Economics in One Lesson:
http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdfIt's a great read. It's brief. It doesn't go into a lot of technical detail but it does illustrate a central fallacy that many people, even some economists, make when thinking about economics. If you haven't read this book, I'm going to assume you're ignorant about economics until proven otherwise.
That is like saying that if you haven't read the Koran you're ignorant about god and spirituality. This is a political document first and a treatise on economics second. Let's not forget that. There are other schools of economics. Everything beyond the basics in economics is a fundamentally political statement.
Well, really, this book IS just the basics, but even so I disagree with your statement. I'm reading Mises' Human Action right now, and he delineates between political ideas and economics. True economics, after all, are amoral and apolitical.
"True economics, after all, are amoral and apolitical."
Could you please define what you consider to be "True Economics"? I would interpret that to mean just basic supply and demand curve stuff but since you also say that "This book IS just the basics" leads me to believe that you consider the below quotes from the book to be completely non-political statements:
"We have already seen some of the harmful results of arbitrary governmental efforts to raise the price of favored commodities. The same sort of harmful results follows efforts to raise wages through minimum wage laws."
Chapters titled: "WHO'S "PROTECTED" BY TARIFFS?" & "TAXES DISCOURAGE PRODUCTION" and others.
These are blatantly political topics. I'm amazed that anyone can claim that there is some sort of disinterested 'correct' answer regarding this positions that wouldn't seek to favor one segment of the population over the other. This is the nature of political economy.
There are 2 fundamental dynamics you should keep in mind when it comes to schools of thought on economics: does this person's position represent the monied intrests or those without? Or where between these two do they strike a balance? If you can't accept that, then how do you rationalize that the person writing the book and presenting their arguments are completely removed from the system that they intend to influence with their arguments and positions? Is it your position (and I honestly do not intend to misrepresent it) that they all are completely 100% objective, somehow above the political and social landscape yet are involved enough with it's working to comment on all facets of it to which they intend to see a desired effect? Not to say that they don't have a point and that their interests need a degree of representation but there exists extremes on both sides of this argument and those very extremes seem to offer the least in terms of practical worth in our modern era.