Austrian Authors

Miscellaneous General
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1

Hello,

I must admit that most of my knowledge comes from downloaded lectures I did listen to. I recall having listened to Hoppe, Raico, Salerno, Gordon and a view others. So far I peaked into only a few texts of Austrian authors like Boehm-Bawerk, von Wieser. I read the first half of Mengers principles of Economics and I will read Mises Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science for a project (on the underlying philosophy).

I would like to read more from Friedrich von Wieser. But are there other Austrian Authors and works you would recommend for reading? I would like to hear about your opinions.

2

It depends on what you want to read up on specifically. The Austrian School comprises of more than economics nowadays. I would recommend the following:

On Economics:

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and Individualism and the Economic Order

Menger’s Principles

Boehm-Bawerk’s Karl Marx and the Close of his System

Mises’s Human Action and Socialism

Rothbard’s Man, Economy and State (with Power and the Market) and The Mystery of Banking

Reisman’s Capitalism

Hoppe’s The Myth of National Defence

Once you have waded through the classics, writings by modern Austrians such as Boettke, de Soto, Huelsmann, Garrison etc. are useful to give an up-to-date image of the Austrian School’s preoccupations.

On method:

Mises’s The Epistemological Problems of Economics and The Ultimate Foundations of the Economic Science

Hollis’ and Nell’s Rational Economic Man (note: they are not Austrians, but the book supports the Austrian method)

Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Economic Science and the Austrian Method

You should also pay careful attention to articles on Aristotelianism and Austrianism. Personally I think these give a better account of the deductive method than Mises (e.g.http://www.veritasnoctis.net/docs/aristotelianapriorism.pdf) .

On ethics and political economy:

Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s The Economics and Ethics of Private Property and Democracy - The God that Failed

Rothbard’s For a New Liberty and The Ethics of Liberty

Jan Narveson’s The Libertarian Idea (not explicitly Austrian, but the work is invaluable)

Jan Lester’s Escaping Leviathan (same as above)

Chris Sciabbara’s Total Freedom: Towards a Dialectical Libertarianism

David Gordon’s Resurrecting Marx

Kevin Carson also occasionally has some good articles on Austrian themes (e.g. http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/econn/econn102.pdf, http://www.mutualist.org/id45.html)

The list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a good start.

3

Aside from reading articles at Mises.org and LewRockwell.com, my first real foray into Austrian economics consisted of reading two Rothbard books online about 7 years ago: Power and Market, and What Has Government Done to Our Money? After that I was hooked. Now, I’m working my way through Man, Economy and State.

4

FWIW, if you liked Raico, then I also recommend the lectures by Livingston and Higgs. Particularly “The Rise of the Nation State” by Livingston.

5

Thanks I’ve done that

… and listened yesterday to this particularly to this specific lecture. Actually this puts the Nation-State (and the social order that came before it) into a new light. It makes me more interested into the social theory that existed before the modern era.

In another matter, today I copied my mises.org collection of eBooks on a DVD for an importer here in South Africa.

6

Don’t neglect History!

Conceived in Liberty - Rothbard

The Real Lincoln, How Capitalism saved America - Thomas J. DiLorenzo

And I haven’t keept track of what all Thomas E. Woods Jr Has written. I have read several of his books, and his are the ones I generally lend out to potential Liberals.