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161 " The quickest way to detect error in analogy is to carry it out as far as it will go—and further. Every analogy will break down somewhere. Any analogy if carried out far enough becomes absurd. "
― Henry Hazlitt , Thinking as a Science
162 " Alexander Hamilton pointed out in the Federalist Papers nearly two centuries ago, “A power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will. "
― Henry Hazlitt , Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest & Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
163 " Another way to find whether an analogy is fallacious is to see whether you can discover a counter analogy. Surely this is the most effective practice in refuting analogy in argument. "
164 " It is best to avoid analogy except for purposes of suggestion, or as a rhetorical device for explaining an idea already arrived at by other means. "
165 " En ello consiste la fundamental diferencia entre la buena y la mala economía. El mal economista sólo ve lo que se advierte de un modo inmediato, mientras que el buen economista percibe también más allá. "
166 " Theory is the best guide for experiment—that were it not for theory and the problems and hypotheses that come out of it, we would not know the points we wanted to verify, and hence would experiment aimlessly "
167 " «la economía es la ciencia que calcula los resultados de determinada política económica, simplemente planeada o puesta en práctica, no sólo a corto plazo y en relación con algún grupo de intereses especiales, sino a la larga y en relación con el interés general de toda la colectividad». "
168 " It is a misconception to think of the function or result of machines as primarily one of creating jobs. The real result of the machine is to increase production, to raise the standard of living, to increase economic welfare. It is no trick to employ everybody, even (or especially) in the most primitive economy. Full employment—very full employment; long, weary, back-breaking employment—is characteristic of precisely the nations that are the most retarded industrially. Where full employment already exists, new machines, inventions and discoveries cannot—until there has been time for an increase in population—bring more employment. They are likely to bring more unemployment (but this time I am speaking of voluntary and not involuntary unemployment) because people can now afford to work fewer hours, while children and the overaged no longer need to work. "
169 " demand and supply are merely two sides of the same coin. They are the same thing looked at from different directions. Supply creates demand because at bottom it is demand. The supply of the thing they make is all that people have, in fact, to offer in exchange for the things they want. "
170 " es forzoso que examinemos no sólo los resultados inmediatos que su adopción producirá, sino también los resultados a largo plazo; no sólo las consecuencias primarias, sino también las secuelas secundarias, y no sólo sus efectos sobre un sector determinado de intereses, sino sobre toda la colectividad. "
171 " all government expenditures must eventually be paid out of the proceeds of taxation; that inflation itself is merely a form, and a particularly vicious form, of taxation. Having "
172 " Examinar los problemas en su integridad y no fragmentariamente: tal es la meta de la ciencia económica. "
173 " When providing employment becomes the end, need becomes a subordinate consideration. "
174 " The only way we can get rid of this desire to cling to our prejudices, is thoroughly to convince ourselves of the superiority of the truth; to leave not the slightest doubt in our own minds as to the value of looking with perfect indifference on all questions; to see that this is more advantageous than believing in that opinion which would benefit us most if true, more important than “being consistent,” more to be cherished than the comfortable feeling of certainty. "
175 " Naturalmente, cabe incidir en el error contrario. Al ponderar un cierto programa económico no debemos atenernos exclusivamente a sus resultados remotos sobre toda la comunidad. Es éste un error que a menudo cometieron los economistas clásicos, lo cual engendró una cierta insensibilidad frente a la desgracia de aquellos sectores que resultaban inmediatamente perjudicados por unas directrices o sistemas que a largo plazo beneficiarían a la colectividad. "
176 " the desperate need to get back to normal housing and other living conditions stimulated increased efforts. But this does not mean that property destruction is an advantage to the person whose property has been destroyed. No man burns down his own house on the theory that the need to rebuild it will stimulate his energies. "
177 " It follows that it is just as essential for the health of a dynamic economy that dying industries should be allowed to die as that growing industries should be allowed to grow. For the dying industries absorb labor and capital that should be released for the growing industries. It is only the much vilified price system that solves the enormously complicated problem of deciding precisely how much of tens of thousands of different commodities and services should be produced in relation to each other. These otherwise bewildering equations are solved quasi-automatically by the system of prices, profits and costs. They are solved by this system incomparably better than any group of bureaucrats could solve them. For they are solved by a system under which each consumer makes his own demand and casts a fresh vote, or a dozen fresh votes, every day; whereas bureaucrats would try to solve it by having made for the consumers, not what the consumers themselves wanted, but what the bureaucrats decided was good for them. "
178 " obloquy "
179 " «En todos los países, el interés de la inmensa mayoría de la población es y debe ser siempre comprar lo que necesita a quien vende más barato.» "
180 " No man burns down his own house on the theory that the need to rebuild it will stimulate his energies. After "