Copyright, 1915, by

The Century Co.

First Edition, September, 1915

Reprinted, September, 1916

Reprinted, December, 1918

Reprinted, April, 1920

Reprinted, August, 1922

Reprinted, May, 1923

Reprinted, January, 1925

Reprinted, March, 1927

Reprinted, September, 1928

Digital edition September 2013 by the Mises Institute

ISBN: 978-1-61016-018-6

eISBN: 978-1-61016-269-2

The author’s “Principles of Economies” published in 1904 aimed to present a unified theory of distribution under the conditions of the modern price system. Value, rent, wages, and interest were for the first time in a general text treated as different manifestations of the same general principles, not as contrasted phenomena each governed by a law of a different nature.

CHAPTER 1

PURPOSE AND NATURE OF ECONOMICS

§1. Definition of economics. §2. Economics contrasted with the natural sciences. §3. Science as abstraction. §4. Science and art. §5. Place of economics among the sciences. §6. Subdivisions of economics. §7. Economy in the sense of the subject studied. §8. Economy not parsimony. §9. Social aims of economics. §10. Economics in a democracy. Note on Economic laws and other terms.

CHAPTER 2

CHOICE AND VALUE

§1. Choice; its origin. §2. Development of conscious choice. §3. The idea of scarcity. §4. Valuation. §5. One’s own labor as a valuation unit. §6. Crusoe’s scale of valuations. §7. Choice before and after valuation. §8. Value. Notes on Aspects of things chosen, Various meanings of scarcity, Value and valuations.

CHAPTER 3

GOODS AND PSYCHIC INCOME

§1. Inherent physical nature of things. §2. Free goods and economic goods. §3. Harmful objects. §4. Value and true welfare. §5. Gratification of desire. §6. The idea of income. §7. Psychic income. §8. Motivating force of psychic income. §9. The personal equation in psychic income. §10. Desire streams and income streams. §11. Goods of direct use. §12. Directness of use defined.

CHAPTER 4

PRINCIPLES OF EVALUATION

§1. Quality, a reflection of desire. §2. Substitution of goods. §3. The principle of substitution. §4. Substitution of like and of unlike goods. §5. Complementary goods. §6. Changes of desires and of valuations. §7. Effect of repeated stimuli on our feelings. §8. Different quantities and corresponding desires. §9. Stock of homogeneous units: principle of indifference. §10. Diagram of marginal valuation. §11. The paradox of value.

CHAPTER 5

TRADE BY BARTER

§1. Advantage of trade. §2. Barter. §3. Some trading terms defined. §4. The problem of price in simple barter. §5. Demand. §6. Supply. §7. Limits of advantage in isolated barter.

CHAPTER 6

MONEY AND MARKETS

§1. Money and evaluation. §2. Origin of money. §3. The use of money and money-prices. §4. The standard price unit. §5. Representative quality of money. §6. The sale at auction. §7. Bids in relation to valuations. §8. Effect of multiplicate units of supply. §9. Successive price levels through uncertainty. §10. Auctions with reserve valuations. §11. Origin of markets. §12. Transportation and the extent of markets. §13. Communication and markets. §14. One price in a market. §15. Imperfect market conditions.

CHAPTER 7

PRINCIPLES OF PRICE

§1. Buyers’ composite valuation curve. §2. Sellers’ composite valuation curve. §3. Price the resultant of demand and supply. §4. The market as a two-sided auction. §5. Supply and demand coordinate in price-determination. §6. Price in a permanent market. §7. Effect of the market upon valuations. §8. The point of price-adjustment. §9. Social factors in individual valuations. §10. Objective conditions to be studied.