Principles of Economics (Menger)

The 1871 book that founded the Austrian school. Menger derives economic phenomena from the individual acting to satisfy wants under uncertainty: goods are ranked by the subjective importance of the want they serve, value is marginal rather than intrinsic, higher-order producer goods get their value from the consumer goods they eventually yield, and money, markets and prices are explained as unplanned institutions that emerge from many people trading rather than as anyone’s design.

Why it’s on the list: It opens the Austrian School Economics section, and it is where the curriculum’s economics starts — every later Austrian entry on the list is downstream of the subjectivist move Menger makes here.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on Austrian School Economics. A structured curriculum shared March 9, 2026 and saved to Kyle’s Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full 211-entry transcription is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• Economics — the discipline this book reframes.
• Institutions — money and markets as emergent, unplanned institutions.
• Knowledge — the uncertainty the acting individual works under.
• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.