About this title: This set includes 4 books in a slipcase. 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 equalise all people's circumstances: "Men are born unequal and...it is precisely their ...
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: 3d rev. ed.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: H. Regnery Co., Chicago
Date Published: 1966
Description: Good in fair dust jacket. chipped and torn edges to DJ, p/o inscription inside cover, clean and tight copy otherwise. xvii, 907 p., index. 24 cm. Bibliographical footnotes. read more
Description: Good. Text unmarked. Binding tight. Pages a bit age-toned. Boards more toned, and unevenly so. Jacket missing. Yale, hardcover, sixth printing, 1959. G+ read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Yale Press
Date Published: 1953
Description: 5th printing. A Very Good book and a Good dustjacket. Light tanning to the page edges; dj has some light chips and tears, and front panel flap is detached. Also included is a separate booklet, an index written by Vern Crawford that purports to be more complete. 889 pages. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780945466246ISBN:0945466242
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Nice clean book and dust jacket both are in very good condition, near fine. This is The Scholar's Edition. It has a ribbon marker and the book and dust jacket are in a slipcase. The slipcase has light rubbing and a few small scratch. 912 pages. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Henry Regnery Company, Chicago
ISBN-13:9780809297436ISBN:0809297434
Description: [0-8092-9743-4] [1966], 3rd Revised Edition., 3rd Revised Edition. (Hardcover) Very good in very good dust jacket. xvii, 907pp. Notes, index. There are some closed tears and edgewear to the dust jacket, and a previous owner's name on the front endpaper. (Economics, Economics, Free Market Economics) read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ludwig Von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780945466246ISBN:0945466242
Description: As New hardcover in As New dust jacket in As New slipcase. xxxiv, 912 pages. Index. Frontispiece portrait. The Scholar's Edition. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute 1998
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780945466246ISBN:0945466242
Description: ISBN 0945466242. Hardback. Near Fine condition book, with bb-sized faint brown waterspot on top edge of book, in a Near Fine condition dustjacket. Tight, bright, attractive copy with no markings to the book. No statement of later printing on copyright page. Comes with blue cardboard slipcase. read more
Edition: 3rd Ed(Revised)
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Henry Regnery Co., Chicago, IL
Date Published: 1966
ISBN-13:9780809297436ISBN:0809297434
Description: Fine/VG- W/Dust Jacket 907pgs(Index) 1-1/2" tapemended DJ tear top fore-edge, 1/2" DJ tear bottom rear edge, 1" one front flap bottom edge, DJ nicked foot of spine, O.w. clean, bright & tight. No ink names, bookplates, etc. Price unclipped. ISBN 0809297434. read more
Description: New. 0945466242. Flawless copy, brand new, pristine, never opened--956 pages. Description: "Human Action is the most important book on political economy you will ever own. It was (and remains) the most comprehensive, systematic, forthright, and powerful defense of the economics of liberty ever written. This is the Scholars Edition: accept no substitute. You will treasure this volume...The pagination of the original 1949 edition is preserved, but it also includes invaluable additions. Using ... read more
Edition: Third Revised Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Contemporary Books, Chicago
Date Published: 1966
ISBN-13:9780809297436ISBN:0809297434
Description: Very Good/Good + 8vo 0809297434 907p. Undated (circa 1980s) reprint of the 1966 third revised edition originally published by Henry Regnery Company. Jacket shows some wear with a little chipping around spine ends and at corners. Cloth is fading spottily on the spine, but otherwise looks good. Date handwritten on ffep in small letters. Otherwise unmarked, clean and bright inside. The binding is still quite tight. read more
"Not the easiest thing to read (the Wealth of Nations for example I found to be written in a much easier language, at least the edition I picked up) but it is definitely a major work on economics that challenges the view that politics have from "bailouts" and everything else we see happen around the world right now.
If you want to get introduced to Austrian Economics I would pick another book, easier to read. If however you already have a sound grasp of economics and want to go deeper into the Austrian school this surely is worth your time"
"Mises makes a very strong case for free market. He starts with a simple premise such that Humans act to remove uneasiness and takes that to its logical conclusion."
"Ludwig von Mises is a major contributor to what is called the Austrian School of economics. Human Reason is his magnum opus, a thorough-going look at the way that the innate human desire to decrease uneasiness is the pursuit for which capitalism is the mechanism.
The thesis is simple. Human beings take action to make things better for themselves. If we were satisfied, there would be no economy. But most of us will be cautious in what we do, avoiding as much risk as possible in our attempt to get what we want.
Certain individuals, the entrepreneurs, however, seek out risk when they see an opportunity to obtain capital (the materials needed to produce something) at a total cost less than the price that can be obtained by selling the final product - what we call profit. Of course we all seek individual profit when we do anything - even something as simple as moving an object in the living room closer to a chair so we can reach it. But the entrepreneur seeks profit in a way that he/she hopes will benefit others, why else would people buy what the entrepreneur puts up for sale? If the entrepreneur is successful he or she is rewarded. If the product does not sell, he or she loses money and the business fails. Risk results in reward or failure.
Rather than decrying the wealth of those who are successful in taking a risk in the hope of a reward, we should be grateful that such risk-takers exist because they are the ones who bring forth the products we desire, who take the time and money and effort to come up with the products and services that have created the huge increase in wealth obtained since capitalism took root in the 17th century.
Consumers are not victims of capitalism, but kings of the market that exists only to provide things for which we, those consumers, are willing to pay. We end up paying for what we want and not having to pay for what we don't want.
Socialism is, according to von Mises, an idealistic fiction that cannot but end in chaos because it has no method of determining prices and is driven by the few who make policy in the name of the many who must accept what they are told is best for society as a whole. The man or woman on the street ends up faced with great quantities of products that few want and too few of the products that many want. Only by having a capitalist system to determine prices is there any chance for a socialist system to even limp along (as the USSR did for several decades). Under socialism there is no opportunity to vote with one's money.
Not a single chart or graph will be found in this lengthy work and that is in keeping with von Mises insistence that human action cannot be quantified with formulas that provide any guide to future events. Human beings decide what is best for them as individuals who evaluate conditions in non-quantitative ways.
A validation of von Mises concept is presented by modern advertising that has largely thrown out plain speech (advocating a product) in favor of atmospherics and emotional settings that tug on the non-rational side of human thought to sway purchasing decisions.
This book is a perfect read at this time (2008-9) of huge interventions by government in financial affairs. We hear economists making a case for this or that government action based on what has been learned in the past, particularly in the Great Depression. But von Mises argues that history can never repeat itself because the factors that make up any economic situation are too complex for more than a very broad (and hence of little use) comparison between the past and the present.
Government actions are broad and blunt and slow-acting while the economy changes from minute to minute. Like the bull in the china shop, interventions are more likely to create future problems than to solve current ones.
In the careful arguments that he makes (Human Reason is nothing if not a collection of solid logic) von Mises provides the reader with a real education in the meaning of savings, investments, unions, welfare, prices and so much more. He makes short work of Marxism by showing the faulty premises on which it is based.
Never one to rant, the author maintains that though there is a certain amount of pain in capitalism (to those who lose jobs or investments) it is more than offset by the vast increase in wealth for humanity as a whole that it has provided. We may not like what the market economy does to us as individuals at certain times in our lives, but we can hardly deny the fabulous abundance of consumer goods that we can have for very little money - something that even the kings and queens of old were denied.
This book is for the person who wants to know why things are the way they are. It is not for casual reading or entertainment but it is intellectually satisfying, highly educational and best of all - it makes sense!"
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