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

sures.” ey have invented many other terms also which I cannot remember,
such silly terms, to describe this situation—“cost-push inflation,” “inflationary
pressures,” and the like. Nobody knows what an “inflationary
pressure” is; it has never been defined. 1 What is clear is what inflation is.
Inflation is a considerable addition to the quantity of money in circulation.
is upward movement of prices due to the inflation, due to the
fact that the system was inflated by additional quantities of money, brings
the prices up. And this system can work for some time, but only if there is
some power that restricts the government’s wish to expand the quantity of
money and is powerful enough to succeed to some extent in this regard.
e evils which the government, its helpers, its committees, and so on, acknowledge
are connected with this inflation, but not in the way in which
they are discussed. is shows that the intention of the governments and
of its propagators (propagandizers, promoters) is to conceal the real cause
of what is happening. If we want to have a money that is acceptable on
the market as the medium of exchange, it must be something that cannot
be increased with a profit by anybody, whether government or a citizen.
e worst failures of money, the worst things done to money were not done by
criminals but by governments, which very often ought to be considered, by and
large, as ignoramuses but not as criminals.
1 Talk of “inflationary pressures” and “guidelines” dates from the 1960s. At that time,
business firms were raising prices and wage rates because the government had expanded
the nation’s quantity of money so much and government officials were trying to persuade
private business firms to keep price and wage increases below 3.2%. is was the maximum
considered permissible “under the President’s voluntary guidelines [or “guideposts”] for
non-inflationary wage and price hikes.” And President Johnson threatened a tax increase
if “inflationary pressures” did not cease. See World Almanac, 1967, pp. 60, 61. —BBG
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