What is Austrian Economics?

I started my study with an introductory essay, titled What is Austrian Economics. It is a fairly short and straightforward historical overview of the Austrian School of Economics. It gives you the basic timeline for this.

It is a good lead-in for a book from my reading list. Fifteen Great Austrian Economists [pdf], which greatly expands on this article. I have not yet finished this book, but I am about halfway through. The book goes into much more detail about their lives, their theories and their importance to Austrian economics.

Barbara

Man, Economy and State with Power and Market

The title of this post says it all. This is the major work by Murray Rothbard. It is available in Pdf format and an excellent study guide is also available as a Pdf.

This book started out as a textbook on economics. But eventually it turned into a guide to just about all of Austrian economic thought. He takes Mises Human Action and makes it easier to understand (in my opinion) and extends and expands on it. He created an entire theory of economics. It is a masterful work and worth reading carefully and slowly. With this book and Human Action, you will understand the greater part of Austrian economics.

Overview of the Austrian School of Economics

I found yet another great resources at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. This one is a overview of the Austrian School, with online links. It is yet another way to structure your reading into this fascinating subject.

Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone is having a happy and very Merry Christmas! I wish you health and happiness and freedom in the New Year. I will continue my postings on Tuesday December 29th, with Murray Rothbard's Man, Economy and State with Power and Markets. And lots more to come.

Human Action

Today I'm going to be writing about Human Action by Ludwig von Mises. This is the big one, laying out the fundamentals of the Austrian school of economics. It's big insomuch as it is very important and big as in about 900 pages long. This book is not light beach reading. But it is very worthwhile.

Some background first. Dr von Mises wrote a version of this in German, but unfortunately it was published in 1940. Not a good time for German economics books. After he came to the United States he translated and expanded upon it for the 1949 publication of Human Action.

The first time I ever heard of Human Action was from this piece in the Daily Reckoning. It made me want to read the book. You might want to read this article first for the background and the inspiration to start reading it.

This book is not the best to start out with, unless you are able to comprehend at a graduate level. It is not for casual readers, but will pay great dividends to those who work through it step by step.

So, as usual, mises.org has extensive free resources for Mises' Human Action. They have a resource page, which contains links for the text in online versions, pdf versions and a complete audiobook reading of it. That page also links to chapter by chapter study guide pdfs.

And something I just found today, an interactive index of the whole book, linked to the online version.

Monday, I'll get into Murray Rothbard's Man, Economy and State with Power and Market.

My Plan of Attack

I am a planner and doing this study of Austrian economics is no different. I've found a great resource at mises.org. They have a great deal of their content available both in book/audiobook format but also freely available in Pdf format and easily downloadable mp3s.

My first guide was the Home Study Guide to Austrian Economics. I was able to download the audio lectures here, and was able to find most of the books mentioned available as pdf downloads.

Second, I am reading from The Mises University: Required Readings page. Another very quick read is available online called The Concise Guide to Economics.

I have another long list of readings that I will get to later. Tomorrow, I'll talk about the two BIG books in Austrian economics: Mises Human Action and Rothbard's Man, Economy and State with Power and Market.

What Would You Do?

Good question. What would you do to stop this slide of our government to ever greater debt and government running just about everything?

This reply comes from Bill Jenkins, who writes for Agora Financial. I believe it is a very libertarian viewpoint and one which I share. I am quoting in full.

“The only way out, and I mean the only way, is to cut spending to the bare bone.

“Forget paying for education and the huge bureaucracy that drives it (into the ground). American children learned very well for generations without public schools. Forget subsidizing farmers for not planting their fields. For that matter, forget subsidies of all kinds. Foreign aid. Art. Health care for nonretirees. Sell federally owned lands and quit paying people to manage them. Shut down the IRS and move to a flat-rate taxation. Fund Congress and the Senate on a strictly honorarium basis and only let them work part time at the Capitol… say, 30 days per year. They would do a lot less damage that way…

“Our government no longer promotes freedom, but bondage. No longer liberty, but slavery. Our welfare and education systems have created a bloated citizenry nearly incapable of fending for themselves. Like baby birds in the nest, they sit with their mouths open waiting for some federal bureaucrat to drop something in.

“Until we are willing to provide personal, and not tax-based, charity to those who are truly in need around us; until parents are willing to take their children’s education back from the hands of the educational elite who have proved to us decisively that they know how to teach children not to read and not to count; until we demand that all our troops be brought home to defend our own borders and have no tangling alliances with foreign nations; until those who are determined to sit on the public dole go hungry for a while and decide that getting a job is better than starving; until we cut our porked government budget to live off a flat tax from our own people, and not borrow from nations all around us…

“Until all this happens, there will be no escape. There will be no redemption. There will be no recovery. There will be no hope for our grandchildren.”

Thank you Bill Jenkins.

First of many quotes I'm sure

First of many pertinent quotes that I will post, of course.

Another book I'm reading, (a real book, not a pdf) is Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. Copyright date is 1946. This is not the best book to start with for learning Austrian economics, but it is interesting. More problem solving than theory.

In any case, this quote applies exactly to the sub-prime mortgage mess we are in now and the housing bubble that caused it.

"Government-guaranteed home mortgages, especially when a negligible down payment or no down payment whatever is required, inevitably mean more bad loans than otherwise. They force the general taxpayer to subsidize the bad risks and to defray the losses. They encourage people to "buy" houses that they cannot really afford. They tend eventually to bring about an oversupply of houses as compared to other things. They temporarily over-stimulate building, raise the cost of building for everybody (including the buyers of the homes with the guaranteed mortgages) and may mislead the building industry into an eventually costly overexpansion."

That sounds like it was written yesterday, not 63 years ago.

Heavy hand of regulation doesn't work

Here is a perfect example of why regulation doesn't work. In Alexandria, Virginia, trying to regulate cab companies backfired. Food for thought.

Learning Every Day

I have always believed that learning, in any field, is very important to a full, realized life. I have started this blog to share what I learn. My two current topics are Austrian school economics and staying healthy. Odd bedfellows, perhaps, but I have very eclectic interests.

I have been studying health intensely for five years now, and I will talk about that here from time to time. But my main focus now is learning all I can about the Austrian School of Economics, whose two main proponents were Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

On the side, I have put links to what I am currently reading. I'll post thoughts about my reading and all the easily available resources for you to do your own self-study at home.  I look forward to sharing my love of knowledge and my new knowledge as time passes.