I can't recall who said it, but someone once shared their rationale for assigning star ratings to books as such: a 5-star read is one that not only increases your knowledge but also profoundly affects your reasoning. For me, this book is such an occasion.

Ammous' "Principle of Economics" is a finely crafted, logically structured, and impeccably researched introduction to Economics from a purely "Austrian" worldview. This distinction is worth emphasizing because their approach is very much diametrically opposed to the mainstream schools of economics that have ruled academia for the last century or so. For instance, whereas Keynesians see the world through statist, interventionist glasses that seek to pigeonhole human interaction in markets into procrustean pseudo-mathematical models using aggregate metrics, Austrians seek to understand economics from first principles by relying on qualitative analysis and deductive reasoning, focusing on long-term market processes, emphasizing capital structure, individual decision-making, and freedom.

Austrian Economists see human action as causative, i.e. economic reality is shaped by individuals acting purposefully to achieve their goals, not by statistical aggregates. As such, they see central mandates (price controls, wage laws, credit expansion) as destructive forces that ignore the complexity and subjectivity of human actions, leading to unintended consequences.

Ammous clearly explains each of the main tenets of the Austrian school, from property, labor, time, capital, and markets, to capitalism, time preference, money, and credit. He then proceeds to mercilessly eviscerate the mainstrean (particularly the Keynesian) approach to economics by providing ample evidence of their shortcomings by way of historical examples. Some of the chapters (particularly 1-Human Action, 6-Capital, 12-Capitalism, 14-Credit and Banking, 15-Credit Expansion) make so much sense, it almost hurts. Some chapters such as the one on Money, and the one on Time Preference have been discussed in length previously in his other book: [b:The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking|36448501|The Bitcoin Standard The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking|Saifedean Ammous|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517051735l/36448501._SY75_.jpg|58151380] (another banger!)

Though I hold this book and its author in very high esteem, that doesn't mean I buy all of his arguments wholesale. Chapters 16-Violence and 17-Defense are perhaps the weakest and sure to be some of the most controversial to those not yet fully acclimated to the Austrian way of looking at things.

For instance, Ammous is of the persuasion that Monarchies can actually be a good thing. No, really. The idea is that since monarchs and their families rule for many generations, they have a stake in pursuing policies that are future-oriented, as opposed to present-oriented which is the result of election cycles that lead to administration changes every four years. He cites some examples of such monarchies, but I think we can all come up with examples where the rulers were less than benevolent... Also, his ideas on a privatized military defense force are...well, he made some choices there.

Another example where I disagree with Ammous are his remarks on people on welfare and unemployment. In chapter 16-Violence he remarks that:

"subsidies can lead to overproduction and overconsumption, and create incentives for individuals to remain in conditions that make them eligible for subsidies (e.g., welfare, unemployment benefits)."

In other words, if these types of social programs continue to exist people won't have an incentive to get out of poverty, since they can keep receiving handouts; if unemployment benefits exist, then where's the incentive to go back to work? I don't deny that such cases do exist, however, I'd like to believe them to be the exception, not the norm. Given half a chance, people on welfare and unemployment would like nothing better than to rise above their condition and provide a more comfortable future for themselves and their progeny. I am in no way defending the expansion of vast, heavily socialized benefits, or that subsidies are salutary (they are not), but rather objecting to the sweeping mischaracterization of poor people. Circumstance should not be conflated with nature. I know, I’m such a social justice warrior…

Despite these objections, I believe Ammous' work in bringing an accessible introduction to Austrian Economics to non-academic readers to be of monumental importance. Some recently elected leaders, such as Javier Milei of Argentina, have shown a predilection for the work of Rothbard, Mises, Bagus, Block, Hoppe, and the rest of the Austrian hobbits. So have Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, David Seymour of New Zealand, and Elonk Musk of DOGE fame... Hence, being familiar if not conversant on some of these approaches to the economy are of material importance to not only the citizens of these countries, but by extension, all of those that trade with them or whose trade is/will be affected by their actions.

Highest possible recommendation.