CONTENTS

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
by Joseph T. Salerno

PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION

CHAPTER 1—FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN ACTION

  1. The Concept of Action

  2. First Implications of the Concept

  3. Further Implications: The Means

  4. Further Implications: Time

  5. Further Implications

A. Ends and Values

B. The Law of Marginal Utility

  6. Factors of Production: The Law of Returns

  7. Factors of Production: Convertibility and Valuation

  8. Factors of Production: Labor versus Leisure

  9. The Formation of Capital

10. Action as an Exchange

Appendix A: Praxeology and Economics

Appendix B: On Means and Ends

CHAPTER 2—DIRECT EXCHANGE

  1. Types of Interpersonal Action: Violence

  2. Types of Interpersonal Action: Voluntary Exchange and the Contractual Society

  3. Exchange and the Division of Labor

  4. Terms of Exchange

  5. Determination of Price: Equilibrium Price

  6. Elasticity of Demand

  7. Speculation and Supply and Demand Schedules

  8. Stock and the Total Demand to Hold

  9. Continuing Markets and Changes in Price

10. Specialization and Production of Stock

11. Types of Exchangeable Goods

12. Property: The Appropriation of Raw Land

13. Enforcement Against Invasion of Property

CHAPTER 3—THE PATTERN OF INDIRECT EXCHANGE

  1. The Limitations of Direct Exchange

  2. The Emergence of Indirect Exchange

  3. Some Implications of the Emergence of Money

  4. The Monetary Unit

  5. Money Income and Money Expenditures

  6. Producers’ Expenditures

  7. Maximizing Income and Allocating Resources

CHAPTER 4—PRICES AND CONSUMPTION

  1. Money Prices

  2. Determination of Money Prices

  3. Determination of Supply and Demand Schedules

  4. The Gains of Exchange

  5. The Marginal Utility of Money

A. The Consumer

B. The Money Regression

C. Utility and Costs

D. Planning and the Range of Choice

  6. Interrelations among the Prices of Consumers’ Goods

  7. The Prices of Durable Goods and Their Services

  8. Welfare Comparisons and the Ultimate Satisfactions of the Consumer

  9. Some Fallacies Relating to Utility

Appendix A: The Diminishing Marginal Utility of Money

Appendix B: On Value

CHAPTER 5—PRODUCTION: THE STRUCTURE

  1. Some Fundamental Principles of Action

  2. The Evenly Rotating Economy

  3. The Structure of Production: A World of Specific Factors

  4. Joint Ownership of the Product by the Owners of the Factors

  5. Cost

  6. Ownership of the Product by Capitalists: Amalgamated Stages

  7. Present and Future Goods: The Pure Rate of Interest

  8. Money Costs, Prices, and Alfred Marshall

  9. Pricing and the Theory of Bargaining

CHAPTER 6—PRODUCTION: THE RATE OF INTEREST AND ITS DETERMINATION

  1. Many Stages: The Pure Rate of Interest

  2. The Determination of the Pure Rate of Interest: The Time Market

  3. Time Preference and Individual Value Scales

  4. The Time Market and the Production Structure

  5. Time Preference, Capitalists, and Individual Money Stock

  6. The Post-Income Demanders

  7. The Myth of the Importance of the Producers’ Loan Market

  8. The Joint-Stock Company

  9. Joint-Stock Companies and the Producers’ Loan Market

10. Forces Affecting Time Preferences

11. The Time Structure of Interest Rates

Appendix: Schumpeter and the Zero Rate of Interest

CHAPTER 7—PRODUCTION: GENERAL PRICING OF THE FACTORS

  1. Imputation of the Discounted Marginal Value Product

  2. Determination of the Discounted Marginal Value Product

A. Discounting

B. The Marginal Physical Product

(1) The Law of Returns

(2) Marginal Physical Product and Average Physical Product

C. Marginal Value Product

  3. The Source of Factor Incomes

  4. Land and Capital Goods

  5. Capitalization and Rent

  6. The Depletion of Natural Resources

Appendix A: Marginal Physical and Marginal Value Product

Appendix B: Professor Rolph and the Discounted Marginal Productivity Theory

CHAPTER 8—PRODUCTION: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CHANGE

  1. Entrepreneurial Profit and Loss

  2. The Effect of Net Investment

  3. Capital Values and Aggregate Profits in a Changing Economy

  4. Capital Accumulation and the Length of the Structure of Production

  5. The Adoption of a New Technique

The Entrepreneur and Innovation

  6. The Beneficiaries of Saving-Investment

  7. The Progressing Economy and the Pure Rate of Interest

  8. The Entrepreneurial Component in the Market Interest Rate

  9. Risk, Uncertainty, and Insurance

CHAPTER 9—PRODUCTION: PARTICULAR FACTOR PRICES AND PRODUCTIVE INCOMES

  1. Introduction

  2. Land, Labor, and Rent

A. Rent

B. The Nature of Labor

C. Supply of Land

D. Supply of Labor

E. Productivity and Marginal Productivity

F. A Note on Overt and Total Wage Rates

G. The “Problem” of Unemployment

  3. Entrepreneurship and Income

A. Costs to the Firm

B. Business Income

C. Personal Consumer Service

D. Market Calculation and Implicit Earnings

E. Vertical Integration and the Size of the Firm

  4. The Economics of Location and Spatial Relations

  5. A Note on the Fallacy of “Distribution”

  6. A Summary of the Market

CHAPTER 10—MONOPOLY AND COMPETITION

  1. The Concept of Consumers’ Sovereignty

A. Consumers’ Sovereignty versus Individual Sovereignty

B. Professor Hutt and Consumers’ Sovereignty

  2. Cartels and Their Consequences

A. Cartels and “Monopoly Price”

B. Cartels, Mergers, and Corporations

C. Economics, Technology, and the Size of the Firm

D. The Instability of the Cartel

E. Free Competition and Cartels

F. The Problem of One Big Cartel

  3. The Illusion of Monopoly Price

A. Definitions of Monopoly

B. The Neoclassical Theory of Monopoly Price

C. Consequences of Monopoly-Price Theory

(1) The Competitive Environment

(2) Monopoly Profit versus Monopoly Gain to a Factor

(3) A World of Monopoly Prices?

(4) “Cutthroat” Competition

D. The Illusion of Monopoly Price on the Unhampered Market

E. Some Problems in the Theory of the Illusion of Monopoly Price

(1) Location Monopoly

(2) Natural Monopoly

  4. Labor Unions

A. Restrictionist Pricing of Labor

B. Some Arguments for Unions: A Critique

(1) Indeterminacy

(2) Monopsony and Oligopsony

(3) Greater Efficiency and the “Ricardo Effect”

  5. The Theory of Monopolistic or Imperfect Competition

A. Monopolistic Competitive Price

B. The Paradox of Excess Capacity

C. Chamberlin and Selling Cost

  6. Multiform Prices and Monopoly

  7. Patents and Copyrights

CHAPTER 11—MONEY AND ITS PURCHASING POWER

  1. Introduction

  2. The Money Relation: The Demand for and the Supply of Money

  3. Changes in the Money Relation

  4. Utility of the Stock of Money

  5. The Demand for Money

A. Money in the ERE and in the Market

B. Speculative Demand

C. Secular Influences on the Demand for Money

D. Demand for Money Unlimited?

E. The PPM and the Rate of Interest

F. Hoarding and the Keynesian System

(1) Social Income, Expenditures, and Unemployment

(2) “Liquidity Preference”

G. The Purchasing-Power and Terms-of-Trade Components in the Rate of Interest

  6. The Supply of Money

A. The Stock of the Money Commodity

B. Claims to Money: The Money Warehouse

C. Money-Substitutes and the Supply of Money

D. A Note on Some Criticisms of 100-Percent Reserve

  7. Gains and Losses During a Change in the Money Relation

  8. The Determination of Prices: The Goods Side and the Money Side

  9. Interlocal Exchange

A. Uniformity of the Geographic Purchasing Power of Money

B. Clearing in Interlocal Exchange

10. Balances of Payments

11. Monetary Attributes of Goods

A. Quasi Money

B. Bills of Exchange

12. Exchange Rates of Coexisting Moneys

13. The Fallacy of the Equation of Exchange

14. The Fallacy of Measuring and Stabilizing the PPM

A. Measurement

B. Stabilization

15. Business Fluctuations

16. Schumpeter's Theory of Business Cycles

17. Further Fallacies of the Keynesian System

A. Interest and Investment

B. The “Consumption Function”

C. The Multiplier

18. The Fallacy of the Acceleration Principle

CHAPTER 12—THE ECONOMICS OF VIOLENT   INTERVENTION IN THE MARKET

  1. Introduction

  2. A Typology of Intervention

  3. Direct Effects of Intervention on Utility

  4. Utility Ex Post: Free Market and Government

  5. Triangular Intervention: Price Control

  6. Triangular Intervention: Product Control

  7. Binary Intervention: The Government Budget

  8. Binary Intervention: Taxation

A. Income Taxation

B. Attempts at Neutral Taxation

C. Shifting and Incidence: A Tax on an Industry

D. Shifting and Incidence: A General Sales Tax

E. A Tax on Land Values

F. Taxing “Excess Purchasing Power”

  9. Binary Intervention: Government Expenditures

A. The “Productive Contribution” of Government Spending

B. Subsidies and Transfer Payments

C. Resource-Using Activities

D. The Fallacy of Government on a “Business Basis”

E. Centers of Calculational Chaos

F. Conflict and the Command Posts

G. The Fallacies of “Public” Ownership

H. Social Security

I. Socialism and Central Planning

10. Growth, Affluence, and Government

A. The Problem of Growth

B. Professor Galbraith and the Sin of Affluence

11. Binary Intervention: Inflation and Business Cycles

A. Inflation and Credit Expansion

B. Credit Expansion and the Business Cycle

C. Secondary Developments of the Business Cycle

D. The Limits of Credit Expansion

E. The Government as Promoter of Credit Expansion

F. The Ultimate Limit: The Runaway Boom

G. Inflation and Compensatory Fiscal Policy

12. Conclusion: The Free Market and Coercion

Appendix A: Government Borrowing

Appendix B: “Collective Goods” and “External Benefits”: Two Arguments for Government Activity

POWER AND MARKET

CHAPTER 1—DEFENSE SERVICES ON THE FREE MARKET

CHAPTER 2—FUNDAMENTALS OF INTERVENTION

  1. Types of Intervention

  2. Direct Effects of Intervention on Utility

A. Intervention and Conflict

B. Democracy and the Voluntary

C. Utility and Resistance to Invasion

D. The Argument from Envy

E. Utility Ex Post

CHAPTER 3—TRIANGULAR INTERVENTION

  1. Price Control

  2. Product Control: Prohibition

  3. Product Control: Grant of Monopolistic Privilege

A. Compulsory Cartels

B. Licenses

C. Standards of Quality and Safety

D. Tariffs

E. Immigration Restrictions

F. Child Labor Laws

G. Conscription

H. Minimum Wage Laws and Compulsory Unionism

I. Subsidies to Unemployment

J. Penalties on Market Forms

K. Antitrust Laws

L. Outlawing Basing-Point Pricing

M. Conservation Laws

N. Patents

O. Franchises and “Public Utilities”

P. The Right of Eminent Domain

Q. Bribery of Government Officials

R. Policy Toward Monopoly

Appendix A: On Private Coinage

Appendix B: Coercion and Lebensraum

CHAPTER 4—BINARY INTERVENTION: TAXATION

  1. Introduction: Government Revenues and Expenditures

  2. The Burdens and Benefits of Taxation and Expenditures

  3. The Incidence and Effects of Taxation

Part I: Taxes on Incomes

A. The General Sales Tax and the Laws of Incidence

B. Partial Excise Taxes; Other Production Taxes

C. General Effects of Income Taxation

D. Particular Forms of Income Taxation

(1) Taxes on Wages

(2) Corporate Income Taxation

(3) “Excess”Profit Taxation

(4) The Capital Gains Problem

(5) Is a Tax on Consumption Possible?

  4. The Incidence and Effects of Taxation

Part II: Taxation on Accumulated Capital

A. Taxatuin on Gratuitous Transfers: Bequests and Gifts

B. Property Taxation

C. A Tax on Individual Wealth

  5. The Incidence and Effects of Taxation

Part III: The Progressive Tax

  6. The Incidence and Effects of Taxation

Part IV: The “Single Tax” on Ground Rent

  7. Canons of “Justice” in Taxation

A. The Just Tax and the Just Price

B. Costs of Collection, Convenience, and Certainty

C. Distribution of the Tax Burden

(1) Uniformity of Treatment

a. Equality Before the Law: Tax Exemption

b. The Impossibility of Uniformity

(2) The “Ability-to-Pay” Principle

a. The Ambiguity of the Concept

b. The Justice of the Standard

(3) Sacrifice Theory

(4) The Benefit Principle

(5) The Equal Tax and the Cost Principle

(6) Taxation “For Revenue Only”

(7) The Neutral Tax: A Summary

D. Voluntary Contributions to Government

CHAPTER 5—BINARY INTERVENTION: GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES

  1. Government Subsidies: Transfer Payments

  2. Resource-Using Activities: Government Ownership versus Private Ownership

  3. Resource-Using Activities: Socialism

  4. The Myth of “Public” Ownership

  5. Democracy

Appendix: The Role of Government Expenditures in National Product Statistics

CHAPTER 6—ANTIMARKET ETHICS: A PRAXEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE

  1. Introduction: Praxeological Criticism of Ethics

  2. Knowledge of Self-Interest: An Alleged Critical Assumption

  3. The Problem of Immoral Choices

  4. The Morality of Human Nature

  5. The Impossibility of Equality

  6. The Problem of Security

  7. Alleged Joys of the Society of Status

  8. Charity and Poverty

  9. The Charge of “Selfish Materialism”

10. Back to the Jungle?

11. Power and Coercion

A. “Other Forms of Coercion”: Economic Power

B. Power Over Nature and Power Over Man

12. The Problem of Luck

13. The Traffic-Manager Analogy

14. Over- and Underdevelopment

15. The State and the Nature of Man

16. Human Rights and Property Rights

Appendix: Professor Oliver on Socioeconomic Goals

A. The Attack on Natural Liberty

B. The Attack on Freedom of Contract

C. The Attack on Income According to Earnings

CHAPTER 7—CONCLUSION: ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY

  1. Economics: Its Nature and Its Uses

  2. Implicit Moralizing: The Failures of Welfare Economics

  3. Economics and Social Ethics

  4. The Market Principle and the Hegemonic Principle

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX OF NAMES

INDEX OF SUBJECTS A-L

INDEX OF SUBJECTS M-Z