Hi to all of you on the Mises forums!
My name’s Johan , I’m completely new to this forum and I live in Sweden where I’ve studied economics for 2 years now. I joined the Mises forums because during the last 6 months I’ve seen the light (in Austrian economics [:P]). Although downloading lectures from mises.org, reading Austrian writings on random alongside the texts required in school and complementing my daily news-intake with the mises daily articles, have been motivating, I no longer want to treat austrian economics as a thing on the side while I read “proper economics” in school. Starting this summer my aim is to gradually learn proper proper economics (without having it have a too big of a negative impact on my grades) from the bottom up, or in an organized manner.
That leads me to my first question on Mises.org which goes as follows; which books and in which order should I read to get a sound foundation of Austrian economic knowledge… or reasoning. Which field(s) of economics ought I to learn first?
I’ve come to learn that Austrian economics covers not only business cycles but also micro-economics, money- and capital-theory ect. Capital theory is something that we never even touched on in the last class that was lectured here in macro-economics and from what I’ve gathered it’s a vital part to the Austrian business cycle theory.
My second question is about the strategy of how one should read Austrian economics alongside keynsian and neo-classical economics. Should I learn Austrian economics from the groundwork (like Human action?) up to get a rock solid understanding of it or should I take a crash course in the most vital parts first so that I’m vaccinated when I return to the University after the summer?
Like, I’m learning up on the IS-LM-FE chart and I know (both from reading and logic) that both IS and LM lines are based on fundamental flaws but since I’ve never read anything that counters the FE line and since I have a hard time having any instinct notion that contradicts the conclusion drawn from it, I’m on the verge of accepting it as a valid explanation of the currency market (although I know, by now, that everything that has been within 10 feet from Keynes is fishy).
Anyways, I’m thankful for Mises.org for being a calm closet of sanity at the mental institution that is our world these days and for anyone who can make any sense of my scribblings above and help me. I hope I can turn to these forums in the future when my economics needs to be sorted out. Thank you.
Edit: Maybe I should point out economic books that I’ve read. Economics in one lesson - Henry Hazlitt, The Great Depression - Rothbard, Meltdown - Thomas Woods and Bull moves in bear markets - Schiff. Also have The wealth of Nations standing in the bookshelf but I haven’t had the time to read it yet.