19 June 2009

Blogging Menger

This post is part of a series exploring Principles of Economics by Carl Menger.

This is based on a post originally written on January 25, 2009.

Jeffrey Tucker, editorial vice president at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and one of the few libertarian writers these days whose prose can pack as much punch and pleasure as that of the late Murray Rothbard (see his articles here and here), had a gem of an idea:

I'm live blogging this book on intellectual property, Boldrine and Levine, and it occurs to me that this is a great exercise. It takes a lot of discipline but it is great training and a wonderful service. I'm learning more by live blogging it than merely reading it through. Here is my proposal. If you plan to live blog any book in the Mises store, from top to bottom, on this forum or on your own blog or somewhere else, meaning write on each chapter, summary and critique and commentary, we will send it to you for free. Any book. Just write me a note at tucker@mises.com and we will send it to you. But you have to live up to your promise. Does that sound like a deal?

It certainly did to me, so I took him up on it. So a following series of posts will discuss the founding document of Austrian Economics: Principles of Economics by Carl Menger (complete etext and downloadable PDF available from Mises.org).

Next in this series: The Contribution of Menger

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Comments

# h4x5k8 said:

Very cool idea.  Sounds like a great way to digest a book, then cook up the ideas in your own words, and receive feedback from others to see if your understanding has any flaws.

I was planning on reading Human Action or Man, Economy, State soon.  I thought it would be cool to live blog these tomes, but then I remembered Murphy already did something akin to a live bog in his Study Guides.

Perhaps I will do it anyways, just for the sake of redundancy and as a self learning exercise.  No matter if anyone else reads it, for it's main purpose will be as a tool to help organize my thoughts.

Who knows maybe it will turn out completely different than Murphy's guides.

PS - Nice article on Krugman today, it's what directed me to your blog. This post in particular is quite a jewel!  

Good ideas are never scarce at mises.org, it would only make sense that they should offer all their wonderful works free of charge.

Monday, June 22, 2009 2:38 PM
# Daniel James Sanchez said:

Thanks Coury,

I completely agree with you that the learning value of blogging a book alone makes it worth doing, even if no one else reads it.  I'm reading The Positive Theory of Capital by Bohm-Bawerk right now, and I keep thinking, "I bet if I blogged this chapter by chapter, I'd understand it much more clearly".  Maybe I'll get around to doing just that.  But I still have a few chapter of Menger I never quite got to, so I guess that would come first.

Monday, June 22, 2009 2:59 PM