99 of 105 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Work of Genius, July 29, 2007
Human Action is one of the ten most insightful books on economics ever written. This is impressive, but even more impressive that Mises has more than one book on this list (in my opinion). Human Action is the most recent (hopefully not the last) great treatise on political economy. While some treatises compile the ideas of others, there are many original and important insights to this book. Perhaps the most important insight of this book concerns economic calculation. Mises sees economic calculation as the most fundamental problem in economics. The economic problem to Mises is that of action. We act to dispel feelings of uneasiness, but can only succeed in acting if we comprehend causal connections between the ends that we want to satisfy, and available means. Mises is drawing upon Menger's brilliant 1871 book here, but he has his own ideas as well. The fact that we live in a world of causality means that we face definite choices as to how we satisfy our ends. Human Action is an application of Human Reason to select the best means of satisfying ends. The reasoning mind evaluates and grades different options. This is economic calculation.
Economic calculation is common to all people. Mises insisted that the logical structure of human minds is the same for everybody. Of course, this is not to say that all minds are the same. We make different value judgments and posses different data, but logic is the same for all. Human reason and economic calculation have limitations, but Mises sees no alternative to economic calculation as a means of using scarce resources to improve our well being.
Human Action concerns dynamics. The opposite to action is not inaction. Rather, the opposite to action is contentment. In a fully contented state there would be no action, no efforts to change the existing order of things (which might be changed by merely ceasing to do some things). We act because we are never fully satisfied, and will never stop because we can never be fully satisfied. This might seem like a simple point, but modern economics is built upon ideas of contentment- equilibrium analysis and indifference conditions. It is true that some economists construct models of dynamic equilibrium, but the idea of a dynamic equilibrium is oxymoronic to Mises. An actual equilibrium may involve a recurring cycle, but not true dynamics. True dynamics involve non-repeating evolutionary change.
Mises explains dynamic change in terms of `the plain state of rest'. A final state of rest involves perfect plans to fully satisfy human desires. A plain state of rest is a temporary and imperfect equilibrium deriving from past human plans. Though any set of plans is imperfect, to act means attempting to improve each successive set of plans. Movement from one plain state of rest to another represents the process of change, either evolutionary or devolutionary. How then do we experience progress?
Mises links progress and profits. Profits earned from voluntary trades are the indicator of economic success. It is monetary calculation of profits that indicates whether an enterprise has generated a net increase in consumer well being over true economic costs. The close association that Mises draws between economic calculation and monetary calculation leads him to conclude that market prices (upon which monetary profits are calculated) are indispensable to progress in bettering the human condition. Without markets there are no prices, and without prices there is no economic calculation. One point that Mises made, but did not get enough attention, is that monetary calculation takes place primarily in financial markets. This is especially clear on page 704 of the scholar's edition. Monetary calculation is vitally important, but who actually carries out these calculations?
Mises stresses the importance of entrepreneurship because it is entrepreneurs who actually do monetary calculation. This fact puts entrepreneurs at the center of all progress (and failure). Entrepreneurs who estimate costs more correctly than their rivals earn high profits while also serving consumers. Such men rise to top positions in industry. Entrepreneurs who err seriously in their calculations experience financial losses and cease to direct production. Mises described this market test of entrepreneurial skills as the only process of trial and error that really matters. The concepts of monetary calculation, financial speculation, and entrepreneurship form the basis for the von Mises critique of socialism.
Mises has nothing good to say about interventionism either. As for the business cycle, this is generated by the manipulation of interest rates by central banks. It is fairly obvious that Mises opposed the idea of government run economic systems, but Mises did see limited roles for government in providing national defense, police protection, and criminal justice. Some contemporary Mises enthusiasts would disagree, yet the state proposed by Mises would (in my opinion) be a vast improvement over our present state of affairs.
There are too many angles to this book to discuss fully in this review, but the more controversial parts concern methodology. Mises rejects positivism and mathematical economics. As for positivism, Mises does not argue that economics should not be empirical. Mises argues that it CANNOT be empirical. Ideas are logically prior to data of complex phenomena. Without ideas to interpret data on social phenomena we could not make sense of anything in society. Critics of von Mises tend to be totally unaware of this argument.
Mises sees ideas as all-important. It is our ideas that govern our actions. We act because we have ideas as to particular means of dispelling uneasiness. Some see causal connections between government intervention and increased societal welfare. Students of Mises see things differently, because we hold different ideas. This is a very important angle of the Mises paradigm. As Mises wrote in 1922, only ideas can overcome ideas. Marxian notions of the material forces of history and class interest as the prime movers of history are not only wrong, but dangerous because they are anti-rationalist. Ideas matter above all else, and the ideas developed by Mises in Human Action matter above all others.
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90 of 97 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mises's Greatest Work, September 10, 2005
HUMAN ACTION is the most important work of economic or social theory written in the twentieth century. It is also the most important defense of laissez faire capitalism ever written.
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was born in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. A prolific writer, he wrote two seminal works (SOCIALISM and THEORY OF MONEY AND CREDIT) before fleeing the Nazis. While living in Switzerland, he published an early version of this work in German in 1940. Over time, Mises added to it and rewrote it in English. Yale University Press published HUMAN ACTION in 1949.
This book isn't just a work of economics, but a full-orbed "science of human action." Starting from a few principles that Mises believed to be a priori, he deduces an entire body of economic theory. The first 200 pages of this 900-page work are heavily philosophical. I would not recommend readers skip this section. You can't understand what Mises was for unless you understand why he was for it. Mises' final work, THE ULTIMATE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE, deals with these methodological issues on a more elementary level.
HUMAN ACTION is a difficult work to read, particularly for those with minimal training in economics. Murray Rothbard's MAN, ECONOMY, AND STATE covers similar ground (at least as far as economics is concerned) but is more suitable for the beginner. Israel Kirzner has written the best introductory work on Mises.
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102 of 118 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential treatise for free-market supporters, March 17, 1999
Ludwig von Mises's _Human Action_ is essential reading for any supporter of free-market economics (and it might be nice if some of the _enemies_ of economic liberty read it too). Mises's plan here is to place the science of economics on a firm axiomatic foundation. In particular, his aim is to derive economic theory from the axiom that (my paraphrase) human beings act to achieve ends under conditions of scarcity in a world in which finite and delimitable causes have finite and delimitable effects.
Two other major treatises will be of interest to readers of this work: Murray Rothbard's _Man, Economy and State_, and George Reisman's _Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics_.
I also agree with the other reviewer who suggests reading Carl Menger's _Principles of Economics_. Mises describes that work as the book that made an economist of him, and it's a much quicker read than any of the three major treatises I've named.
Also of great interest: Mises's _The Theory of Money and Credit_, described by Murray Rothbard as the best book on money ever written. And so it is.
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