Don't depend on this book by the Financial Editor of the "New York Times" for aid on that Ec A final. Mr. Hazlitt is one of those whose hearts are in the right place, but whose eyes turn persistently in the wrong direction. He sets out to discuss the "new" economics of Professors Keynes and Hansen; he succeeds in venting his anger at every other conceivable economic group.

Fundamentally, according to this book, the trouble with contemporary economic policy is its emphasis on short-run special problems and its refusal to consider long-run effects on the nation as a whole. In support of his thesis, the author cites labor's featherbedding, the gouge of "parity prices" for the farmer, consumer insistence on price control, and similar examples of what to him is selfish myopia which can only restrict production.

Just how these examples tie into the "new" economics is never made clear. Certainly neither Keynes nor Hansen has justified or urged support of such policies. And, just as certainly, either of them would be quick to point out that such defensive special pleading arises from the sense of economic insecurity which is the most deeply rooted fear in present-day society.

Whether one agrees with Hansen or Hazlitt, he must recognize that the latter is setting the economist a well-nigh impossible task. Forecasting the "long-run" effects of any policy calls for the talents of a Nostrodamus far more than for the skills of a social scientist. The awe-inspiring speed of twentieth-century technological change, and the sweeping alterations which it makes in social structure, render any long-range prognostication a risky business at best.

The most pressing economic problem of this generation is unemployment, and not production. And, on the record, the "give-business-its-head" school of economics and of government never even bothered to face that problem. Whether such hereties as Lord Keynes, Sir William Beveridge and Professor Hansen have solved the puzzle or not, they and their followers can claim credit for facing it more squarely than their more traditional rivals.