Ludwig von Mises on Money and Inflation.pdf - The Ludwig von ...

CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Capitalism, the Rich and the Poor
It is a very popular assumption, criticized only very rarely by people, that
the capitalistic system brings about satisfactory conditions for a minority
of profiteers, while the masses become more and more impoverished.
Of all the enormous problems connected with the monetary crisis, I want
to deal with this problem especially because the most popular, or one of
the most popular, ideas of Marxism is that the system of capitalism brings
about the progressive impoverishment, the progressive deterioration of the
economic state of affairs of the masses, for the benefit of a shrinking number
of people who become richer and richer from year to year.
People believe that what is going on with these monetary problems
today concern the well-to-do and that simple people are not so much interested.
I want to show you how erroneous this idea is. It is thought that
when the government inflates and as a result lowers the purchasing power
of the monetary unit, this is of advantage to the masses, to the great majority
of the people, and that only the rich are suffering. If you don’t want to
use the term “suffer,” let us say have to pay higher prices for things. Now
this idea, that the interested people are not the masses, not the majority
of the people, but only the wealthy people and that it is only the wealthier
and richer people that are concerned, is based on an ancient doctrine.
is doctrine was perfectly correct in the days of Solon (c. 638–559 BC)
of Athens, or in the days of ancient Rome, of the Gracchi brothers (d. 121
and 133 BC), or in the Middle Ages. In the pre-capitalistic ages the rich
people owned land and were, therefore, wealthy. ey could save, increase
their possessions by investing in real property, houses, businesses, landed
property. Or they could increase their fortunes by dealing in a more con-
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