Human Action by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

Mises builds economics from one axiom: human beings act, choosing means to pursue ends and preferring more satisfaction to less. From this he derives a body of theory, which he calls praxeology, covering value, exchange, money, interest, the business cycle and the market process, without relying on mathematical models or historical statistics.

His best-known argument concerns calculation. Without private ownership of capital goods there are no market prices for them, and without prices no way to compare the value of alternative uses of resources. Socialism cannot rationally allocate, he claimed, and so its planned economy descends into waste and chaos. He also offered an account of the business cycle in which credit expansion by central banks distorts the structure of production.

The book is nearly nine hundred pages, intended as a full system, and ends with a defense of liberalism in the classical sense.

Why it matters

The calculation argument inspired Hayek and later Austrian economists, and the book has remained a pillar of libertarian economics. Most mainstream economists reject its a priori method and some of its conclusions, so it is best read as the statement of a school and not as a textbook.

About the author

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) taught at the University of Vienna and led a famous private seminar there before leaving Austria for Geneva in 1934 and the United States in 1940. In New York he taught at New York University as a visiting professor, funded by private donors. Human Action was an English rewrite of his German treatise Nationaloekonomie and became the main text of the modern Austrian school.

Who should read it

Committed readers and students of the Austrian school. For most, Mises's shorter Liberalism or Omnipotent Government is an easier first step.