Inflation Is A Form Of Tax, A

Government Welfarism, With Its Ever-increasing Army Of Pensioners And Other Beneficiaries, Is Fatally Easy To Launch And Fatally Easy To Extend, But Almost Impossible To Bring To A Halt - And Quite Impossible Politically To Reverse, No Matter How Obvious And Catastrophic Its Consequences Become.

The Question Is Not Whether We Wish To See Everybody As Well Off As Possible. Among Men Of Good Will Such An Aim Can Be Taken For Granted. The Real Question Concerns The Proper Means Of Achieving It. And In Trying To Answer This We Must Never Lose Sight Of A Few Elementary Truisms. We Cannot Distribute More Wealth Than Is Created. We Cannot In The Long Run Pay Labor As A Whole More Than It Produces.

Mere Inflation-that Is, The Mere Issuance Of More Money, With The Consequence Of Higher Wages And Prices-may Look Like The Creation Of More Demand. But In Terms Of The Actual Production And Exchange Of Real Things It Is Not.

To Try To Cure Unemployment By Inflation Rather Than By Adjustment Of Specific Wage-rates Is Like Trying To Adjust The Piano To The Stool Rather Than The Stool To The Piano.

When Each Of Us Is Free To Work Out His Own Economic Destiny, Within The Framework Of The Market Economy, The Institution Of Private Property, And The General Rule Of Law, We Will All Improve Our Economic Condition Much Faster Than When We Are Ordered Around By Bureaucrats.