Human Action

Human Action is the magnum opus of Ludwig von Mises, first published in 1949. It defined a large part of present Austrian Economics.

Contents

Part One: Human Action

1. Acting Man
2. The Epistemological Problems of the Sciences of Human Action
3. Economics and the Revolt Against Reason
4. A First Analysis of the Category of Action
5. Time
6. Uncertainty
7. Action Within the World

Part Two: Actions Within the Framework of Society

8. Human Society
9. The Role of Ideas
10. Exchange Within Society

Part Three: Economic Calculation

11. Valuation Without Calculation
12. The Sphere of Economic Calculation
13. Monetary Calculation as a Tool of Action

Part Four: Catallactics or Economics of the Market Society

15. The Market
16. Prices
17. Indirect Exchange
18. Action in the Passing of Time
For humans considering action, time matters: there is a too late and a too early. Time preferences affect all action. We create capital goods with longer production cycles to fill our future wants--that is, we wait. The discussion of time preference, and the postponment of consumption, is a lead in to interest.
19. Interest
20. Interest, Credit Expansion, and the Trade Cycle
21. Work and Wages
22. The Nonhuman Original Factors of Production
23. The Data of the Market
24. Harmony and Conflict of Interests

Part Five: Social Cooperation Without a Market

25. The Imaginary Construction of a Socialist Society
26. The Impossibility of Economic Calculation Under Socialism

Part Six: The Hampered Market Economy

27. The Government and the Market
28. Interference by Taxation
29. Restriction of Production
30. Interference with the Structure of Prices
31. Currency and Credit Manipulation
32. Confiscation and Redistribution
33. Syndicalism and Corporativism
34. The Economics of War
35. The Welfare Principle Versus the Market Principle
36. The Crisis of Interventionism

Part Seven: The Place of Economics in Society

38. The Nondescript Character of Economics
39. The Place of Economics in Learning
40. Economics and the Essential Problems of Human Existence

Links

• Human Action complete text (pdf)
• Human Action audiobook, read by Jeff Riggenbach
• Human Action Study Guide(pdf), also for sale
• Human Action on Wikipedia

See also: Human Action Comics