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Inflation (1919)

In: Essays in Persuasion

Author

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  • John Maynard Keynes

Abstract

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become ‘profiteers’, who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.

Suggested Citation

  • John Maynard Keynes, 2010. "Inflation (1919)," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Essays in Persuasion, chapter 1, pages 57-58, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-59072-8_6
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-59072-8_6
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