Henry Hazlitt Unbound: Pamphlets, Markets, and Economic Education after World War II

Abstract

Previous scholars have described the American business journalist Henry Hazlitt as “an intellectual middleman for orthodox economics.” This article examines Hazlitt's career during the immediate post–World War II era to flesh out how he performed this intermediary role in a specific historical context. A spotlight on unbound print media demonstrates how they enabled Hazlitt to transmit his ideas about the postwar political economy beyond traditional mainstream venues, extending and animating the reading public. Hazlitt's engagement with pamphlet literature likewise inspired a collaboration with Leonard Read that helped lay the groundwork for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), the first postwar libertarian think tank. Hazlitt and FEE embarked on a reciprocal relationship during the organization's early years: FEE raised Hazlitt's profile by publicizing and disseminating his influential books Economics in One Lesson (1946) and Will Dollars Save the World? (1947) in pamphlet form, while the organization sought to build its brand by linking itself to the journalist's mainstream credibility. Examining Hazlitt's pamphlet trail in this way reaffirms his popular reach; underscores his unique role as an intellectual, interpersonal, and institutional go-between; and makes a case for his inclusion alongside other key figures in the historiography of the twentieth-century American Right.