The Science of Decision-making [excerpts]

The businessman will be obliged to acquire the basic principles of a new science which has been created for him – Praxeology. One of the less obvious factors which make decision in human actions difficult is the complexity of the modern world. All methods of preparation of decisions, particularly those used for the optimisation of situations from the economic standpoint on a commercial or national scale, or from a military standpoint, are reduced to the absolute principle. The laboratory of praxeology will then not be just a mental concept. Individual and collective behaviours will be studied there, the optimal strategies of very complex real problems will be determined, and their risks will be measured. The game of "Battle-ships," known to schoolboys the world over, is a game of strategy with incomplete information. A strategy is, "a set of decisions" in the face of all the decisions of the opponent.