Henry Stuart Hazlitt (/ˈhæzlɪt/; November 28, 1894 – July 9, 1993) was an American journalist, economist, and philosopher known for his advocacy of free markets and classical liberal principles.

[2][3] Hazlitt was a strong proponent of sound monetary policy and a vocal critic of inflationary practices and government intervention in markets.

[4][5] As a defender of free enterprise, he drew on the ideas of economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, helping popularize their theories for a general audience.

[6] Throughout his life, Hazlitt's writing and commentary significantly influenced public understanding of economic policy, and his works continue to inspire advocates of liberty and limited government around the world.

Hazlitt started his career at The Wall Street Journal as secretary to the managing editor when he was still a teenager, and his interest in the field of economics began while working there.

To the Socialist this evil is the capitalistic system; to the prohibitionist it is intemperance; to the feminist it is the subjection of women; to the clergyman it is the decline of religion; to Andrew Carnegie it is war; to the staunch Republican it is the Democratic Party, and so on, ad infinitum.

He was then in Princeton, New Jersey, at the US School of Military Aeronautics until October 22, when he was sent to AS Camp Dick in Dallas, Texas, for a few weeks until November 7, and he was honorably discharged from service with the rank of private first class on December 12, 1918.

Later, when the publisher W. W. Norton suggested he write an official biography of their author Bertrand Russell, Hazlitt spent "a good deal of time," as he described it, with the famous philosopher.

After agreeing not to write on the topic, he looked for another venue for his work, deciding on Newsweek magazine, for which he wrote a signed column, "Business Tides", from 1946 to 1966.

Along with the efforts of his friends, Max Eastman and John Chamberlain, Hazlitt also helped introduce F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom to the American reading public.

His 1944 review in The New York Times caused Reader's Digest, where Eastman served as roving editor, to publish one of its trademark condensations, bringing the future Nobel laureate's work to a vast audience.

[22] The Freeman is widely considered to be an important forerunner to the conservative National Review, founded by William F. Buckley, Jr., which from the start included many of the same contributing editors.

Differences existed between the journals: The Freeman under Hazlitt was more secular and presented a wider range of foreign policy opinion than the later National Review.

[25] Hazlitt became well known both through his articles and by frequently debating prominent politicians on the radio, including: Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and U.S.

[12] In the early 1950s, he also occasionally appeared on the CBS Television current events program Longines Chronoscope, interviewing figures such as Senator Joseph McCarthy and Congressman Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., along with coeditor William Bradford Huie.

"[29] With a million copies sold and available in ten languages,[30][31] it is considered a classic by several American conservative, free-market, and right-libertarian circles, such as at the Mises Institute.

[32] Ayn Rand called it a "magnificent job of theoretical exposition", while Congressman Ron Paul ranks it with the works of Frédéric Bastiat and Friedrich Hayek.

[38] With reference to Keynes's book, Hazlitt paraphrased a quote attributed to Samuel Johnson, that he was "unable to find in it a single doctrine that is both true and original.

Hazlitt's 1922 work, The Way to Will-Power was characterized by Lew Rockwell as "a defense of individual initiative against the deterministic claims of Freudian psychoanalysis.

[42] In A New Constitution Now (1942), published during Franklin D. Roosevelt's unprecedented third term as President of the United States, Hazlitt called for the replacement of the existing fixed-term presidential tenure in the United States with a more Anglo-European system of "cabinet" government, under which a head of government who had lost the confidence of the legislature or cabinet might be removed from office after a no-confidence vote in as few as 30 days.

His stepfather died in 1907, leaving Henry to support his mother and probably leading to the ambition that enabled him to work at the Wall Street Journal while he was still a teenager.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan in his speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference (or "CPAC") named Hazlitt as one of the "[i]ntellectual leaders" (along with Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Russell Kirk, James Burnham and Frank Meyer) who had "shaped so much of our thoughts..."[50] Ludwig von Mises said at a dinner honoring Hazlitt: "In this age of the great struggle in favor of freedom and the social system in which men can live as free men, you are our leader.

You have indefatigably fought against the step-by-step advance of the powers anxious to destroy everything that human civilization has created over a long period of centuries... You are the economic conscience of our country and of our nation.