Human Action: The Scholars Edition - Ludwig von Mises Institute

952 Pages·2004·53.14 MB·English

HUMAN ACTION
A Treatise on Economics
BY
LUDWIG VON MISES
LUDWIG VON MISES INSTITUTE
AUBURN, ALABAMA
The Ludwig von Mises Institute gratefully dedicates this
restored Human Action to all its Members who aided in this
historic project, and in particular to the following Patrons:
Mark M. Adamo
Thomas K Armstrong
Tne Ammng Foundation
Richard B. Bleiberg
Dr. John Bratland
Jerome V. Bmni
The Bwni Foundation
Sir John and Lady Dalhoff
John W. Deming
John A. Halter
Mary and George Dewitt Jacob
The Kealiher Family
William Lowndes, 111
Ronald Mandle
Ellice McDonald, Jr., CBE, and Rosa Laird McDonald, CBE
WiimW . Massey, Jr.
Joseph Edward Paul Melville
Roger Miliken
Richard W. Pooley, MD
Sheldon Rose
Gary G. Schlarbaum
Conrad Schneiker
Loronzo H. and Margaret C. Thornson
Quinten E. and Marian L. Ward
Keith S. Wood
The Ludwig von Mises Institute thanks Bettina Bien Greaves for permission to reissue
the first edition of Human Action.
Copyright O 1998 by Bettina Bien Greaves
Introduction Copyright O 1998 by The Ludwig von Mies Institute
Produced and published by The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 518 West Magnolia
Avenue, Auburn, Alabama 36832, [phone]; fax [phone];
[email protected];w ww.mises.org
All rights reserved.
ISBN 0-94546624-2
INTRODUCTION^
TO THE SCHOLAR'S EDITION
0
NCE in a great while, a book appears that both embodies and
dramatically extends centuries of accumulated wisdom in a
particular discipline, and, at the same time, radically challenges the
intellectual and political consensus of the day. Human Action by
Ludwigvon ~Mises(1 881-1973) is such a book, and more: a compre-
hensive treatise on economic science that would lay the foundation
for a massive shift in intellectual opinion that is still working itself
out fifty years after publication. Not even such milestones in the
history of economic thought as Adam Smith's Wealth ofNations,
Alfred Marshall's Principles, Karl Marx's Capital, or John Maynard
Keynes's General The09 can be said to have such enduring signifi-
cance and embody such persuasive power that today's students and
scholars, as much as those who read it when it first appeared, are
so fully drawn into the author's way of thinking. For this reason,
and others discussed below, this Scholar's Edition is the original
1949 magnum opus that represents such a critical turning point in
the history of ideas, reproduced (with a 1954 index produced by
Vernelia Crawford) for the fiftieth anniversary of its initial appear-
ance.
When Human Action first appeared, its distinctive Austrian
SchooI approach was already considered a closed chapter in the
history of thought. First, its monetary and business cycle theory,
pioneered by Mises in 191 2' and extended and applied in the 1920s
and 193O S,~h ad been buried by the appearance of Keynes's General
1. The archives at Yale University Press, Grove City College, and the
Ludwig von Mises Institute provided source material.
2. The Theory ofMonqand Credit, trans. by H.E. Batson (Indianapolis, Ind.:
Liberty Classics, [19 121 1980).
3. Essays can be found in On the Manipulation ofMonq and Credit, trans.
by Bettina Bien Greaves (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Free Market Books, 1978).
vi Human Action
Theory, which gave a facile but appealing explanation of the lingering
global depression. Second, Mises's 1920 demonstration that a socialist
economy was incapable of rational economic calculation4 sparked a
long debate in which the "market socialists" had been widely
perceived to be the eventual victors5 (in part because it became a
debate among Walrasians6).T hird, and fatal for the theoretical core
of the Austrian School, was the displacement of its theory of price,
as originated by Carl Menger in 1871 ' and elaborated upon by Eugen
von Bohm-Bawerk, John Bates Clark, Philip H. Wicksteed, Frankk
Fetter, and Herbert J. Da~en~orAtn.o~t her strain had begun to
develop along the lines spelled out by Menger's other student
Friedrich von Wieser, who followed the Walrasian path of de-
veloping price theory within the framework of general equilibrium.
Wieser was the primary influence on two members of the third
generation of the Austrian School, Hans Mayer and Joseph A.
~chum~eter.'
Members of the fourth generation, including Oskar Lhlorgenstern,
Gottfi-ied von Haberler, Fritz Machlup, and Friedrich k von Hayek,
also tended to follow the Wieserian approach. The crucial influ-
ence on this generation had been Schurnpeter's treatise Das Wesen
und der Hauptinhalt dm Theoretischen Nationalokonomie, published in
4. Economic Cakulation in the Socialist Commonwealth, trans. by S. Adler
(Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, [I9201 1990).
5. Trygve J.B. Hoff, EcmicC ahhtion in the Socialist Sociq, trans. by M A
Michael (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, [I9491 1981).
6. Murray N. Rothbard, "The End of Socialism and the Calculation
Debate Revisited," Review ofAustrian Economics, 5, no. 2 (1991), 51-76.
7. Carl Menger. Principles ofEconmics. trans. by James Dinpall New
York: New York University Press, [I8711 1976).
8. Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, "Grundziige der Theorie des winschaftlichen
Giiterwertes," Jahrhiichw @r Nationaliikonmie und Statistik 13 (1 886), 1-82,
477-541; John Bates Clark, The Dirtribution of Wealth: A Theory of Wages,
Interest, and Profits (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, [I8991 1965); Philip H.
Wicksteed, The Alphabet ofEconmic Sense, Pt. I: Elements of the Theory of Value
or Worth (London: Macmillan, 1888); Frank A. Fetter, Eonomic Principler
(New York: The Century Co., 191 5); Herbert J. Davenport, The Economics of
Enterprise (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, [I913 1 1968).
9. The two economists for whom Schumpeter felt the "closest affinity"
were Walras and Wieser; see Fritz Machlup, "Joseph Schumpeter's
Economic Methodology," in idem., Methodology of Economics and Other Social
Sciences (New York: Academic Press, 1978), p. 462.
Introduction to the Scholar's Edition vii
1908."This bookwas a general treatment ofthe methodological and
theoretical issues of price theory from a Walrasian perspective. Apart
from Wieser's writings, it was the only "Austrian" workofpure theory
to appear prior to Mises's Nationalokonomie, the German-language
predecessor to Human Action. For the young economists studying
in Vienna, and despite criticisms by Bohrn-Bawerk, Schumpeter's
book became a guide to the future of the science. As Morgenstern said,
"the work was read avidly in Vienna even long after the First World
War, and its youthful freshness and vigor appealed to the young
student s.... [Llike many others in my generation I resolved to read
everything Schumpeter had written and would ever write.""
After Bohm-Bawerk's death in 191 4, no full-time faculty member
at the University of Vienna was working stricdy within a Mengerian
framework, while Mises's status as a Privatdozent diminished his
academic standing. Prior to the geographical dispersal of the school
in the mid-1930s,12m oreover, none of the members of these latter
generations had achieved international recognition, particularly
among English-speaking economists, on the order of Bohm-Baw-
erk. After the retirement of Clark, Wicksteed, Fetter, and Davenport
from the debate on pure theory by 1920, the School's influence on
the mainstream of Anglo-American economics declined precipi-
tously. This left the field of high theory, particularly in the United
States, completely open to a Marshallian ascendancy.
In Germany, the long night of domination by the anti-theoreti-
cal German Historical School was coming to an end, but the book
that reawakened the theoretical curiosity of German economists after
the First World War was Gustav Cassel's Theoretische Sozialokonomie,
which offered a verbal rendition of Walrasian price theory.13 In the
Romance countries of France and Italy, Mengerian price theory never
10. Schumpeter's translation of the title: The hTatzlrea nd bmce of Theoretical
Econumics(Munich and Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1908). This book coins
the phrase "methodological individualism."
11 . SelectedEconomic Writingsof OskarMmgenstern,e d. Andrew Schotter (New
York: New York University Press, 19 76), p. 196.
12. Earlene Craver, "The Emigration of ,4ustrian Economists," Histoly of
Political Economy, 18 (Spring 1987), 1-3 0.
13. Gustav Cassel, The Theory ofsocial Economy (2d ed. New York Harcourt,
Bracc and Company, 1932). As Mises wrote, "The decade-long neglect of
theoretical studies had led to the remarkable result that the German public
.. .
vlu Human Action
achieved a firm foothold and, by the 1920s, it had been shunted
aside by the Lausanne School and Marshallian-style neoclassicism.
By the rnid- 193Os, the Austrian School had melted away in Ausma as
more attractive prospects abroad or the looming National Socialist
threat drove the leading Austrian economists to emigrate to Great
Britain (Hayek), the United States (Machlup, Haberler, and LMor-
genstern), and Switzerland (Mises). Hayek was well positioned to spark
a revival of Mengerian theory in Great Britain, but having been a
student of Wieser rather than ~iihm-~awerk,h'e~ saw the core of
economics as the "pure logic of choice," which could be represented
by the timeless equations of general equilibrium.15I n the end,
Walrasian general equilibrium theory was imported into Great
Britain by John R. Hicks under Hayek's influence.'"
In addition, analytical deficiencies internal to the pre-Misesian
approach contributed to the sharp decline of the Austrian School
after the First World War. The Austrians themselves lacked the
analyucal wherewithal to demonstrate that the timeless and mon-
eyless general equilibrium approach and the one-at-a-time Mar-
shallian approach-the analytical pyrotechnics of the 1930s
notwithstanding-are both plainly and profoundly irrelevant to a
must look to a foreigner, the Swede Gustav Cassel, for a principled explanation
of the problems of economic life." Ludwig von Mises, "Carl Menger and the
Austrian School of Economics," Azmian Economire An AntholoP , ed. Bettina
Bien Greaves Qrvington-on-EIudsoi~, N.Y.: Foundation or Economic
Education, 1996), p. 52.
14. Hayek himself explicitly distinguished between "the two original
branches of the Austrian School," the Bohm-Bawerkian and the Wieserian,
and characterized himself as an adherent of the latter branch. See F.A. Hayek,
"Coping with Ignorance" in idem, Knowledge, Evolution, and Society (London:
Adam Smith Institute, 1983), pp. 17-18; and The Collected Works of F.A.
Hayek, vol. 4: The Fortunes cof Liberalism: Ersays on Awwian Economics and the
Ideal of Freedom, ed. Peter Klein (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1992), p. 157.
15 . See FAH ayek, "Economics and Knowledge," in idem, Individmlljrn and
LGonmic Ordw (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, [I9481 1972), pp. 33 -56.
16. See Bruna Ingrao and Giorgio Israel, The Invkible Hand: Economic
&ilibrium in the Hhory $Science (Boston: MIT Press, 1990), for a perceptive
description of Hayek's crucial role in the early development of the
Anglo-American version of general equilibrium theory (pp. 232-235). Hayek
himself regarded the analysis of value theory in Hick's Value and Capital in terms
of marginal rates of substitution and indifference curves as "the ultimate
statement of more than a half a century's discussion in the tradition of the
Austrian School." The Fortunes of LiberalIjm, pp. 53-54.
Introduction to the Scholar-'sE dition ix
central problem of economic theory: explaining how monetary
exchange gives rise to the processes of economic calculation that are
essential to rational resource allocation in a dynamic world." Thus,
after a period of remarkable development and influence from 187 1
to 1914, by the early 1930s the Austrian School was on the edge of
extinction.
Mises was fully cognizant of this unfortunate state of affairs
when he emigrated to Switzerland in 1934. Ensconced at the
Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, for the first
time he could fully focus his attention on academic research. Mises
used this opportunity to write Nntionalokonmie, a book that in-
tended to revive the Mengerian approach and elaborate it into a
complete and unified system. As evidence of the importance that
Mises attached to this book, and of the time and energy he poured
into it, he wrote very little else in the years leading up to its
publication in 1940. Previously an enormously prolific writer, the
extent of his output from 1934 to 1939 was comparatively meager:
in addition to book reviews, short memos, newspaper and maga-
zine articles, notes, and introductions, there was only one substan-
tial article for an academic audience.18
Retrospectively describing his purpose in writing XatimaZokono-
mie, Mises left no doubt that he sought to address the two burning
issues left unresolved by the founders of the Austrian School: the
status of the equilibrium construct and the bifurcation of monetary
and value theory. "I try in my treatise," Mises wrote, "to consider
the concept of static equilibrium as instrumental only and to make
use of this purely hypothetical abstraction only as a means of ap-
proaching an understanding of a continuously changing world.""
Regarding his effort to incorporate money into the older Austrian
theoretical system, -ises identified his immediate inspiration as his
17. See Joseph T. Salerno, "The Place of Human Action in the History of
Economic 'Thought," Quarterly3oumal ofAwtrian Economics, 2, no. I (1999).
18. See Bettina Bien Greaves and Robert W. McGee, comps., Mises: An
Annotated Biblio apby (Inington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic
Education, 196, pp. 4141, for a listing of Mires's published and
unpublished writings in these years.
19. Y/Iv Contributions to Economic Theory," in Mises, Planning fur
Freedom and Sixteen Other fisays and Addruses (4th cd. South Holland, 111.:
Libertarian Press, 1980), pp. 2 3 0-23 1.
x Human Action
opponents in the socialist calculation debate of the 1930s. These
economic theorists, under the influence of the general equilibrium
approach, advocated the mathematical solution to the problem of
socialist calculation. As Mises argued: "They failed to see the very
first challenge: How can economic action that always consists of
preferring and setting aside, that is, of making unequal valuations,
be transformed into equal valuations, and the use of equations?'do
But without an adequate theory of monetary calculation, which
ultimately rests upon a unified theory of a money-exchange econ-
omy, Mises realized that there could be no definitive refutation of
the socialist position. Accordingly, Mises revealed: "LVationalokono-
mie finally afforded me the opportunity to present the problems
of economic calculation in their full significance. ... I had merged
the theory of indirect exchange with that of direct exchange into
a coherent system of human a~tion."~'
Thus, Nationalb2onomie marked the culmination of the Austrian
theoretical approach, and, in a real sense, the rebirth of the
Austrian SchooI of economics. It was designed to play a decisive
role in reconstructing the whole of economic science in its moment
of crisis, including reformulating and unifylng price theory, mone-
tary theory, and business cycle theory, and at the same time
establishing the correct methodological foundations of the social
sciences. Using this mighty architectonic of economic theory,
Mises formulated a radical and impermeable defense of laissez-
faire policy conclusions that were distinctly unfashionable when
the book first appeared.
M
ISES was uniquely prepared to undertake such a radical task
Beginning in 1912, during a long tenure as economic advisor
and chief economist of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, Mises
produced a steady stream of works in economic and political
theory. The publication of his first treatise, Theorie des Geldes und
20. Notes and Recolkctim, trans. by Hans F. Sennholz (South Holland, Ill.:
Libertarian Press, 1978), p. 112.
2 1. Ibid.
Introdzlttiim to the Scholar's Edition xi
der Umlaufmittel(19 12) was followed by Nation, Staat und Wirt-
schafi (19 19), Die Gemeinwirtschaf2 (19 22), Liberalismw (1 92 7),
Geldwertstabilisierzlng and Konjunktulpolitik (1 929 € , Kritik des Inter-
ventionism~( 1929), and Grundprobleme der Nationaliikonomie
(193 3).*' Among the professional public, these works earned Mises a
reputation as a leading monetary theorist and defender of the gold
standard, and as an outstanding critic of socialism and proponent of
laissez-faire capitalism. In academia, he was also recognized as the
heir to the intellectual tradition of ~Mengera nd Bohrn-Bawerk, and
a leading defender of the deductive method in the social sciences
against the claims of historicists. However, outside the circle of the
participants in his Privatsmina7; the ('Misq-Ki-eis, the philosophical
''j
depth and systematic breadth of Mises's work was rarely acknow-
ledged or recognized. Even his students and friends, who beginning
in 1920 met regularly every two weeks in his Chamber of Com-
merce office, had at best only an inkling of ,Wses's systematic
ambition. From book to book, they witnessed the appearance of the
successive building blocks of a Misesian system. But when Mises left
Vienna in 1934 to move to Geneva, even they could not have had
more than a vague notion of how to fit these pieces into a unified
whole. Mises was fifty-eight years old when Nationalbkonomie:
Theorie des Handelm and Wirts~haftensa~p~pe ared. It was Mises's
crowning intellectual achievement and the sum of his scholarly
life. At long last, this book should have established him as the
foremost German-language economist and social theorist of his
generation.
22. The Theory $Money and Credit; Nation, State, and Economy, trans. by
Leland B. Yeager (New York: New York University Press, [I9191 1983);
Socialism: An Economic and SocioIopcalAm&sk, trans. by J. Kahane (Indianapolis,
Ind.: Liberty Classics, [I9221 1981); Liberah:In the CWTr*, trans. by
Ralph Raico (lrvmgton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education,
[I9271 1985); "Monetary Stabilization and Cyclical Policy," in Mises, On the
Manipulation of Monq and Credit; A Critique of Internentionism, trans. by
Hans F. Sennholz (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, [I9291 1977);
Epistemological Problems of Economics, trans. by George Reisman (New York:
New York University Press, [I933 1 1976).
23. Which included such outstanding scholars as Gotdried von Haberler,
F.A. Hayek, Felix Kaufmann, Fritz Machlup, Oskar Morgenstern, Paul N.
Rosenstein-Rodan, Alfred Schiitz, Richard von Strigl, and Erich VoegeIin.
24. (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, [I9401 1980).