where to begin?

furious asks where to begin if one wants to become economically literate, and Wally Conger replies.

He's right: begin with Henry Hazlitt. That's how I stumbled into all this. But I didn't read the book. Being only semi-literate, I knew I'd have an easier time listening to the audiobook during my 2 hours a day commuting between Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia. (This was a couple of years ago, when I was still a productive member of society.) I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that Hazlitt changed my life. Certainly changed my view of the world.

I lent the CDs around to my friends, all of whom responded favorably. One of my friends said, "He makes it so simple." That friend gave the book to his leftist dad, who was apparently less impressed, but we can't really tell how carefully he read it.

Unfortunately, while the print book is only $10, the unabridged CD audiobook is almost $50. I'm completely satisfied with my own purchase at that price, but I can hardly recommend someone shell out that much for an introduction. You can download the audiobook from Audible.com for less than $30.

If I were a dying millionaire, I'd buy the rights to Hazlitt's book and distribute it for free.

An even shorter book is Jim Cox's The Concise Guide to Economics, which he's generously made freely available online. See also his booklet,
The Concise Guide to the Minimum Wage. I consider an understanding of the minimum wage (and price fixing in general) to be a good litmus test for economic literacy, and I write about it here.

My main advice is to start at the beginning of the subject.

• What is value?
• Why do we exchange?
• What is cost (!) and how is it different from price?
• What does it mean to internalize or externalize cost?
  
• (And what does it mean to socialize risk?)
• Where do prices come from?
• What happens when we interfere with prices?
• What is wealth and where does it come from?
• What makes more of it and what destroys it?
• What is capital?
• What is the structure of capital?
• What does the price system have to do with capital goods, and how do they relate to consumer goods?
• What are wages and how are they similar to or different from prices?
• How do wages relate to capital structure?
• And here's a big one: what does 'marginal' mean and why is it so important to all of the above?

Best to get well-grounded in so-called micro-economics -- price theory and markets -- before attempting to grasp the vast array of mostly nonsense called macro. Here's the main trick for macro: does it make sense given what you know from micro? Or does it seem like all the rules have changed? Be very suspicious of the latter.

What is money and where does it come from? (I try to address this part in my Gilligan's Island article.) What sorts of things naturally affect the "price" of money? What happens when we artificially affect the price of money?

And the most important "macro" issues to tackle: the money supply, Fractional Reserve Banking, and the so-called Business Cycle. These are all connected.

The best book for an introduction to this bottom-up approach is Gene Callahan's Economics for Real People. This is another one I'd love to see on everyone's bookshelf. When I was 18, I read a book called The Mind's I, and decided I was going to major in philosophy. At twice that age, I read Callahan's book and felt the same overwhelming pull. I was disappointed by how little my college taught the philosophy that interested me. I suspect the same would have been true with economics. Sometimes books are far more educational than schooling.

A few years ago, I got a free, 6-month subscription to The Freeman, from FEE, The Foundation for Economic Education. This didn't really educate me in basic economics so much as it introduced me to (and attracted me to) the economic way of thinking. (Which is why the Hazlitt book is so good, too.)

For a while, I maintained an "economics portal" -- a links page, broken down by category, to my favorite short works on various topics. It's here, but I haven't been good about maintaining it.

Wally Conger recommends Rothbard's magnum opus. I suspect that's not a good introduction, and not just because it's so long. But Rothbard does do some very good introductions in his lecture courses, which are available in MP3 format here. I recommend these lectures in particular:

Mises in One Lesson (1:00:11) This lecture might be the best introduction to the core ideas of the Austrian School. An extraordinary performance, that is also entertaining. -- Murray Rothbard

Demand and Supply, Consumer Goods, Prices and Exchange (52:51) -- Murray Rothbard

Money and Prices (55:21) -- Murray Rothbard

Banking and the Business Cycle (1:38:10) -- Murray Rothbard

Capital, Interest, and Profit (54:23) -- Murray Rothbard

Labor (50:46) -- Murray Rothbard

Labor and Unions (51:35) -- Murray Rothbard

Conservation and Property Rights (54:35) -- Murray Rothbard