Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market - Study Guide

出版者:Ludwig von Mises Institute

作者:Robert P. Murphy

页数:255

出版时间:2006

价格:$20.00 USD

装帧:Spiral-bound

isbn号码:9781933550008

具体描述

The prose of Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard is as clear as a bell. But its sheer size (1441 pages!) is intimidating. After all, Rothbard systematically covers the whole of economic science.

The young and brilliant economist Robert Murphy has come to the rescue!

In writing the Study Guide to Man, Economy, and State, he had his students in mind. He wanted to design a great teaching tool, one that would reach students the same way a private tutor would. He wanted to help Rothbard's magnum opus have permanent impact on their thinking.

He accomplished his goal! The guide provides a roadmap to this massive book, complete with summaries, technical notes, annotations of key contributions, and study questions. He puts it all into a manageable size, with 12 pages per chapter of the Scholar's Edition (which includes both Man, Economy, and State and Power and Market).

To write a guide of this sort is harder than it looks. Murphy first had to master the material in every way, enough so that he could write short, 3-page summaries of the chapters.

He then used his advanced training to discuss and elaborate some of the more technically difficult sections of the book. And because Rothbard does not often explain what is innovative in his own theories, Murphy draws attention to the unique contributions to economic science found herein. He tops if off with a series of thought-provoking questions that deal with the core lessons of each chapter.

The study guide comes spiral bound for ease of use. It also comes with a CD in the back cover that provides a complete edition of the book and guide. That way you can carry the guide with you on trips and study economics on your laptop, even without an internet connection.

Murphy spent more than a year writing and editing it. As you will see, he is an excellent teacher and he set out to do this in a way that appeals to students of all ages.

One of the goals of the Mises Institute has long been to make this book accessible to everyone, particularly people who are studying economics, and especially those who are interested in Austrian economics. This powerful guide makes the text open up as never before.

It is ideal for classroom use, and also for private study. Another use didn't occur to the author until after he finished it: he uses it to prepare lectures for class! He says now that he doesn't know how he taught without it before.

Murphy sought to write a teaching guide but he ended up writing a manual to Man, Economy, and State that will quickly become a staple of the literature. Would that every book of this size had such a guide (and, yes, he is working on one for Human Action too!), and would that every guide were as clear and useful as this one.

Professor Murphy is an extraordinary talent with a great gift for helping students understand economics. Now he can be your teacher too.

用户评价

这份材料的编排节奏感极强，读起来几乎没有“卡顿”的感觉。它成功地捕捉到了原著那种从微观个体行为推导出宏观社会结构演变的叙事脉络。很多时候，当我们阅读厚重的学术著作时，很容易迷失在繁复的脚注和引文中，而这份指南则像一个高明的编辑，精准地提炼出了每一章的核心论点，并将其放在一个更广阔的知识谱系中进行定位。例如，在处理关于市场失灵与政府干预的辩论时，它没有简单地站队，而是提供了一系列评估干预有效性的评估标准，这些标准本身就包含了对“成本效益分析”的深刻理解。对于我这种更倾向于应用型学习的读者来说，这种“工具箱式”的知识呈现方式非常有吸引力。它不只是告诉你知识是什么，更重要的是，它教你如何使用这些知识去分析新的、未曾见过的社会经济现象。

坦率地说，这份辅助材料的价值远超出了“学习指南”这个略显谦逊的称谓。我发现自己越来越依赖它来构建对宏观社会运行机制的整体认知框架。它对“人”这个经济主体在不同制度环境下的行为模式分析，视角独特而深刻。作者似乎深谙人性的复杂性，没有将经济人假设浪漫化，而是直面了信息不对称、激励扭曲下的真实决策过程。书中对公共选择理论的讲解尤为精彩，它并没有停留在理论层面，而是深入剖析了制度设计如何微妙地塑造了政治博弈的结果，以及这些结果如何反过来作用于资源配置。我个人对其中关于“外部性”的讨论印象深刻，它没有用标准的微积分模型来束缚读者，而是通过一系列富有历史纵深感的例子——比如基础设施建设的公共利益与私营部门的逐利动机之间的张力——来阐释监管的必要性和复杂性。阅读此书，就像是拿到了一副高级望远镜，让你能够看清那些在日常新闻中一闪而过、实则影响深远的权力运作的底层代码。

我必须承认，在深入研究经济政策时，我经常会回到这份指南中查找那些关键性的定义和理论框架的简化模型。它的叙述风格简洁、逻辑链条紧密，有一种近乎数学般的美感，但这并非枯燥的公式堆砌，而是对复杂社会现象的高度概括。最让我受益匪浅的，是它对“权力获取的成本与收益”这一核心概念的量化思考框架的介绍。它引导读者去思考，为什么在某些制度下，追求财富的努力会转向追求政治影响力，以及这种转换对整体经济效率会造成何种损害。指南的结构设计非常注重学习的闭环反馈，它似乎总能在适当的地方设置“自我检验”式的提问（虽然答案不在旁边），促使你立即在脑海中重构知识点。对于希望在理论深度和实际应用之间找到完美平衡的读者来说，这份学习伙伴的战略价值无可替代。

这本学习指南着实是为那些想在复杂的经济学和政治学交叉领域中寻求清晰路径的求知者量身打造的。它不仅仅是一个死板的知识点罗列，更像是一位经验丰富的导师，在你面对浩如烟海的理论和历史案例时，提供了一个结构化的导航图。我尤其欣赏它在处理“权力”与“市场”这两大核心概念时所展现出的细致入微。在阅读原著时，那些抽象的理论模型常常让人感到抓耳挠腮，但这份指南却巧妙地通过引入大量的现实世界案例和简洁明了的图表，将原本晦涩难懂的社会契约论、租金寻租行为等概念，转化成了可以被直观理解的故事。特别是它对不同学派观点冲突的梳理，不偏不倚，如同在棋盘上展示了各方布局，让读者能够自主地形成判断，而不是被动接受单一的解释。对于期末复习或者准备专业考试的人来说，这种结构化的梳理简直是救命稻草，它让你知道哪些是必须掌握的核心逻辑，哪些是可供拓展的边缘思考。它有效地区分了“是什么”（What it is）和“为什么会这样”（Why it is so），极大地提升了学习效率。

如果说原著是一部需要长时间沉浸才能品出其深意的经典佳酿，那么这份学习指南就是一份精确校准过的地图，它能让你在最短时间内掌握地形地貌的关键特征。我发现它对历史经济思想的演变脉络梳理得格外清晰，比如从古典自由主义到新制度经济学的过渡，其中的思想转折点被清晰地标注出来，使得理解起来不再是碎片化的知识点堆砌，而是一个连贯的、有因果关系的故事线。尤其值得称赞的是，指南对于理解“国家”在经济活动中的多重角色——既是规则制定者，又是市场参与者，还是潜在的寻租者——进行了细致的剖析，这种多维度的视角极大地拓宽了我对政治经济学的理解边界。它避免了将“市场”和“国家”绝对化的倾向，而是强调了两者之间持续的、动态的博弈与共生关系。