My knowledge of Austrian Economics is limited to Rothbard’s works The Ethics of Liberty, For a New Liberty, and sections of Power & Market. I know he was highly influenced my Mises and I would like to start tackling some of his works. I just want to get a general feel for his theory of economic thought. What book(s) should I start with? Should I jump right in to Human Action? Or should I read certain sections of it? Or should I start off with something simpler? Thanks for your advice!
Economics In One Lesson, which is pretty basic and you might be past it, and Theory & History and Human Action.
I’ve heard good things about Profit and Loss, by Mises, which is supposed to be quite a good summary/introduction to Mises’ system and writing. He’s different to Rothbard, but if you like him you should like Mises too. They’re like two very different but delicious drinks, one of them easier to the tongue at first, but the other with a resounding long lasting taste…
Nobody usually mentions Mises’ Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, but I think it is a good read as well.
I’m of the opinion that you should save alot of time and just cut to the root. Start with HA, take your time with it. Read it in addition to other books. Maybe set goals, 10 pages a night or something. Human Action will clear up alot of stuff. Then go back and read anything else you desire. 
“My knowledge of Austrian Economics is limited to Rothbard’s works The Ethics of Liberty, For a New Liberty, and sections of Power & Market.”
These don’t actually have really anything to do with Austrian Economics, bar P&M. What you are referring to is Libertarianism, which is a political philosophy.
In that case, what would you reccommend as a good introduction to Austrian Economics? (I’ve read Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt)
I second the plug for Profit and Loss.
Third, for Profit and Loss.
It actually is not an introduction insomuch as an important further explanation of what growth is vs. stasis or true stagnation.
It is worth re-reading after reading Human Action.
Sure. Well here is some videos.
Otherwise - Man, Economy & State (MES) with study guide, Human Action, or What has government done to our money?.
Or Economics for Real People - Callahan.
As someone who is currently trying to tackle Human Action I can tell you its probably a bad idea. Mises was a great economist but nonetheless I consider his magnum opus to be incredibly disorganized and hard to follow, even with the study guide. Often Mises goes on long ramblings about nothing very much and spends a great deal of time chasing hairs while just zooming by some of his more important concepts. What angers me the most is his tendancy to, every so often and in the middle of sections seemingly unrelated, go off on rants against other philosophers/economists in a disorganized and unproffesional way. This is how I feel about Human Action a little over 200 pages and 10 chapters in.
This is so here’s what I recomend: Get human action PDF and the study guide, but only read those chapters which you wish to learn specifically about or are confused on, but also pick up MES and its study guide, read it from cover to cover. That’s if you want to become well acquainted with Austrian economics in general, but if you want to read Mises specifically I’d read some of his other works.
TLAR, this is my response to your last post.
Mises was a polymath. His discussions typically make sense in the context of the debates and interests of his day, especially in the first section, as it touches upon a domain the history of which I am familiar with. Mises is brilliant in taking stock of the broader context of his writings and addressing possible responses with which one might counter. His text is refreshing compared to dry academic texts with little to no broader learning invested in them. I’d agree it may be better to leave Mises for later, but that’s because to appreciate HA you need a broader understanding of the topic to realise he is not just rambling.
Hoo boy, he sure hit your berserk button with that one, didn’t he, Grayson? I have honestly never seen you respond to someone like that.
That said, I’m going to have to agree with Lilburne, though not with such vigor. In my own personal experience, not understanding Mises simply means that you’re the one missing the point, not him. To pick on myself, I really had trouble understanding the relevance of praxeology. So, I dropped HA for a while, read Economics In One Lesson as well as some stuff around here, and now that I’m coming back to HA I’m finding it much clearer and easier to follow.
When I first read Human Action, I was enthralled with the writing. I remember thinking to myself how much Mises had read, and how great his erudition was. How effortlessly Mises was able to present opposing arguments and then deconstruct them in such an amazing and logical manner. In fact, after reading the first 230 pages or so, I remember thinking that I wished that these pages could be distributed throughout each school and every child should read them(that is of course if I believed in compulsory schooling.)
The next parts of the book were a bit harder for me to digest, but I think it is because my education comes from a philosophy background with little formal economics so it all wasn’t as clear at first. be that as it may though, it was still facsinating and I recall having a number of aha moments like never before. In short, I think reading Human Action is the best intro to Mises for a student. Though I had read Bureacracy beforehand nothing compared to the immense delight I felt upon reading HA it was truly a loving reading experience I felt nowhere else.
This statement rings very true with me.
I started reading HA only after following the Mises blog a bit. After reading a few other books and learning from discussions on these forums, it seems like there is a lot less rambling. The philosophical debates about methodology are very important and really help to show what’s right/wrong/good/bad/essential to theories of economics.
At first, it did seem like there were sections of the book that were just rambling, especially towards the start of the book. As I learned about the importance of methodology, it became apparent to me that it was all very relevant.
I strongly agree with Grayson. HA is like a granite foundation for the Austrian school.
“TLAR, this is my response to your last post.”
Mmm. Thanks for that. I’m not going to respond per se as I can see no possible resolution to this disagreement as my argument was basically “the book is poorly organized and difficult to read” and your response was basically “the book is expertly organized”. I’d simply like to say, thank you for reminding me why its always a good idea to use the spell check and simply because I feel that sections of a book are disorganized and organized improperly does not mean that I misunderstand or disagree with the concepts that are presented, I should have thought that I made it plain that I agree with most of the content thus far but I don’t like the way that the book is organized.
Also, as you stated I do certainly recognize that much of the text in organization is somewhat due to the time period he wrote the text, but this does not imply that any of my complaints are incorrect in the modern day.
Human Action is definitely not easy; and I honestly can hardly compare it to any other books I have ever read. I’ve been attending a MES study group recently and what is interesting though entirely understandable, it is that those who are not quite sure about the metaphysical or methodological soundness of the entire approach Rothbard is taking are often the same people who have avoided reading Mises, because of what they perceived as too many philosophical diversions and sidetracks. I admire rigour, and step by step argumentation from first principles, and in these stylistic aspects I find Mises’ Human Action similar to Landau and Lifshitz’s Mechanics, another beautiful, yet not one of the most user friendly of books in a different field.
It is important to not overlook these types of books, even though they seem closed at first.