What Human Action Has Meant to Me: Reflections of a Young Economist

BY PETER T. LEESON

remember well when I discovered Human Action. rarely did in those days when I completed a book: I I remember because it has had the profoundest opened up to page one and began reading it again. Iinfluence on my development as an economist not Over the next year I read Human Action many only up to that point, but also since then. times—exactly how many times, I don’t remember. But I first read Human Action when I was in high school. it got to the point where I could, in a matter of sec- At the time I was very much interested in, and influ- onds, flip to most any decent-sized passage I sought in enced by, supply-side . One of the supply- the book without looking at the table of contents or siders I was reading (maybe it was George Gilder or index. In the years that followed I read Human Action Paul Craig Roberts?) referenced ’s some more, and then again.As I learned more econom- treatise, which I subsequently picked up. ics—from Mises’s other works and My first days with the book were those of other economists—and tough going, to say the least. I needed learned more in general, I came to bet- a dictionary and an encyclopedia of ter understand those parts of Human philosophy by my side to make sense of Action that I formerly found impene- the first few chapters, which discuss trable and developed a better grasp of Mises’s method. I made it through the those parts of the book I had under- methodological discussion but under- stood only weakly before. stood little of it. Fortunately, I didn’t As is probably clear from my let that stop me from continuing with description, I found, and still find, the book, the rest of which I found Human Action an endlessly rewarding somewhat easier to digest. and illuminating book. In my opinion In the days and weeks that followed I The author with his Human Action it is the most important book on eco- read Human Action with a dedication I’d collection. nomics of the twentieth century and never applied to a book before. I kept careful notes in quite possibly the most important book in economics, the margins and faithfully followed the footnotes. I felt period. For this reason I’ve studied it more closely than enlightened with every sentence and could hardly wait I’ve studied any other book; and I believe that who I for the next one to enlighten me further.The sense of am as an economist and how I approach economics intellectual excitement I felt the first time I read the has been shaped more by Human Action than by any book is a feeling I hope every person experiences in his other book. or her life. If the number of copies of Human Action in my I encountered a few passages I found extremely dif- library is any indication, this is certainly true. My first ficult to understand and more than a few I didn’t Peter Leeson ([email protected]) is a visiting professor of economics at the understand at all. But what I was picking up struck me Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the and as so important and penetrating that I did something I author of The Invisible Hook.

19 SEPTEMBER 2009 Peter T. Leeson copy was the blue, soft-cover, third edition. Since then world: .The chance to further my study of I’ve acquired over a dozen other copies of the book— Human Action and Mises’s work more generally under enough for multiple copies of every edition—including Pete’s tutelage made George Mason’s draw irresistible. my prized possession: a first edition signed by Mises And, similar to my experience studying Human Action himself, which was given to me by my mentor, Peter under Professor Ebeling, my experience studying the Boettke, when I completed my Ph.D. Perhaps unusu- book under Pete not only met my wildly optimistic ally, Human Action was my “gateway book” to Mises’s expectations but in fact surpassed them. other works. After Human Action I read Socialism, The I have had the great fortune of teaching Austrian Theory of Money and Credit, Liberalism, and then others. I economics at the undergraduate and Ph.D. levels at loved and learned much from them all, but none more George Mason. (This academic year I’m visiting at the than Mises’s magnum opus. University of Chicago.) In my undergraduate course Human Action is the only text. Each semester I hope Charting an Educational Course some student will “discover” Mises’s treatise as I did became so enamored with Mises’s ideas through years ago, and that Human Action will have the same IHuman Action that I chose where I would pursue my life-altering effect for him or her as it has had for me. undergraduate education on the basis My graduate Austrian course of which school would allow me to focuses on journal articles outside the be closest to these ideas and learn The way I got here Austrian literature, but also includes more about them. In this sense Human Human Action. Even where the book Action charted my formal educational was through Mises’s doesn’t figure explicitly in a given course. Human Action.Every lecture, it looms large indirectly , my alma mater, is through the influence it has had over home to Mises’s personal library. (I year I read Human my thinking about whatever the dis- spent unhealthy amounts of time sit- Action again, and cussion may be. ting at Mises’s desk in the Mises Room in Hillsdale’s library in a failed every year I learn Constant Influence effort to absorb some of his bril- something new. y career as an economist has liance.) At the time I was choosing a Monly just begun. But it’s no college, Hillsdale was also home to exaggeration to say that the way I got one of the world’s foremost Mises and Human Action here was through Mises’s Human Action. Every year I experts, former FEE president Richard Ebeling, who read Human Action again, and every year I learn some- occupied the Ludwig von Mises Chair. Between Mises’s thing new.Some of my research explicitly draws on and personal library and Professor Ebeling I was sold on relates to this book. (See, for instance, “Was Mises Hillsdale. And I was not disappointed.The opportunity Right?” with Pete Boettke in the Review of Social Econ- to learn more about Mises, Austrian economics, and omy, 2006.) Most of it does not. But this doesn’t mean Human Action in particular, under the mentorship of Human Action isn’t actively influencing this work. Its Richard Ebeling, proved every bit as outstanding as I influence is alive and well in all of my writing in at least could have imagined. two ways. In the same way that Hillsdale was the only college First, since Human Action permeates my thinking as that made sense for me, given my passion for Mises and an economist, in one sense, every paper I write is the Human Action, so ’s doctoral result of this book. Second, the particular themes I program was the only one that made sense for me. focus on, most notably private institutions of gover- George Mason was (and is) home to the man who, nance and self-enforcing exchange, are, in my mind, together with , defines modern Austrian attempts to build on and extend the Austrian research economics and is the leading Austrian economist in the program Mises identifies and elaborates in Human

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