Principles of Economics

Principles of Economics is a university-level textbook offering a comprehensive, engaging, and easy-to-read overview of the field of economics that is valuable to the university student, the general reader, and the professional economist.

Saifedean Ammous’ first book, The Bitcoin Standard, is an international best-seller that has been translated into 36 languages. The book garnered praise from respected scholars, successful entrepreneurs, professional athletes, and countless readers worldwide for its engaging and enlightening presentation of sophisticated economic and technical concepts, delivered in a style accessible to the general reader. With its sequel, The Fiat Standard, Ammous established himself as one of the world’s most effective communicators of economic ideas, whose writing resonates with a growing global readership.

In Principles of Economics, his most ambitious and elaborate work to date, Ammos offers readers a potent antidote to the modern economics textbook. After two decades of learning and teaching economics at university level, Ammos became aware that most economic textbooks confuse more than they illuminate and most university students tasked with reading them learn very little that is useful and actionable. The culmination of four years’ work, this book uses the underappreciated approach of the Austrian school of economics to introduce the principles, methods, and concepts of economics in a readable, engaging, and informative manner. Rather than relying on mathematical analysis of aggregates and arcane theoretical models, the book uses the clear written word to effectively illustrate key economic concepts.

The book first presents the Austrian school method and the foundational concepts of value and time. With these foundations laid, the second part of the book explores how humans act individually to achieve their ends under scarcity—in other words, how humans economize. A chapter is dedicated to detailed overviews of labor, property, capital, technology, and energy, and each topic is accompanied by vivid examples explaining its relevance to the reader. The third part of the book examines economizing in the social context, with chapters examining trade, money, the market order, and capitalism—important concepts that are often shrouded by misconceptions in most modern treatments. The fourth part of the book presents the Austrian perspective on monetary economics, laying the groundwork through a detailed discussion of time preference, followed by a discussion of banking and credit, and the business cycle and its monetary origins. The final section of the book explains why respect for property rights in an extended market order is the basis for human civilization, how the market order protects against aggression, and the failures of monopoly provision of defense.

Table of Contents

PART I: FUNDAMENTALS

Chapter 1: Human Action

Chapter 2: Value

Chapter 3: Time

PART II: ECONOMY

Chapter 4: Labor

Chapter 5: Property

Chapter 6: Capital

Chapter 7: Technology

Chapter 8: Energy and Power

PART Ill: THE MARKET ORDER

Chapter 9: Trade

Chapter 10: Money

Chapter 11: Markets

Chapter 12: Capitalism

PART IV: MONETARY ECONOMICS

I Chapter 13: Time Preference

Chapter 14: Credit and Banking

Chapter 15: Monetary Expansion

PART V: CIVILIZATION

Chapter 16: Violence

Chapter 17: Defense

Chapter 18: Civilization

About the Author

Saifedean Ammous is an internationally best-selling economist and author. In 2018, Ammous authored The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, the best-selling book on bitcoin, publishedin 36 languages. In 2021, he published The Fiat Standard: The Debt Slavery Alternative to Human Civilization, available in 12 languages. Saifedean teaches courses on the economics of bitcoin, and economics in the Austrian school tradition, on his online learning platform Saifedean.com, and also hosts The Bitcoin Standard Podcast.