Praxeology

Economic laws represent the real world. They are not ideologies or objects of worship. These laws are not the product of an ideological wish list but rather explain production and exchange.

Human action is not a figment of our imaginations, nor is it a social construct. Praxeology describes real and purposeful actions by people who act on what they know or what they believe to be true.

Utopians are not satisfied with imposing DEI on humans. They also want the state to treat animals as “oppressed” minorities with positive rights. 

Lew Rockwell discusses Friedman at the dedication of the Mises Institute library.

In this issue of the Misesian we celebrate seventy-five years of Human Action. Many of our top scholars examine the legacy of Human Action and find it continues to inspire new generations of economists, scholars, and students.

While F.A. Hayek saw human ignorance as the basis for what he called spontaneous order, Ludwig von Mises saw human reason as the basis for praxeology.

One of the great lessons of Mises’s Human Action is that the institutions of the free society—private property and sound money—make up the environment enabling economic progress, and hence, human flourishing. It is the book that made me an economist.

At our conference celebrating the 75th anniversary of Human Action, several of the speakers reflected on how Human Action has influenced their own personal economic thinking, their writing, and their careers. Enjoy their recollections.

The socialist elites that dominate our institutions insist that private property is nothing more than a social construct held together by violence. As usual, they misunderstand that scarcity itself, which is the basis for economics, is also the basis for private property.

The socialist elites that dominate our institutions insist that private property is nothing more than a social construct held together by violence. As usual, they misunderstand that scarcity itself, which is the basis for economics, is also the basis for private property.