ABSTRACT
The observed economic phenomenon, that is, a market transaction, is an assignable act for each one of its participants. Each person has decided on the end to be achieved and has evaluated the adequacy of the means for the attainment of the end. Ludwig Von Mises considers that it is not for economics to catalogue the ends which are pursued when exchanging goods: economics is there to explain how the means are adapted to the ends. The elements of the principal body of Mises' theory of action have been expounded and the developments which, starting from Mises' work, have made it possible to relate society, culture and individual action and to integrate ethics and the market. To sum up, the end is an imagined reality and the means must be constituted; they are not given. The only thing given in the action is the past.
