Proposition (p. 2): Human action can only be undertaken by individual actors.
Not proven. Action is defined an employment of a means to achieve an end. Why cannot organizations do either? They would necessarily act through humans, and thus their act would simultaneously be a human act, but why is that not possible? The underlying assumption appears to be that there is some real meaning attached to the ends or physical doings of humans that does not attach to the actions of groups. This is not necessarily true and may be false.
Proposition (p.5): All means are scarce.
Probably false, but you can patch this problem by carving some stuff out of the definition of action. For example, this implies that breathing is not an action (Rothbard says so), but it is, to some extent. If the reflex center that controls your diaphragm was damaged, and you had full control of your breathing, breathing must be action, but it utilizes unscarce means. I guess you can either redefine means to be scarce means, or action to be the use of scarce means. In either case, new axiom.
Proposition (p. 6): This scaling of ends may be described as assigning ranks of value to the ends by the actor, or as a process of valuation.
Not proven as used in the text, where Rothbard gives a hypothetical ranking of three actions. I don't see why it is necessary that a full ordinal ranking of ends exists. All we can infer from human action is that the chosen action is preferred to some other actions, and maybe not even that. All we really know is that one action is chosen, to satisfy one or more ends. It’s not clear what relationship unchosen ends bear to the chosen ends, or even if unchosen ends exist at all!
Proposition (p. 7): If man knew future events completely, he would never act, since no act of his could change the situation....The omnipresence of uncertainty introduces the ever-present possibility of error in human action. The actor may find, after he has completed his action, that the means have been inappropriate to the attainment of his end.
Pretty clearly false, and I'm not really sure why this is thought to be proven? As a practical matter, it's clear, but logically not necessary.
Proposition (p. 11): There is another unique type of factor of production that is indispensable in every stage of every production process. This is the “technological idea” of how to proceed from one stage to another and finally to arrive at the desired consumers’ good.
Not logically necessary, though probably true. Understanding the process by which a means results in an end is not part of the definition or action, nor is it necessarily so. I find a lot of these hidden assumptions are easier to see if you use an AI instead of a person as your actor.
Proposition (p. 12): It is also clear that the factors of production—the various higher-order producers’ goods—are valued solely because of their anticipated usefulness in helping to produce future consumers’ goods or to produce lower-order producers’ goods that will help to bring about consumers’ goods.
Obviously false, because there can be dual-use goods that are capital goods, but which also satisfy a want directly. Think of a beautiful machine. In fact, think of a modern neat-looking fridge.
Proposition (p. 15): Thus, acting man considers and values the factors of production available in the present in accordance with their anticipated services in the future production of consumers’ goods, and never in accordance with what has happened to the factors in the past.
False and obviously so, for the reason that historical facts about a consumer good or the factors used in its production may frustrate its ability to satisfy ends. Think blood diamonds.
Proposition (p. 15): A fundamental and constant truth about human action is that man prefers his end to be achieved in the shortest possible time. Given the specific satisfaction, the sooner it arrives, the better. This results from the fact that time is always scarce, and a means to be economized. The sooner any end is attained, the better. Thus, with any given end to be attained, the shorter the period of action, i.e., production, the more preferable for the actor. This is the universal fact of time preference.
Not proven. This is a contingent fact about ends and the ordering of ends, not a necessary truth.
Proposition (p. 16): Time enters into human action not only in relation to the waiting time in production, but also in the length of time in which the consumers’ good will satisfy the wants of the consumer. Some consumers’ goods will satisfy his wants, i.e., attain his ends, for a short period of time, others for a longer period. They can be consumed for shorter or longer periods.
Not proven. Indeed, this isn't even coherent without new axiomatic information. Specifically, this assumes that individual ends persist through time. Ends could be as simple as "Ham sandwich at t1," which would be either satisfied or unsatisfied forever, based on whether there was a ham sandwich at t1. Also, this is, I think, a contingent fact, not a logical necessity.
Proposition (p. 18): At any rate, it permits us to say, whenever an actor has attained a certain end, that he has increased his state of satisfaction, or his contentment, happiness, etc. Conversely, when someone considers himself worse off, and fewer of his ends are being attained, his satisfaction, happiness, welfare, etc., have decreased.
Not clearly meaningful. We could have a function U that increases every time an end is satisfied; that's easy. But how does the decrease of that function work? Does every unsatisfied end decrease U by 1? Are there an infinite number of unsatisfied wants? If we assume continuity of all wants, I think we can make this work, by defining U = number of presently satisfied wants. Though what if you go from {yes ham sandwich, no sex with beautiful actresses} to {no ham sandwich, yes sex with beautiful actresses}. Is U unchanged? That's almost certainly not the case. If not, how does U change and how do we know?
Proposition (p. 19): In order for any [cardinal measurement] to be possible, there must be an eternally fixed and objectively given unit with which other units may be compared. There is no such objective unit in the field of human valuation.
The second sentence is clearly an axiom, and may be false as a fact of neuroanatomy.
Proposition (p. 19): All action is an attempt to exchange a less satisfactory state of affairs for a more satisfactory one. The actor finds himself (or expects to find himself) in a nonperfect state, and, by attempting to attain his most urgently desired ends, expects to be in a better state.
Technically false. Action is an attempt to replace a future state with another, more satisfactory future state at the same time. The subsequent discussion shows that Rothbard doesn't really grasp this.
Proposition (p. 20): The actor always knows whether he has experienced psychic profit or psychic loss as a result of an action-exchange.
Contingent fact, and probably false.
Proposition (p. 24): The interchangeability of units in the supply of a good does not mean that the concrete units are actually valued equally. They may and will be valued differently whenever their position in the supply is different. Thus, suppose that the isolated individual successively finds one horse, then a second, then a third. Each horse may be identical and interchangeable with the others. The first horse will fulfill the most urgent wants that a horse can serve; this follows from the universal fact that action uses scarce means to satisfy the most urgent of the not yet satisfied wants.
This is not meaningful. Valuing wants is not something that we know how to do. Human action allows us to identify one state of affairs that is preferred to some others. Wants are not necessarily rankable from the fact of action. [I think this is true, but I'm not really sure.]