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

Introduction

"It is true that economics is a theoretical science and as such abstains from any judgment of value. It is not its task to tell people what ends they should aim at. It is a science of the means to be applied for the attainment of ends chosen, not, to be sure, a science of the choosing of ends. Ultimate decisions, the valuations and the choosing of ends, are beyond the scope of any science. Science never tells a man how he should act; it merely shows how a man must act if he wants to attain definite ends."

Part One: Human Action

1. Acting Man
The science of human action is called praxeology. Human action always involves opportunity cost and it is always purposeful.
2. The Epistemological Problems of the Sciences of Human Action
Ludwig von Mises takes the logical deductive approach to economics as opposed to the empirical (or the logical positivist approach). Economic problems can not be solved empirically because renunciation and long-term planning can not be seen. Humans act to attain definite ends--and economic phenomena can be understood as such.

"Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science...It aims at knowledge valid for all instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in its assumptions and inferences. Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori."

Like geometry, praxeology is not subject to disproof. This method may be called methodological apriorism.

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