Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1907. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II VARIETIES OF ECONOMIC GOODS Passive Capital Goods. -- Labor spends itself on materials, and these, in their rawest state, are furnished by nature herself. They "ripen" as the work goes on. Every touch that is put on them imparts to them more of the utility which is the essence of wealth. They are technically "goods," or concrete forms of wealth, from the moment when they begin to acquire this utility, though for a time they are in an unfinished state. The function of materials, raw or partly finished, in the physical operation of industry is a passive one, since they receive utility and do not impart it. The iron is passive under the blows of the blacksmith's hammer; leather is passive under the action of the shoemaker's sewing machine; a log is passive under the action of the lumberman's saw, etc. The materials which are thus receiving utilities under the producers' manipulations constitute a distinct variety of capital goods, while the implements which help to impart the utilities constitute another variety, and both kinds are present in all stages of industrial evolution. Savages use raw materials and tools for fashioning them. Active Capital Goods. -- The hammer which fashions the iron, the awl which pierces the leather, and the saw that cuts the log into boards have an active function to perform. They do not receive utilities, but impart them. They manipulate other things and are not themselves manipulated; and except as unavoidable wear and tear injure or destroy them, they are not themselves at all changed by the processes in which they take part. They are the workman's active assistants in the attacks that he makes on the resisting elements of nature. Passive instruments, then, and active ones -- things which receive utility, as industry goes on, and those which i...

A million copy seller, Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson is a classic economic primer. But it is also much more, having become a fundamental influence on modern “libertarian” economics of the type espoused by Ron Paul and others.

Considered among the leading economic thinkers of the “Austrian School,” which includes Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich (F.A.) Hayek, and others, Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993), was a libertarian philosopher, an economist, and a journalist. He was the founding vice-president of the Foundation for Economic Education and an early editor of The Freeman magazine, an influential libertarian publication.  Hazlitt wrote Economics in One Lesson, his seminal work, in 1946. Concise and instructive, it is also deceptively prescient and far-reaching in its efforts to dissemble economic fallacies that are so prevalent they have almost become a new orthodoxy.

Many current economic commentators across the political spectrum have credited Hazlitt with foreseeing the collapse of the global economy which occurred more than 50 years after the initial publication of Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt’s focus on non-governmental solutions, strong — and strongly reasoned — anti-deficit position, and general emphasis on free markets, economic liberty of individuals, and the dangers of government intervention make Economics in One Lesson, every bit as relevant and valuable today as it has been since publication.

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