William Harold Hutt

William Harold Hutt (3 August 1899 – 19 June 1988) was an English economist who described himself as a classical economist.

Early life Hutt was born into a working-class, but educated, family in London, where his father was a compositor. After he completed high school during the height of the First World War, he began training as a pilot, but abandoned his training at the end of the war.

Education Hutt attended the London School of Economics (LSE) where he earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree under the "leading influence" of Edwin Cannan. He vehemently objected to the policy, arguing in his 1964 critique, The Economics of the Colour Bar, that it was little more than a means by which white labor unions used the government to outlaw black competition. However, he did not support universal equal suffrage, instead arguing that "it would be absolutely essential to renounce the principle of universal suffrage on a common roll and accept some form of weighted franchise." . Hutt observed that groups that groups that grumble about injustice or oppression from other groups can frequently be found analogous injustices on others; he cited the case of Afrikaners complaining about British imperialism while discriminating against blacks.

He was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and of the Philadelphia Society. Hutt's work has been notably praised by George Selgin and Nobel laureate James M. Buchanan.

Publications

The Theory of Idle Resources (1939)

Keynesianism Retrospect and Prospect: A Critical Restatement of Basic Economic Principles (1963) The Economics of the Colour Bar: A Study of the Economic Origins and Consequences of Racial Segregation in South Africa (1964) Politically Impossible...? (1971) The Strike-threat System: The Economic Consequences of Collective Bargaining (1973) A Rehabilitation of Say's Law (1974)

The Keynesian Episode: A Reassessment (1979)