title: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
author:  Ludwig von Mises 
description: <strong><em>Human Action: A Treatise on Economics</em></strong> is a good representation of the Austrian School of Economics that had a great influence in the development of economic liberalism after the Cold War. The great paradox of this movement is similar to that found in other representations of this time like Popper or Hayek himself, to know/find out: Up to what point do these type of economic theories they elaborate upon try to give some answer to the collective economies of Communism, to those put into place post Cold War or are they simply suggested in a social and political context of successive economic crises of liberal experiments at the beginning of the century, especially after the convulsions of the 1920s. . . .In effect <strong><em>Human Action</em></strong> may have discovered some anthropological universals that would permit justification for the behavior of 'homo oeconomicus' situated at either a local or global level. It would change the context upon which their theories are projected these days, not the problems they try to resolve.<br /><br />Carlos Ortiz de Landazuri<br />2007<br />
zlib_text: REFLECTIONS ON HUMAN ACTION
  AFTER 50 YEARS
  Vernon L. Smith
  The core of Ludwig von Mises’ thought is the theory of human
  action, or praxeology, the general science he seeks to articulate. Within
  this general science is included—embedded in it—catallactics, or the
  science of exchange (Mises [1949] 1996: 1–3; hereafter M). Conse-
  quently, to Mises everything we seek to study in economics stems
  ultimately from individual choice, the key to which is subjectivist
  economics (stemming from the 1870s revolution by Menger, Jevons,
  and Walras). Thus, ‘‘Choosing determines all human decisions. In
  making his choice man chooses not only various material things and
  services. All human values are offered for option. All ends and all
  means . . . are ranged in a single row and subjected to a decision
  which picks out one thing and sets aside another’’ (M, p. 3). Moreover,
  ‘‘Human action is necessarily always rational’’ (M, p. 19). For Mises
  this is a truth, not a hypothesis to be tested that can be right