It is my personal opinion that MES (previous edition, Scholar’s edition, or online) should be read by everyone interested in learning about economics, and, by extension following Mises, this book should be read by everyone. It should also be at the top of your reading list. That is, read this book as soon in your education of economics as possible. Why? My account follows. (Perhaps others would like to add their accounts to the comments section of this thread.)
MES presents an account of every major economic phenomenon (trade, division of labor, price formation, wage rates, land rent, interest on capital, interest on money, the purchasing power of money, etc.), explaining how each is determined in a logical format that one cannot imagine being improved. No other book in the Austrian lexicon compares. Not Mises’s Human Action, not Menger’s Principles. It gives the reader a systemic understanding of the economy.
If you read this book, you will understand the interrelationships of all major components of the economy, from the bottom up, top down, and inside out. This book is far superior to standard college textbooks. If you are thinking about buying a book of smaller scope: do not be daunted by the number of pages! This is not intricate Misesian prose. It is clear and simple, lively. And, you will get a great deal from reading only one chapter. But you won’t read only one chapter because this book is a page-turner.
While Mises makes one “hmm” and smile, Rothbard makes one shout “eureka!” and roar with laughter. Plus, you don’t have to read between the lines with Rothbard. He clearly states conclusions and recapitulates essential material, without talking down to the reader.
This is the book on economics, above all others, that I reserve as required reading for my two girls, when they are old enough. What happened when I read MES? It was as though I could finally see. This book, among all others, explained economics to me. At the time, I was about 200 pages into the Scholar’s Edition of Human Action, and the going was slow. I set HA aside, read the entirety of MES, and then returned to HA, where suddenly Mises was writing in a language I understood.
Then, I returned to Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which I had also set aside years before. I picked up Keynes, and could see through his fallacies. I regard MES as my baptism into understanding the corpus of economics. It was a joyous rebirth, giving me the loving comforting embrace of true knowledge. It was not long ago. It was the summer of 1999, I believe.
Every day on the bus to and from work, I was greeted with exhiliarating new insights and epiphanies. What a joy it is to read Rothbard! How eager I was to get on the bus each day and continue to explore economics. The nature of Austrian economics, being logical-deductive, is similar in structure to mathematics and other deductive disciplines. And so, it is easy to compare my excitement about Rothbard’s text with the exciting times in my life when I learned geometry, algebra, trigonometry, analytical geometry, calculus, differential equations, thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer theory, etc.
This book is to economics what Euclid’s Elements are to geometry. As another remarked, hyperbole is impossible with this book. I look forward to reading it again in the new Scholar’s Edition soon, and I invite you all to share in the joy by reading it, too!
