The Online Library of Liberty

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• Editor’s Note
• Foreword to the Fourth Edition
• Foreword to the Third Edition
• Introduction
• 1: Economics and Praxeology
• 2: The Epistemological Problem of a General Theory of Human Action
• 3: Economic Theory and the Practice of Human Action
• 4: Résumé
• Part 1. Human Action
• Chapter 1: Acting Man
• 1: Purposeful Action and Animal Reaction
• 2: The Prerequisites of Human Action
• On Happiness
• On Instincts and Impulses
• 3: Human Action As an Ultimate Given
• 4: Rationality and Irrationality; Subjectivism and Objectivity of Praxeological Research
• 5: Causality As a Requirement of Action
• 6: The Alter Ego
• On the Serviceableness of Instincts
• The Absolute End
• Vegetative Man
• Chapter 2: The Epistemological Problems of the Sciences of Human Action
• 1: Praxeology and History
• 2: The Formal and Aprioristic Character of Praxeology
• The Alleged Logical Heterogeneity of Primitive Man
• 3: The a Priori and Reality
• 4: The Principle of Methodological Individualism
• I and We
• 5: The Principle of Methodological Singularism
• 6: The Individual and Changing Features of Human Action
• 7: The Scope and the Specific Method of History
• 8: Conception and Understanding
• Natural History and Human History
• 9: On Ideal Types
• 10: The Procedure of Economics
• 11: The Limitations On Praxeological Concepts
• Chapter 3: Economics and the Revolt Against Reason
• 1: The Revolt Against Reason
• 2: The Logical Aspect of Polylogism
• 3: The Praxeological Aspect of Polylogism
• 4: Racial Polylogism
• 5: Polylogism and Understanding
• 6: The Case For Reason
• Chapter 4: A First Analysis of the Category of Action
• 1: Ends and Means
• 2: The Scale of Value
• 3: The Scale of Needs
• 4: Action As an Exchange
• Chapter 5: Time
• 1: Time As a Praxeological Factor
• 2: Past, Present, and Future
• 3: The Economization of Time
• 4: The Temporal Relation Between Actions
• Chapter 6: Uncertainty
• 1: Uncertainty and Acting
• 2: The Meaning of Probability
• 3: Class Probability
• 4: Case Probability
• 5: Numerical Evaluation of Case Probability
• 6: Betting, Gambling, and Playing Games
• 7: Praxeological Prediction
• Chapter 7: Action Within the World
• 1: The Law of Marginal Utility
• 2: The Law of Returns
• 3: Human Labor As a Means
• Immediately Gratifying Labor and Mediately Gratifying Labor
• The Creative Genius
• 4: Production
• Part 2: Action Within the Framework of Society
• Chapter 8: Human Society
• 1: Human Cooperation
• 2: A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View of Society
• Praxeology and Liberalism
• Liberalism and Religion
• 3: The Division of Labor
• 4: The Ricardian Law of Association
• Current Errors Concerning the Law of Association
• 5: The Effects of the Division of Labor
• 6: The Individual Within Society
• The Fable of the Mystic Communion
• 7: The Great Society
• 8: The Instinct of Aggression and Destruction
• Current Misinterpretations of Modern Natural Science, Especially of Darwinism
• Chapter 9: The Role of Ideas
• 1: Human Reason
• 2: World View and Ideology
• The Fight Against Error
• 3: Might
• Traditionalism As an Ideology
• 4: Meliorism and the Idea of Progress
• Chapter 10: Exchange Within Society
• 1: Autistic Exchange and Interpersonal Exchange
• 2: Contractual Bonds and Hegemonic Bonds
• 3: Calculative Action
• Part 3: Economic Calculation
• Chapter 11: Valuation Without Calculation
• 1: The Gradation of the Means
• 2: The Barter-fiction of the Elementary Theory of Value and Prices
• The Theory of Value and Socialism
• 3: The Problem of Economic Calculation
• 4: Economic Calculation and the Market
• Chapter 12: The Sphere of Economic Calculation
• 1: The Character of Monetary Entries
• 2: The Limits of Economic Calculation
• 3: The Changeability of Prices
• 4: Stabilization
• 5: The Root of the Stabilization Idea
• Chapter 13: Monetary Calculation As a Tool of Action
• 1: Monetary Calculation As a Method of Thinking
• 2: Economic Calculation and the Science of Human Action

3

The Scale of Needs

Notwithstanding all declarations to the contrary, the immense majority of men aim first of all at an improvement of the material conditions of wellbeing. They want more and better food, better homes and clothes, and a thousand other amenities. They strive after abundance and health. Taking these goals as given, applied physiology tries to determine what means are best suited to provide as much satisfaction as possible. It distinguishes, from this point of view, between man’s “real” needs and imaginary and spurious appetites. It teaches people how they should act and what they should aim at as a means.

The importance of such doctrines is obvious. From his point of view the physiologist is right in distinguishing between sensible action and action contrary to purpose. He is right in contrasting judicious methods of nourishment from unwise methods. He may condemn certain modes of behavior as absurd and opposed to “real” needs. However, such judgments are beside the point for a science dealing with the reality of human action. Not what a man should do, but what he does, counts for praxeology and economics. Hygiene may be right or wrong in calling alcohol and nicotine poisons. But economics must explain the prices of tobacco and liquor as they are, not as they would be under different conditions.

There is no room left in the field of economics for a scale of needs different from the scale of values as reflected in man’s actual behavior. Economics deals with real man, weak and subject to error as he is, not with ideal beings, omniscient and perfect as only gods could be.