Praxeology is what Mises called the science of human action. If the object of study is the individual's quest to diminish uneasiness, and the institutions through which such plans can be acheived, economics is a necessary but not sufficient discipline. We also require anthropology and sociology, to further understand our world.
The Austrian tradition have been the proponants of intuition and curiosity of the real world. The greatest writers who've looked deeply into the everyday are Henry Hazlitt, and Paul Heyne. Well written books that demonstrate the economic way of thinking are becoming increasingly popular, so here's my thoughts on the big three.
- The Armchair Economist, by Steven Landsburg
Landsburg enjoys to be provocative, and sometimes this can deflect from his main point. If you're willing to surrendour a little, you'll encounter a sharp mind able of stimulating analysis of the everyday.
- Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubnar
The book focusses on Levitt's own work, which is illuminating and far reaching: he's a master at finding an inocuous data set and being cabable of teasing out grand implications. The repititive sampling of New York Times Magazine articles on Levitt (written by Dubnar) is an annoyance, since it's a cheap ploy to inflate the co-author's esteem. But this is the one that's got the world talking.
- The Undercover Economist, by Tim Harford
Harford is an FT journalist, and a former assistant to John Kay. His book intends to be pop-economics that is less contrarian than Landsburg, and contain more principles of economics than Levitt/Dubnar. It's not yet out in the UK, but promises to be *the* standard for this type of literature.
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