Human Action

Brand, who's gonna come up and keep these guys busy with questions and, uh, human action.

Uh, Stephan Kinsella, who's, uh, come across from the US.

Thank you, Stephan.

I think that Rahim's point about understanding also the re-- like the real co-- real context that we live in are super important about power relations and things like that.

But especially Knut, like you have actually written a book on praxeology.

So, uh, economics as a science of human action, what's wrong with all these e-econometric models and all these, uh, general, like general, general equilibrium models? Why human action? Why is it important? Aren't hu-humans just atoms that can be modeled out?

Uh, well, the, the thing is, wh-when I grew up, um, I always, uh, thought mathematics and physics made sense in school, whereas the, uh, the social sciences made way less sense.

And when I discovered, uh, Austrian economics, it's, it's sort of like, "Aha, this is how it works," and you can actually derive truths from this without, without like pretending that it's something that it isn't.

You could check out, um, I mean, so this book is the, I don't know which I'd recommend it.

It's called human action by Mises.

This is like the Bible of Austrian economics.

So this will teach you about everything.

related to Austrian economics and Praxeology, which is the science of human action.

Very difficult book though.

So like I would say that one, save that one for after you've cut your teeth on some of the easier books.

He blends in a lot of ancient philosophy.

You could check out, um, I mean, so this book is the, I don't know which I'd recommend it.

It's called human action by Mises.

This is like the Bible of Austrian economics.

So this will teach you about everything.

related to Austrian economics and Praxeology, which is the science of human action.

Very difficult book though.

So like I would say that one, save that one for after you've cut your teeth on some of the easier books.

And he blends in a lot of ancient philosophy.

if we can get the readers to this point oh my god that's like that's the thing like i never knew i was gonna become a jesus freak through philosophy You want to know about human action? Here's the guy.

Yeah, you would say music is in action.

Yes.

one.

I just said it's a right measure made alive.

It's essentially differences held together in the right proportion, or natural law fitted to human action.

Like, again like it has to be action has to be human has to be living you know dynamic like it can't be static as soon as you say this thing is uh is static or you're just like

yeah

[laughs] There's no way.

I've made it sure I will never read Das Kapital or Human Action, just to kind of keep a good balance.

Uh, summaries-

[laughs]

For if one can obtain a larger sum in the future by sacrificing a smaller one at the present, why then is the capitalist not engaged in more saving than he actually is? Why does he not hire more laborers than he does if each one of them promises additional return? The answer again should be obvious, because the capitalist is a consumer too and cannot help being one.

The amount of his savings and investing is restricted by the necessity that he too, like the laborer, requires a supply of present goods large enough to secure the satisfaction of all those wants, the satisfaction of which during the waiting time is considered more urgent than the advances which his still greater lengthening in a period of time production could provide.

What is wrong with Marx's theory of exploitation then is that he does not understand the phenomenon of time preference as a universal human categor- uh, a universal category of human action.

That the laborer does not receive his full worth has nothing to do with exploitation, but merely reflects the fact that it is impossible for man to exchange future goods against present ones except at a discount.

All right.

So if you haven't watched it already, I would strongly encourage you before you dive into this particular episode of The Bob Murphy Show, I would encourage you to go look up the episode I did for the Human Action Podcast.

where I explained why Mises thought fractional reserve banking per se caused the business cycle.

So I'll link to it in the show notes page, of course, here.

And, again, you're listening to bobmurphyshow.com slash 529 if you want to go and see all the links here that I'm going to be alluding to as we go through this.

So, again, if you haven't seen that, I would strongly encourage you to do it because – For example, I get into where Mises put the treatment of the business cycle in human action.

He put it in the section dealing with the pure market economy, whereas Rothbard didn't do that.

Rothbard, in Man, Economy, and State, put his treatment of what we call Austrian business cycle theory in the government intervention section.