A Tract on Sound Money: Why and How

Abstract

Trying to conduct economic affairs in terms of money, the purchasing power of which changes at an ever-changing rate, is as absurd as trying to develop an engineering project with instruments which recalibrate themselves erratically from day to day. Sanity can be preserved only if changes in the unit of measurement are predictable; but it is not in the nature of inflation that its progress should be predictable. Those who argue that it is possible to ‘get used’ to inflation are observing only that, since we have no alternative, almost any degree of misery can be endured. It cannot be a question, should inflation be halted? it can only be a question of when and how.