Summary of Human Action, An Economic Treatise

This book is an abridgement of Human Action, an economic treatise, the Magnum opus by Ludwig von Mises, a central author of the “Austrian” school and one of the greatest economic thinkers. Published in 1949, the original work is nearly a thousand pages long.

Although currently obscured by the Mainstream neoclassical, the Austrian tradition is faithful to the ideas that prevailed from the origins of economic thinking to the beginning of the 20th century. It embodies a realistic conception of economic discipline that rejects the reductive model of Homo œconomicus and the study of balances to focus on change processes and the causal relationships between events.

These ideas form a much more solid basis for the study of the market, currency, economic crises, business and modern industrial structures than the neoclassical paradigm. They are gradually being rediscovered by economists and increasingly validated by the evolution of reality.

Human Action exposes them systematically in a language accessible to all, and is also a particularly eloquent defense of freedom beyond even its economic aspect. As such, this book should be part of the library of every “honest man.”