This is one of the greatest books ever written on the subject of money, the first to apply marginal utility theory to money, and an important, early (indeed, one of the first) post-cardinalist revisions of marginal utility along ordinalist lines. The book is the author's first great work, a masterpiece, and the first classic of the third generation of the Austrian School. In it, Mises pushes beyond the work of Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk and Friedrich Freiherr von Wieser (his immediate precursors) while at the same time restoring the broad insights of the school's founder, Carl Menger.

This is not Mises's easiest book. But it is worth reading nevertheless. It contains an expansion of Menger's theory of the origin of money. It contains an important critique of the common misuse of index numbers, and, in general, attacks the ever-popular scientism that so many economists bring to the discipline.

The book also contains many interesting thoughts on the gold standard and what Mises calls "monetary reconstruction." Really, this is a must-read for anyone concerned about economic policy, as well as those, like me, who are mainly concerned with the core ideas of economics.

I do not pretend to agree with all of Mises's points. Indeed, I'm something of a skeptic about some of his conclusions, to say the least. But I know a classic when I read one. And I know that this is the kind of classic that is still worth reading.

Economics has not yet moved beyond Mises in a reliable way. We are still, to some extent, enmired in the twin catastrophes of Keynesianism and the Walrasian revival. ( )