Austrian Economics: A Primer

Dr Eamonn Butler

ISBN 10: 1902737695 / ISBN 13: 9781902737690

Published by Adam Smith Institute, 2010

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Synopsis:

Economists shape our everyday lives, yet many people find their thinking unsettling. Their talk of perfect competition and aggregate demand seems to describe something that has no relation to the real world in which people find themselves. That same idea occurred to the Austrian economist Carl Menger back in 1871. Writing on markets for a newspaper, he realised that mainstream economic theory ignored the essential thing that made markets work. Economics is not about fitting different statistics into equations it is about our values, and how they shape our choices, and what we buy and sell. From this insight, Menger and the Austrian School economists who followed him built up a powerful critique of mainstream economics that continues to gain traction today. Austrian School economists gave us the ideas of marginal utility, opportunity cost, and the importance of time and ignorance in shaping human choices and the markets, prices and production systems that stem from them. Austrian economics has revolutionised our understanding of what money is, why economic booms invariably turn to busts, why government intervention in the economy is a mistake, the importance of time and information in economic decision-making, and the crucial role of entrepreneurship. Eamonn Butler explains these ideas in straightforward, non- technical language, making this Primer the ideal introduction for anyone who wants to understand the key insights of the Austrian School and their relevance and importance to our economic situation today.

About the Author: Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute. He has degrees in economics, philosophy and psychology from the University of St Andrews. He worked for the US House of Representatives, and taught philosophy in Hillsdale College, Michigan, before returning to the UK to help establish the Adam Smith Institute in the late 1970s. He is author of books on the economists Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and of primers on von Mises and Adam Smith for the Institute of Economic Affairs. He contributes frequently to print and broadcast media, and his recent popular books The Best Book on the Market, The Rotten State of Britain and The Alternative Manifesto have attracted considerable attention.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Austrian Economics: A Primer
Publisher: Adam Smith Institute
Publication Date: 2010
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: very_good