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By Root 1246 0

of a general tendency of money prices and money wages to drop. [3] For there is no doubt that what we have experienced over the last hundred years was just the opposite, namely, a secular tendency toward a drop in the monetary unit's purchasing power, which was only temporarily interrupted by the aftermath of the breakdown of a boom intentionally created by credit expansion. Gold became cheaper in terms of commodities, not dearer. What the foes of the gold standard are asking for is not to reverse a prevailing tendency in the determination of prices, but to intensify very considerably the already prevailing upward trend of prices and wages. They simply want to lower the monetary unit's purchasing power at an accelerated pace.

Such a policy of radical inflationism is, of course, extremely popular. But its popularity is to a great extent due to a misapprehension of its effects. What people are really asking for is a rise in the prices of those commodities and services they are selling while the prices of those commodities and services which they are buying remain unchanged. The potato grower aims at higher prices for potatoes. He does not long for a rise in other prices. He is injured if these other prices rise sooner or in greater proportion than the price of potatoes. If a politician addressing a meeting declares that the government should adopt a policy which makes prices rise, his hearers are likely to applaud. Yet each of them is thinking of a different price rise.

From time immemorial inflation has been recommended as a means to alleviate the burdens of poor worthy debtors at the expense of rich harsh creditors. However, under capitalism the typical debtors are not the poor but the well-to-do owners of real estate, of firms, and of common stock, people who have borrowed from banks, savings banks, insurance companies, and bondholders. The typical creditors are not the rich but people of modest means who own bonds and savings accounts or have taken out insurance policies. If the common man supports anticreditor measures, he does it because he ignores the fact that he himself is a creditor. The idea that millionaires are the victims of an easy-money policy is an atavistic remnant.

For the naive mind there is something miraculous in the issuance of fiat money. A magic word spoken by the government creates out of nothing a thing which can be exchanged against any merchandise a man would like to get. How pale is the art of sorcerers, witches, and conjurors when compared with that of the government's Treasury Department! The government, professors tell us, "can raise all the money it needs by printing it." [4] Taxes for revenue, announced a chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, are "obsolete." [5] How wonderful! And how malicious and misanthropic are those stubborn supporters of outdated economic orthodoxy who ask governments to balance their budgets by covering all expenditures out of tax revenue!

These enthusiasts do not see that the working of inflation is conditioned by the ignorance of the public and that inflation ceases to work as soon as the many become aware of its effects upon the monetary unit's purchasing power. In normal times, that is in periods in which the government does not tamper with the monetary standard, people do not bother about monetary problems. Quite naively they take it for granted that the monetary unit's purchasing power is "stable." They pay attention to changes occurring in the money prices of the various commodities. They know very well that the exchange ratios between different commodities vary. But they are not conscious of the fact that the exchange ratio between money on the one side and all commodities and services on the other side is variable too. When the inevitable consequences of inflation appear and prices soar, they think that commodities are becoming dearer and fail to see that money is getting cheaper. In the early stages of an inflation only a few people discern what is going on, manage their business affairs in accordance with this insight, and deliberately aim