and these are the people to whom the focus and attention is given. But Hazlitt reminds us that improving one group's conditions must come at the expense of groups in the shadows, and so one must probe the shadows. 

An understanding of efficiency is crucial to understanding Hazlitt’s principle. The goal of our economy should be to make our production as efficient as possible because both consumers and producers benefit from the maximization of productivity. 

Government subsidies are passed without considering the forgotten taxpayer or the established worker in an already successful industry. Hazlitt uses many such examples to point out the repeated fallacy of ignoring a group when analyzing the economic effects of an action on productivity and how it hurts all of society to favor only special groups.