Austrian Economics: An Introduction (Libertarianism.Org Guides)

What if economics began with people?

Choice is an essential feature of the human condition. Every time we embark on a given plan of action, big or small, we make a choice. Whereas many economists model people's behavior using idealized assumptions, economists of the Austrian School don't. The Austrian School of Economics takes people as they are and constructs economic theories by examining the logical structure of the choices they make.

This book explains the Austrian School's insights on a wide range of economic topics and introduces some of its key thinkers. It also explains the relationship between the Austrian School and mainstream economics and delves into the criticisms that Austrian School economists have mounted against communist and socialist economic thought.

Steven Horwitz is the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise and director of the Institute for the Study of Political Economy in the Department of Economics at the Miller College of Business at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He is also an affiliated senior scholar at the Mercatus Center in Arlington, Virginia; a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute of Canada; and Professor of Economics Emeritus at St. Lawrence University in New York, where he taught for 28 years. He has written extensively on Austrian economics, Hayekian political economy, monetary theory and history, and American economic history. His work has been published in professional journals such as the History of Political Economy, the Southern Economic Journal, and the Cambridge Journal of Economics.