Immagine dell'autore.
18 opere 543 membri 8 recensioni 1 preferito

Sull'Autore

Comprende il nome: Robert P. Murphy

Comprende anche: Robert Murphy (6)

Fonte dell'immagine: Dick Clark on behalf of LewRockwell.com.

Opere di Robert P. Murphy

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A shameless advertisement of Capitalism. But still, raises many valid points in favor of Capitalism.
 
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paarth7 | 4 altre recensioni | May 6, 2023 |
As someone who has read a fair bit of economics material before, this book was not full of information I did not already have. It did, however, impress me with how clearly it explained concepts that tend to seem much more complex in other texts. It is an excellent introduction to principles of economics, and it would be awfully nice if members of Congress would read something like it.

If it has a flaw, it is the manner in which it presents some information later in the book, where the author's own ideological alignment begins to color the writing a bit more obviously. I think the majority of the conclusions spelled out for readers all too directly would be obvious to any observant reader with a more dispassionate tone in the authorial voice, and those conclusions that would not come across as well are those that are the author's most dubious assertions (specifically, some of the material relating to the effective "purpose" of certain types of investment activity a little earlier in the book than the bulk of other ideologically colored material). A reader ideologically inclined to agree with the author does not need the embedded bias in the text, and a reader ideologically inclined to disagree may also be inclined to dispute other material in the book that the reader might otherwise have simply learned. Overall, though, the biased presentation is relatively rare through the majority of the book, and even most of his biases directly follow the facts anyway.

This flaw is not enough to reduce my rating. I think the only reason that I did not give it five stars is that I did not read it before I already knew the principles presented in this text. It would have changed my world in the middle of high school.
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Segnalato
apotheon | Dec 14, 2020 |
I picked up Bob Murphy's _Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise, and Human Action_ mostly to see if it might be suitable for teaching an undergraduate course on Austrian economics. But, also, I have to confess that (so far) I've only read parts of Mises' _Human Action_, and Murphy's book promised to provide an overview in roughly one-third the length. I am mostly satisfied with the book on both counts.

Murphy's _Choice_ is not only shorter than Mises' _Human Action_: it's written for the beginner. Undergrads who have taken an intermediate level microeconomics course should find it easy going, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to a complete neophyte. There is much less math here (i.e., virtually none) than in the average introductory economics text, so even a motivated sixth-grader ought to be able to tackle this book. Of course, the concepts explained are themselves challenging, but Murphy gives plenty of examples to help the modern reader relate to the material, as well as just enough background on Mises and the Austrian school in general to put Mises' work in context.

Although it's not written as a textbook, I would definitely consider using _Choice_ as one of the core texts in a sophomore or advanced undergraduate seminar on Austrian economics. Since the book mostly follows the same outline as _Human Action_, and plenty of footnotes and bibliography are provided, students could easily follow up with the original literature. And, unlike Murray Rothbard with _Man, Economy, and State_ (which reputedly started out as a simplified exposition of _Human Action_, but turned out half again as long as Mises' own work!), Murphy almost always resists the urge to expand on or modify Mises' treatment. I can imagine how tempting that might have been, and this restraint is really where Murphy's book shines: what you get here is an honest attempt to explain the essence of Mises, without long digressions on method or finer points that would distract the beginner. (I should add, for those familiar with Murphy's more polemical side, that he confines himself here to discussing economic theory.)
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Segnalato
szarka | Oct 14, 2018 |

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Opere
18
Utenti
543
Popolarità
#45,916
Voto
3.9
Recensioni
8
ISBN
39
Lingue
3
Preferito da
1

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