Bui Quanh’s Reviews > The Logic of Action One: Method, Money and the Austrian School > Status Update

a) by producing a good or service and exchanging it (“selling it”) for
the money-commodity; (b) by someone else’s free gift; or (c) by pro-
ducing the money-commodity itself. Route (b) will not be dominant in
the economy and, at any rate, it reduces back to the other two methods,
since at some point backward in time the gift process must come to an
end.

Money is the medium of exchange, the asset for which all other
goods and services are traded on the market. If a thing functions as
such a medium, as final payment for other things on the market, then
it serves as part of the money supply.

the nature of
man is such that each individual must use his mind to learn about
himself and the world, to select values, and to choose ends and
means in order to survive and flourish, the right to self-ownership
gives each man the right to perform these vital activities without
being hampered and restricted by coercive molestation.

"the problem, however, is far
deeper. For efficiency only makes sense in regard to people’s ends, and
individuals’ ends differ, clash, and conflict. The central question of
politics then becomes: whose ends shall rule?"

The individual’s ends
will change as he learns from other people; they may also change out of
sheer caprice. But if ends change in the course of an action, the concept
of efficiencywhich can only be defined as the best combination of
means in pursuit of given ends—again becomes meaningless.

"put another way, action is a learning process. As the individual
acts to achieve his ends, he learns and becomes more proficient
about how to pursue them. But in that case, of course, his actions
cannot have been efficient from the start—or even from the end—of
his actions, since perfect knowledge is never achieved, and there is
always more to learn."