The Logic of Action One: Method, Money and the Austrian School

by Murray N. Rothbard

In this, the first of two volumes, Murray Rothbard - one of the major figures in twentieth-century Austrian economics - argues with clarity and force that economics is a deductive science based on the fundamental realities of action, scarcity and the passage of time. Such conviction is demonstrated in the first part of this book, where Professor Rothbard analyses method. The second part focuses on some of the theoretical debates within the Austrian school, including property and justice rights, welfare economics, value and efficiency. In the third section Rothbard considers the Austrian approach to money and calculation, including discussion of the definition of the supply of money, freely floating exchange rates and calculation and its role under socialism. This latest volume of Murray Rothbard's work goes some way to represent the important contributions he made to the field. The second volume of Murray Rothbard's essays on Austrian economics is also available.

Genres: Economics

480 pages, Hardcover

Published November 4, 1997

About the author

Murray Newton Rothbard was an influential American historian, natural law theorist and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism. Rothbard took the Austrian School's emphasis on spontaneous order and condemnation of central planning to an individualist anarchist conclusion, which he termed "anarcho-capitalism".

In the 1970s, he assisted Charles Koch and Ed Crane to found the Cato Institute as libertarian think tank.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FIRST VOLUME OF A COLLECTION OF ROTHBARD'S ECONOMIC WRITINGS

Murray Newton Rothbard (1926-1995) was an American economist, historian and political theorist. He was a prominent exponent of the Austrian School of economics in this country and a key figure in the American libertarian movement. His major work in economics was 'Man, Economy and State.' This posthumous collection (see also 'The Logic of Action II: Applications and Criticism from the Austrian School') contains a diverse collection of his writings on economics.

Identifying himself as "an Aristotelian and neo-Thomist" (Pg. 64), Rothbard makes a rare criticism of his mentor, Ludwig von Mises, noting that "Mises, not only as a praxeologist but also as a utilitarian liberal, could have no word of criticism against these statist measures ONCE the majority of the public take their praxeological consequences into account and choose them anyway..."; if, for example, a majority decided to murder all redheads, "How could Mises rebut this proposed policy either as a praxeologist or as a utilitarian liberal? I submit that he could not do so." (Pg. 97)

He disparages Hayek's "vaporings" in spontaneous order, knowledge, evolution, etc., "for which he is unfortunately revered by most current Austrians." (Pg. 113) Later, he rejects Hayek's "bizarre scheme" for private competing currencies as having "opened the Pandora's Box of money-crankism." (Pg. 154)

He criticizes observers of the current Austrian school, who have "unthinkingly assumed" that because "the works of Don Lavoie or Ludwig M. Lachmann came later in time than those of Ludwig von Mises, that they must be better..." (Pg. 115) He argues that "the correct Austrian paradigm is and can only be the Misean, that is, the paradigm of Misean praxeology; that the competing Austrian paradigms... have been both fallacious and pernicious." (Pg. 118) He dismisses Israel Kirzner, who "kept a very low Austrian profile at New York University." (Pg. 170)

Opinionated, but always most lively and thought-provoking, this very helpful collection of Rothbard's writings will be of great interest to Austrians, libertarians, and some free market economists.