Very good for illustrating that libertarian ideas have not grown or evolved in 45 years since this was written. Hazlitt covers every trope that we hear today, making the same arguments: unions are bad, minimum wages are bad, foreign aid is bad. Those in poverty are largely self-inflicted, and any aid given should be short term and minimal. Anyone receiving welfare payment of any kind should lose the right to vote, because having made such a mess of their own lives they lack the wherewithal to make decisions for the rest of society. On the other hand, capitalist markets are an unqualified good, and their beneficiaries merit no criticism or instruction.

The last bit is particularly telling, as Hazlitt demonstrates the embedded racism that characterizes libertarian philosophy. Capitalism is good, he argues, because all portions of society benefit proportionally. He demonstrates the first point by using data on white families. But he has a brief chapter on how black families have also benefited. But not too much: because blacks began behind whites due to slavery, they should always, as a group, trail whites. If they ever caught up, that could only be because they are receiving a disproportionate portion of the benefits of capitalism, and that would be wrong. That blacks (as a group) remain an entrenched and trailing population goes to show how fair the system is. Who would want to intervene in that? Yay capitalism!

Libertarians should be embarrassed. ( )