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I recommend Choice[1] by Robert Murphy as a way to learn basic economics. The book is a distillation of Human Action by Mises and derives economic theory from t

I recommend Choice[1] by Robert Murphy as a way to learn basic economics. The book is a distillation of Human Action by Mises and derives economic theory from the axiom of action. [1] http://www.independent.org/publications/books/summary.asp?id=116 http://www.independent.org/publications/books/summary.asp?id...

JamesBarney 9y ago
Just a heads up to those who aren't familiar with Austrian economics. It has very different ideas about how the world works from standard economics, and is much closer to philosophy than science. (They don't really use the scientific method or much empirical work. This is why he used the word derive.)
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  To be fair to the Austrian school, mainstream economics is about as far away from a science as are there positions. It's just that latter' ideology is more compatible with the contemporary operation of power.
- clarkmoody 9y ago
  Indeed, the book explains how Austrian economics does not use the scientific method at all, since the conclusions are derived from fundamental axioms.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    So Austrian economics is just like communism in that it doesn't let facts get in the way of a good ideology.
    - IslaDeEncanta 9y ago
      Actually, communism is a materialist tradition, meaning that most of Marx's works were critiques of idealist nonsense like Austrian Economics.
- gbacon 9y ago
  Unlike the physical or natural sciences, economics is a social science. Dropping a stone from a certain height and taking a quantitative measurement of how long it takes to hit the ground has predictive value or universal applicability for similar circumstances in the future. People are not stones. Place even the same person in similar circumstances, and she may choose differently. Mises elaborates the differences and applicability of methods between and character of inquiry in the natural and social sciences in his book Epistemological Problems of Economics. The section “Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis in Economics”[0] contains: Mathematics has a significance in the natural sciences altogether different from what it has in sociology and economics. This is because physics is able to discover empirically constant relationships, which it describes in its equations.[89] The scientific technology based on physics is thereby rendered capable of solving given problems with quantitative definiteness. The engineer is able to calculate how a bridge must be constructed in order to bear a given load. These constant relationships cannot be demonstrated in economics. The quantity theory of money, for example, shows that, ceteris paribus, an increase in the quantity of money leads to a decrease in the purchasing power of the monetary unit, but the doubling of the quantity of money does not bring about a fifty percent decline in its purchasing power. The relationship between the quantity of money and its purchasing power is not constant. it is a mistake to think that, from statistical investigations concerning the relationship of the supply of and the demand for definite commodities, quantitative conclusions can be drawn that would be applicable to the future configuration of this relationship. Whatever can be established in this way has only historical significance, whereas the ascertainment of the specific gravity of different substances, for example, has universal validity.[90] [89] Cairnes, The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy, pp. 118 ff.; Eulenburg, “Sind historische Gesetze möglich?” Hauptprobleme der Soziologie (Munich, 1923), I, 43. [90] Therefore, it would also be a mistake to attempt to attack the statement in the text by referring to the fact that the natural sciences borrowed the statistical method from sociology and now seek to make it serve their own purposes. [0]: https://mises.org/library/epistemological-problems-economics/html/p/254 https://mises.org/library/epistemological-problems-economics... The methodological individualism of Mises begins with a human being in a state of dissatisfaction seeking to reduce or remove it. From this starting point with the supposition that the individual acts, that is, performs some deed with time, monetary, physical, emotional, relationship, or other available means with the purpose of achieving the desired state, Mises derives an entire system of qualitative economic laws that follow logically from this base axiom: The starting point of our reasoning is not behavior, but action, or, as it is redundantly designated, rational action. Human action is conscious behavior on the part of a human being. Conceptually it can be sharply and clearly distinguished from unconscious activity, even though in some cases it is perhaps not easy to determine whether given behavior is to be assigned to one or the other category. As thinking and acting men, we grasp the concept of action. In grasping this concept we simultaneously grasp the closely correlated concepts of value, wealth, exchange, price, and cost. They are all necessarily implied in the concept of action, and together with them the concepts of valuing, scale of value and importance, scarcity and abundance, advantage and disadvantage, success, profit, and loss. The logical unfolding of all these concepts and categories in systematic derivation from the fundamental category of action and the demonstration of the necessary relations among them constitutes the first task of our science. The part that deals with the elementary theory of value and price serves as the starting point in its exposition. There can be no doubt whatever concerning the aprioristic character of these disciplines. [1]: https://mises.org/library/epistemological-problems-economics/html/p/231 https://mises.org/library/epistemological-problems-economics... Unlike other approaches that proceed from homogeneous aggregates, struggles between classes, numerical relationships, simple models, or historical determinism, Austrian economics proceeds from a simple axiom whose consequences are developed rigorously.

JamesBarney 9y ago

Just a heads up to those who aren't familiar with Austrian economics. It has very different ideas about how the world works from standard economics, and is much closer to philosophy than science. (They don't really use the scientific method or much empirical work. This is why he used the word derive.)

alphonsegaston 9y ago
To be fair to the Austrian school, mainstream economics is about as far away from a science as are there positions. It's just that latter' ideology is more compatible with the contemporary operation of power.
clarkmoody 9y ago
Indeed, the book explains how Austrian economics does not use the scientific method at all, since the conclusions are derived from fundamental axioms.
- arethuza 9y ago
  So Austrian economics is just like communism in that it doesn't let facts get in the way of a good ideology.
  - IslaDeEncanta 9y ago
    Actually, communism is a materialist tradition, meaning that most of Marx's works were critiques of idealist nonsense like Austrian Economics.
gbacon 9y ago
Unlike the physical or natural sciences, economics is a social science. Dropping a stone from a certain height and taking a quantitative measurement of how long it takes to hit the ground has predictive value or universal applicability for similar circumstances in the future. People are not stones. Place even the same person in similar circumstances, and she may choose differently. Mises elaborates the differences and applicability of methods between and character of inquiry in the natural and social sciences in his book Epistemological Problems of Economics. The section “Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis in Economics”[0] contains: Mathematics has a significance in the natural sciences altogether different from what it has in sociology and economics. This is because physics is able to discover empirically constant relationships, which it describes in its equations.[89] The scientific technology based on physics is thereby rendered capable of solving given problems with quantitative definiteness. The engineer is able to calculate how a bridge must be constructed in order to bear a given load. These constant relationships cannot be demonstrated in economics. The quantity theory of money, for example, shows that, ceteris paribus, an increase in the quantity of money leads to a decrease in the purchasing power of the monetary unit, but the doubling of the quantity of money does not bring about a fifty percent decline in its purchasing power. The relationship between the quantity of money and its purchasing power is not constant. it is a mistake to think that, from statistical investigations concerning the relationship of the supply of and the demand for definite commodities, quantitative conclusions can be drawn that would be applicable to the future configuration of this relationship. Whatever can be established in this way has only historical significance, whereas the ascertainment of the specific gravity of different substances, for example, has universal validity.[90] [89] Cairnes, The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy, pp. 118 ff.; Eulenburg, “Sind historische Gesetze möglich?” Hauptprobleme der Soziologie (Munich, 1923), I, 43. [90] Therefore, it would also be a mistake to attempt to attack the statement in the text by referring to the fact that the natural sciences borrowed the statistical method from sociology and now seek to make it serve their own purposes. [0]: https://mises.org/library/epistemological-problems-economics/html/p/254 https://mises.org/library/epistemological-problems-economics... The methodological individualism of Mises begins with a human being in a state of dissatisfaction seeking to reduce or remove it. From this starting point with the supposition that the individual acts, that is, performs some deed with time, monetary, physical, emotional, relationship, or other available means with the purpose of achieving the desired state, Mises derives an entire system of qualitative economic laws that follow logically from this base axiom: The starting point of our reasoning is not behavior, but action, or, as it is redundantly designated, rational action. Human action is conscious behavior on the part of a human being. Conceptually it can be sharply and clearly distinguished from unconscious activity, even though in some cases it is perhaps not easy to determine whether given behavior is to be assigned to one or the other category. As thinking and acting men, we grasp the concept of action. In grasping this concept we simultaneously grasp the closely correlated concepts of value, wealth, exchange, price, and cost. They are all necessarily implied in the concept of action, and together with them the concepts of valuing, scale of value and importance, scarcity and abundance, advantage and disadvantage, success, profit, and loss. The logical unfolding of all these concepts and categories in systematic derivation from the fundamental category of action and the demonstration of the necessary relations among them constitutes the first task of our science. The part that deals with the elementary theory of value and price serves as the starting point in its exposition. There can be no doubt whatever concerning the aprioristic character of these disciplines. [1]: https://mises.org/library/epistemological-problems-economics/html/p/231 https://mises.org/library/epistemological-problems-economics... Unlike other approaches that proceed from homogeneous aggregates, struggles between classes, numerical relationships, simple models, or historical determinism, Austrian economics proceeds from a simple axiom whose consequences are developed rigorously.