glyph 561: hope ... economics, praxeology (a general science of human action . book, Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises, first published in 1949 . discovery of regularity and interconnectedness among all events in society, balances among spontaneous and designed orders (freeorder), profit and loss, economic competition as the highest form of collaboration possible ... fullest use of all knowledge available ... tools for builders of freeorder generators (forges)


 

Economics as a Source of Hope

as seen by Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises, In Human Action, published in 1949, offers hope for a better future for the human race when he notes that economics is only three hundred years old, and is a form of knowledge never before available to us.

From the first paragraph of Human Action:

Economics is the youngest of all sciences. ... The discovery of regularity in the sequence and interdependence of market phenomena went beyond the limits of the traditional system of learning. It conveyed knowledge which could be regarded neither as logic, mathematics, psychology physics, nor biology.

And, from the last paragraph:

The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built. It rests with men whether they will make the proper use of the rich treasure with which this knowledge provides them or whether they will leave it unused. But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race.

If I had to chose only a few books essential to the preparation of forge builders and investors for their work of listening and acting on the edges of an emerging concert of civilizations, arising from the use of the best in all of us, Human Action would be one of those books. -Leif Smith, Explorers Foundation.

The entire Human Action is available here, from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, in digital versions for immediate download without charge:

http://mises.org/library/human-action-0

https://explorersfoundation.org/glyphery/561.html
May 3, 2016; edited/updated January 27, 2020

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