Ping
Thanks for posting.
I have his book Human Action and it is a joy to read. I have an event that I have to go to, so more later.
Funny story...I had already read some of Mises by the time I entered college.
After listening to the insane leftist professor in the Economics I course at college I approached the guy after class one day and asked him the simple question:
“Have you ever heard of Ludwig Von Mises.” He said “no”.
I was stunned—and learned just how ignorant so many of the big named Economics professors were.
European Austrian economics which have no more place or relevancy there as they do in the US. Less than 1% of Americans have ever even heard of this fringe Austrian. Maybe if we are going to discuss Austrians and their theories, how about Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) instead of Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)?
I was at the Liberatarian National Convention in Reno in 2022 and there was one lone table promoting Ludwig von Mises, buried among a bunch of other non-sense, like pro-abortion, pro-drugs, etc. He was a fringe even at their event.
Bttt.
5.56mm
I had a Bachelor’s and Master’s in economics before I saw a recommendation for Human Action from some conservative source. I was taught traditional economics from textbooks. I also took a couple left-wing economics classes (Marx etc.), out of by 20 econ courses.
Then I read Mises. I think he is a great economist, well deserving of a Nobel Prize. His problem was, and is, that he was anti-socialist to the core. After WWII, the world was awash in socialism. Out of step, he could barely keep a job.
His approach is very strongly deductive. This contrasts with Milton Friedman who was very empirical. There is nothing wrong with either approach. They are just different, each with pros and cons. It is interesting to see how far one can go making logical inferences off of stated assumptions. It’s an exercise in logic.
At one meeting of conservative economists, he stormed off saying “you’re all a bunch of socialists.” He might say the same of his conservative critics at FreeRepublic. And he might be right!
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Austrian School - bump for later.....
Thank you!