Ludwig von Mises nearly titled his masterwork Social Cooperation. Salerno explains why that alternative title reveals more about the book's ambition than most readers realize.
The Influence and Significance of Human Action After 75 Years
Human Action is more than a book about economics broadly construed. It is a guide to civilized social life which elucidates the laws of reality that apply if human persons are to engage in peaceful and prosperous social cooperation under the division of labor.
Narrated by Millian Quinteros.
Ricardo's law of comparative advantage wasn't just about trade between nations. Mises saw something deeper: it's the reason human society exists at all.
DiLorenzo learned more about inflation and recession in 45 minutes of reading Mises than in two semesters of macroeconomics. That, he argues, is the Austrian School's greatest advantage: anyone can become their own economist.
Mises was a psychological hedonist, but not the kind you think. David Gordon untangles a philosophical position most Austrians have never examined closely.
Mainstream economics starts with models and works backward to reality. Mises started with reality and worked forward to theory. Herbener explains why that distinction changes everything.
By 1950, the Austrian School was nearly dead. Keynesianism had displaced its business cycle theory, and the profession declared Mises wrong on socialism. Human Action was the counterattack.
To spend his compulsory East German currency, Hoppe's only options were Marx, Engels, and Russian novels. Then he found his way to Mises through Friedman and Hayek.
Hülsmann opened Mises's 1912 Theory of Money and Credit expecting a historical curiosity. He found a work that surpassed everything published since.
Armen Alchian opened a seminar by reading a paragraph on property. Only one person in the room recognized it from Mises's Human Action. It changed everything.
Mises said the modern theory of value didn't just improve economics. It created an entirely new science: the general theory of human action.
The engineer and the gambler both face uncertainty, but only one can control the forces involved. Jonathan Newman explores the gap between plan and outcome that drives all economic life.
Should banks contract credit during a bust? Mises said yes. Rothbard disagreed. Patrick Newman traces a subtle but consequential rift between master and student.
A labor economist at the University of Chicago devoted his career to Veblen's institutionalism. When he finally saw through the foundations, he told a friend: all my work has been bunk.
There are only three possible economic systems: capitalism, socialism, and interventionism. Mises spent his career proving the third is the least understood and the most dangerous.
A Libertarian Party presidential nominee said he was open to a carbon tax. Mises would have had a different suggestion, and Timothy Terrell explains what it was.
Human Action sold thousands of copies, earned accolades from across the political spectrum, and made zero acknowledged impression on the economics profession. Or did it?
