About this title: This title includes 4 books in 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 ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Third Revised Edition
Binding: Hardcover in A Dust Jacket
Publisher: Henry Regnery Company, USA / Canada
Date Published: 1963
Description: Good in Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" 907 pages, 7 parts, 39 chapters, clean and tight interior, writing in pen and paencil on the front end paper, light foxing to the edges of content, general wear to the top and bottom of the spine cord on book and dust jacket. Protective plastic cover on dust jacket. read more
Edition: No Edition Stated
Binding: Cloth Hardcover
Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut
Date Published: 1949
Description: Good Plus in Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Gray with black lettering, 889 pages. Minor edge wear and discoloration to the covers. The page edges are lightly tanned and there is a rub mark to the bottom page edges. The pages are very lightly tanned and there is red underlining to about 25 pages at the beginning of the book. DJ has heavy discoloration and foxing. It has a minor edge damage and there is staining to the inside and outside.. read more
Description: Pub by Henry Regnery, 1966. Hardcover, no DJ. 3rd revised edition. Light shelf wear. Inside clean and tight. Very Good + condition. read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly shipped from our UK warehouse using Royal Mail or DHL. International Priority mail for non-UK deliveries. Delivery is typically 2-4 working days for UK delivery. Heavier or more expensive books are shipped with a TRACKING NUMBER. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
Description: New. Please note that deliveries to addresses in the UK and Europe will be in 4-14 business days. Other countries should refer to Alibris standard times. ISBN10: 0865976309. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Liberty Fund Inc., U. S
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780865976306ISBN:0865976309
Description: New. Attributes the 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 en... read more
Binding: Hardcover: Slipcase
Publisher: Liberty Fund
Date Published: 2007-03-01
ISBN-13:9780865976306ISBN:0865976309
Description: NEW. Hardcover: Slipcase. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780865976306. read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly imported from the UK using DHL or Royal Mail international mail WITH TRACKING NUMBER. D elivery is typically 5-10 working days. Please do not select expedited shipping. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE that we do not offer expedited shipping. Orders placed with the priority shipping option will automatically be canceled. ISBN10: 0865976309. 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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