Editing Human Action (section)

{{Short description|Book by Ludwig von Mises}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2023}}
{{Infobox book|
| name              = Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
| image             = File:HumanActionFirst.jpg
| caption           = First edition
| author            = [[Ludwig von Mises]]
| illustrator       = 
| cover_artist      = 
| country           = United States
| language          = English
| subject           = [[Political economy]]
| genre             = 
| publisher         = [[Yale University Press]] (1st and 2nd Edition), [[Regnery Publishing|Regnery]] (3rd Edition), [[Liberty Fund]] (4th Edition), [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]] (Scholar's Edition)
| pub_date          = 1949, 1963, 1966, 1998, 2010
| media_type        = Print (hardback and paperback)
| pages             = 881
| isbn              = 978-0865976313
| oclc              = 730271204
}}

'''''Human Action: A Treatise on Economics''''' is a work by the [[Austrian School|Austrian]] economist and philosopher [[Ludwig von Mises]]. Widely considered Mises' ''[[Masterpiece|magnum opus]]'',<ref>{{cite book |title=Champions of a Free Society: Ideas of Capitalism's Philosophers and Economists |last=Younkins |first=Edward W. |location=Lanham, Maryland |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-0739126479 |oclc=228676591 |page=184}}</ref> it presents the case for [[laissez-faire]] [[capitalism]] based on [[praxeology]], his method to understand the structure of human decision-making. Mises rejected [[positivism]] within economics, and defended an ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' foundation for [[praxeology]], as well as [[methodological individualism]] and laws of self-evident certainty.<ref>{{Cite web |last=kanopiadmin |date=2011-05-31 |title=True Knowledge from A Priori Theory |url=https://mises.org/library/true-knowledge-priori-theory |access-date=2023-02-24 |website=Mises Institute |language=en}}</ref> Mises argues that the free-market economy not only outdistances any government-planned system, but ultimately serves as the foundation of civilization itself.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Tho |date=2019-09-03 |title=Ludwig von Mises's Human Action: Marking 70 Years of Continuing Relevance |url=https://mises.org/wire/ludwig-von-misess-human-action-marking-70-years-continuing-relevance |access-date=2023-02-24 |website=Mises Institute |language=en}}</ref>

''Nationalökonomie: Theorie des Handelns und Wirtschaftens'' is the 1940 German-language predecessor to ''Human Action''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=kanopiadmin |date=2014-08-18 |title=Mises: An Annotated Bibliography |url=https://mises.org/library/mises-annotated-bibliography |access-date=2023-02-24 |website=Mises Institute |language=en}}</ref>

Mises argues that market-generated money prices are essential to determine the most highly valued uses for resources to satisfy consumer demands. He attempts to demonstrate the inconsistencies of piecemeal political intervention in the market economy and the pernicious effects of political control and manipulation of the monetary system. In Mises's view, government interventions that distort market prices always result in misdirections of resources, including labor, and malinvestments of capital, leading to inflationary upswings followed by inevitable economic downturns. Mises believed that the market economy was the only system that provided freedom and personal choice to all members of society while generating the means for coordinating the actions of billions of people in the most economically rational manner, and that monetary manipulation by central banks was one of the most disruptive distortions to the process of economic calculation.<ref name=":0" />