Skip to content
TrackPodcasts
Aug 12, 2008pending

Fundamentals of Human Action

About this episode

Human action is defined simply as purposeful behavior. Men act by virtue of their being human. Action can be undertaken only by individual actors. Leisure is a good. Mises derives economic law from this axiom that the study of man is the concept of action.

Utilities are ordinal not cardinal rankings. A supply of a good is available in specific units each perfectly substitutable for every other. The law of (diminishing) marginal utility reflects that each unit that enters into concrete action is evaluated separately. For all human actions as the quantity of the supply (stock) of a good increases, the utility (value) of each additional unit decreases.

An Alice J. Lillie Seminar. This lecture covers pp. 1-78 in the Scholar's Edition of Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State.

Get every episode summarized

Each time Rothbard Graduate Seminar publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.

Email me new episodes

Free for 3 shows. No card needed.

Hosts & guests

No transcript yet

This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.

Fundamentals of Human Action

Rothbard Graduate Seminar

0:00
0:00

More episodes

More from Rothbard Graduate Seminar

View all episodes →