For An Indian Edition Of "Human Action"

A while back, there was a post on Lew Rockwell’s blog, which has a huge Indian readership, suggesting that there be a Hindi translation of Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. I welcome the idea. But then, why stop at Hindi. Why not a Bengali translation for a people long suffering under Communism? Why not a Malayalam one too, for the same reason? And then again, why not in Konkani, the language of the west coast?

But before all that, I think what we need most of all is an Indian edition of Human Action, in English. I have been working all these years with the third and fourth editions, but I find something wrong with them. Mises has failed to “front load” his book. It does not begin by telling the reader two important things:

1. Why the reader must study this book, and
2. What is so important about the knowledge contained in this book.

Indeed, Mises answers these questions only at the fag end of his book, so only the reader who has taken the trouble of going through all 900 pages is made aware of the importance of this treatise.

Part Seven, the concluding part of Human Action, is titled “The Place of Economics in Society” and contains three short chapters:

Chapter XXXVII on “The Nondescript Character of Economics;
Chapter XXXVIII on “The Place of Economics in Learning”; and
Chapter XXXIX, the final chapter of the book, on “Economics and the Essential Problems of Human Existence.”

I do believe that a new Indian edition should be published with a foreword containing extracts from these closing chapters, in order to motivate both the student as well as the lay reader to carefully study the entire treatise.

Let us begin with the words with which Mises ends his book:

The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built. It rests with men whether they will make the proper use of the rich treasure with which this knowledge provides them or whether they will leave it unused. But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race.

I do believe that we need a foreword in which these words appear right on top, thereby “front loading” the book. But there is more, both for students and well as lay persons, and I offer these quotes from the chapter on the “place of Economics in learning.”

First, for the students. Writing of what happens to students in the universities of today, Mises says:

The students are bewildered. In the courses of the mathematical economists they are fed formulas describing hypothetical states of equilibrium in which there is no longer any action. They easily conclude that these equations are of no use whatever for the comprehension of economic activities. In the lectures of the specialists they hear a mass of detail concerning interventionist measures. They must infer that conditions are paradoxical indeed, because there is never equilibrium, and wage rates and prices of farm products are not so high as the unions or the farmers want them to be. It is obvious, they conclude, that a radical reform is indispensable. But what kind of reform?

The majority of the students espouse without any inhibitions the interventionist panaceas recommended by their professors. Social conditions will be perfectly satisfactory when the government enforces minimum wage rates and provides everybody with adequate food and housing, or when the sale of margarine and the importation of foreign sugar are prohibited. They do not see the contradictions in the words of their teachers, who one day lament the madness of competition and the next day the evils of monopoly, who one day complain about falling prices and the next day about rising living costs. They take their degrees and try as soon as possible to get a job with the government or a powerful pressure group.

But there are many young men who are keen enough to see through the fallacies of interventionism. They accept their teachers’ rejection of the unhampered market economy. But they do not believe that the isolated measures of interventionism could succeed in attaining the ends sought. They consistently carry their preceptors’ thoughts to their ultimate logical consequence. They turn toward socialism. They hail the Soviet system as the dawn of a new and better civilization.

I think that if students read this right at the outset of the proposed Indian edition, they will be strongly motivated to carefully study this rich treasure of essential knowledge. They will study it themselves, at home, just as they study for the CAT, JEE, GRE, GMAT, UPSC exams at home today. Who knows, maybe coaching classes will emerge.

Let us now move on to citizens. In this same chapter, Mises has an entire section titled “Economics and the citizen.” It is brief, so I will reproduce the entire section below. I do believe that this too should be “front loaded” so that lay citizens take the necessary trouble to study this vital book, just as they study so many things on their own today, from ayurveda and homeopathy to what not. The book shops are full of teach-yourself books that ordinary citizens buy and use. Human Action deserves to be one such book. Here is what Mises says on “Economics and the Citizen.”

Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man’s human existence.

To mention this fact is not to indulge in the often derided weakness of specialists who overate the importance of their own branch of knowledge. Not the economists, but all the people today assign this eminent place to economics.

All present-day political issues concern problems commonly called economic. All arguments advanced in contemporary discussion of social and public affairs deal with fundamental matters of praxeology and economics. Everybody’s mind is preoccupied with economic doctrines. Philosophers and theologians seem to be more interested in economic problems than in those problems which earlier generations considered the subject matter of philosophy and theology. Novels and plays today treat all things human—including sex relations—from the angle of economic doctrines. Everybody thinks of economics whether he is aware of it or not. In joining a political party and in casting his ballot, the citizen implicitly takes a stand upon essential economic theories.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries religion was the main issue in European political controversies. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe as well as in America the paramount question was representative government versus royal absolutism. Today it is the market economy versus socialism. This is, of course, a problem the solution of which depends entirely on economic analysis. Recourse to empty slogans or to the mysticism of dialectical materialism is of no avail.

There is no means by which anyone can evade his personal responsibility. Whoever neglects to examine to the best of his abilities all the problems involved voluntarily surrenders his birthright to a self-appointed elite of supermen. In such vital matters blind reliance upon “experts” and uncritical acceptance of popular catchwords and prejudices is tantamount to the abandonment of self-determination and to yielding to other people’s domination. As conditions are today, nothing can be more important to every intelligent man than economics. His own fate and that of his progeny is at stake.

Very few are capable of contributing any consequential idea to the body of economic thought. But all reasonable men are called upon to familiarize themselves with the teachings of economics.

This is, in our age, the primary civic duty.

Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that economics cannot remain an esoteric branch of knowledge accessible only to small groups of scholars and specialists. Economics deals with society’s fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen.

I hope this post will prompt some of our think-tankers and their publisher friends to consider rushing through an Indian edition of Ludwig von Mises’ masterpiece Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. If they do so, I would be honoured to write a foreword in which I will “front load” direct quotations from the closing chapters that will motivate the reader to treat this as a private study of great importance indeed.

PS: For a free download of Human Action, click here. I suggest you read chapters 37, 38 and 39 first.