num_pages: 924
description: In the foreword to Human Action: A Treatise on Economics Mises explains complex market phenomena as the outcomes of countless conscious purposive actions choices and preferences of individuals each of whom was trying as best as he or she could under the circumstances to attain various wants and ends and to avoid undesired consequences. It is individual choices in response to personal subjective value judgments that ultimately determine market phenomenasupply and demand prices the pattern of production and even profits and losses. Although governments may presume to set prices it is individuals who by their actions and choices through competitive bidding for money products and services actually determine prices. Thus Mises presents economicsnot as a study of material goods services and productsbut as a study of human actions. He sees the science of human action praxeology as a science of reason and logic which recognizes a regularity in the sequence and interrelationships among market phenomena. Mises defends the methodology of praxeology against the criticisms of Marxists socialists positivists and mathematical statisticians.Mises attributes the tremendous technological progress and the consequent increase in wealth and general welfare in the last two centuries to the introduction of liberal government policies based on free-market economic teachings creating an economic and political environment which permits individuals to pursue their respective goals in freedom and peace. Mises also explains the futility and counter-productiveness of government attempts to regulate control and equalize all people's circumstances: Men are born unequal and ... it is precisely their inequality that generates social cooperation and civilization.Ludwig von Mises (18811973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian School of Economics throughout most of the twentieth century. He earned his doctorate in law and economics from the University of Vienna in 1906. In 1926 Mises founded the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research. From 1909 to 1934 he was an economist for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. Before the Anschluss in 1934 Mises left for Geneva where he was a professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies until 1940 when he emigrated to New York City. From 1948 to 1969 he was a visiting professor at New York University.Bettina Bien Greaves is a former resident scholar trustee and longtime staff member of the Foundation for Economic Education. She has written and lectured extensively on topics of free market economics. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Human Events Reason and The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty. A student of Mises Greaves has become an expert on his work in particular and that of the Austrian School of economics in general. She has translated several Mises monographs compiled an annotated bibliography of his work and edited collections of papers by Mises and other members of the Austrian School.
language: English
title: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
publisher: Contemporary Books