www.GetPedia.com *More than 150,000 articles in the search database *Learn how almost everything works PLEASE READ THIS PAGE BEFORE PROCEEDING This is a searchable file which reproduces, almost perfectly, the whole of the fourth edition of Ludwig von Mises’s masterpiece Human Action. Below is a meta- contents, as it were, which shows how to reach both the book’s contents proper and also items not listed in the Contents, such as the front and back covers and two Forewords. Front Cover 2 Spine 3 Back Cover 4 Half-Title Page 5 Portrait of von Mises 6 Title Page 7 Publication Facts 8 Foreword to 4 th Edition 9 Foreword to 3 rd Edition 11 Contents 13 Index 911 Three points to remember: 1) This book is fully searchable. That means all you have to do is press “Control F,” which is the standard Windows search button, type in the word or words you’re looking for, in the window that pops up, and press the “Enter” key. That will bring you to the first instance of that word. Thereafter, you can either click on the “Find Again” button that appears or press “Alt F.” In this way, you could locate each and every instance of the word “praxeology,” say, or the words “state of affairs,” or whatever word or series of words you might want to find. 2) The Contents in the book, like these “meta-contents,” above, are interactive, in the sense that if you rest your mouse pointer on an entry and click the left-key of your mouse, you will immediately be taken to the page where that entry appears. To return, right-click on the mouse. You may have to right-click more than once, in order to return. If you browse to any extent after reaching the entry you want, your best bet to get back to the Contents may be to return to the page you’re now on—the very first page in the whole document, and then click on Contents, above. Or, after reading the very next point to remember, you could enter the specific page in the contents that you wanted to reach, which would be a page with a number from 13 to 24. 3) To reach any page referred to in the index to Human Action, add 24, in order to compensate for the pages through and including the book’s two Forewords and the Contents, and then type that number in the little box near the lower left-hand corner of the screen. This is the box which tells you now, for example, that you’re on 1 of 930— i.e., page 1 of 930 pages. Simply replace that information with the page number you want to go to, and press the “Enter” key. Voila! You’ll be transported to that page. But remember, to get to the page you actually want to go to, say, page 810, you have to add 24, so you’ll enter 834 in this case. Enjoy the book! G EORGE REISMAN [...]... edition Two translations of the first edition of Human Action have come out: an Italian translation by Mr Tuilio Bagiotti, Professor at the Universita Bocconi in Milano, under the title L’Azione Umana, Trattato di economia, published by the Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese in 1959; and a Spanish-language translation by Mr Joaquin Reig Albiol under the title La Accion Humana (Tratado de Econo mia),... The Root of the Stabilization Idea 212 214 217 219 223 Chapter XIII Monetary Calculation as a Tool of Action 1 Monetary Calculation as a Method of Thinking 229 2 Economic Calculation and the Science of Human 231 PART FOUR CATALLATICS OR ECONOMICS OF THE MARKET SOCIETY Chapter XIV The Scope and Method of Catallactics 1 The Delimitation of Catallactic Problems ... revolt against economics Thomas Carlyle branded economics a “dismal science,” and Karl Marx stigmatized the economists as “the sycophants of the bourgeoisie.” Quacks—praising their patent medicines and short cuts to an earthly paradise—take pleasure in scorning economics as “orthodox” and “reactionary.” Demagogues pride themselves on what they call their victories over economics The “practical” man boasts... dealt with as such Part One Human Action I ACTING MAN 1 Purposeful Action and Animal Reaction H action is purposeful behavior Or we may say: Action is will put into operation and transformed into an agency, is aiming at ends and goals, is the ego’s meaningful response to stimuli and to the conditions of its environment, is a person’s conscious adjustment to the state of the universe that determines... this treatise places economic problems within the broad frame of a general theory of human action At the present stage both of economic thinking and of political discussions concerning the fundamental issues of social organization, it is no longer feasible to isolate the treatment of catallactic problems proper These problems are only a segment of a general science of human action and must be dealt... remained a science of the “economic” aspects of human action, a theory of wealth and selfishness It dealt with human action only to the extent that it is actuated by what was —very unsatisfactorily—described as the profit motive, and it asserted that there is in addition other human action whose treatment is the task of other disciplines The transformation of thought which the classical economists had... acknowledge these facts does not mean that present-day economics is backward It merely means that economics is a living thing—and to live implies both imperfection and change The reproach of an alleged backwardness is raised against economics from two different points of view There are on the one hand some naturalists and physicists who censure economics for not being a natural science and not applying the... kind of human action Choosing determines all human decisions In making his choice man chooses not only between various material things and services All human values are offered for option All ends and all means, both material and ideal issues, the sublime and the base, the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row and subjected to a decision which picks out one thing and sets aside another... government and statesmanship Speculative minds drew ambitious plans for a thorough reform and reconstruction of society The more modest were satisfied with a collection and systematization of the data of historical experience But all were fully convinced that there was in the course of social events no such regularity and invariance of phenomena as had already been found in the operation of human reasoning and... Spinoza’s dictum: Sane sicut lux se ipsam et tenebras manifestat, sic veritas norma sui et falsi est However, the situation is not quite the same with regard to economics as it is with mathematics and the natural sciences Polylogism and irrationalism attack praxeology and economics Although they formulate their statements in a general way to refer to all branches of knowledge, it is the sciences of human . Monetary Calculation as a Tool of Action 1 Monetary Calculation as a Method of Thinking . . . . . . . . . 229 2 Economic Calculation and the Science of Human . . . . . . . . 231 PART FOUR CATALLATICS. . . . . . . . . 10 PART ONE HUMAN ACTION Chapter I. Acting Man 1 Purposeful Action and Animal Reaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2 The Prerequisites of Human Action . . . . . . . . Professor at the Universita Bocconi in Milano, under the title L’Azione Umana, Trattato di economia, published by the Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese in 1959; and a Spanish-language translation