When the purchasing power of currency goes down, the people with the most currency actually lose the most, meaning the rich. In this way, there is a flattening effect. In cases of hyperinflation, having 3 million dollars is scarcely better than having 300, and money is revealed to be the apparition that it actually has been all along. The negative impacts of being unable to purchase basic goods and services also acutely affect the working class, but in a lot of cases that's already true in a "healthy" economy.
This is the reason the bourgeoisie is always pulling their hair out about it. It's also only ever used as a pretense to do austerity and extract even more wealth from the working class while cutting basic services.
Since value comes from labor instead of markets or scarcity, inflation also literally wouldn't effect our standard of living in a meaningful way at all if we set in place robust mutual aid networks and centers and divide the labor in a more just way.
When the narratives of capitalist realism and market necessity start to erode, this is actually a good thing, and this is the case with inflation as long as we are organized and prepared to exist beyond the market.
if you are anti-inflation you are literally doing the capitalists' job for them. Inflation isn't just prices going up, money is literally becoming less valuable per dollar, both on the price side and the wage side. Inflation hurts people with a lot of money more than it does people will very little money, it's literally progressive in that sense. If you can't afford food, it's because you are being underpaid by capitalist parasites not because of inflation.
are you fucking high?
"Yes, i should be pro my own starvation because the capitalists are mildly inconvenienced"
The 'inflation is good' stance around here drives me bananas. Like yeah, bread and gasoline and entertainment is now WAY more expensive and my wages haven't gone up but, conceptually, some investment banker is sweating because his APY% changed slightly. I've heard that rent is 21% more expensive since the pandemic -- it frustrates me to hear people talk about inflation like it's a good thing that benefits me.
this site is mostly privileged college kids, they don't give a shit about the poor
Or they've never seen or lived through the impacts that toying with inflation can cause to an underdeveloped/overexpoilted economy, like a lot of economies in the global south.
Revolution? A militant working class?
Weird how many of the worst cases of inflation in history happened just after a socialist state liberalized.
Don't be too hard on them plz, they're interpreting the inflation panic as an attack on wage increases and stimulus spending, both things millinienals are rightfully sensitive about defending
And with the media insidiously presenting covid inflation as a wage-price spiral that literally doesn't exist, it's all adding to the confusion concerning price hikes
i refuse to coddle the profound ignorance of the privileged when i literally spell out exactly what the problem is and they ignore it
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again it's not the fault of inflation that you are poor, it is the fault of capitalists not paying you enough for the value of your labor. "Inflation control" is often used by the Federal Reserve, US Empire, and the IMF to justify their imperialism around the world. High inflation creates instability and wrecks capitalist profit generation, as a communist revolutionary you should support both of those things happening and fight for higher pay in the meantime
how the fuck do you not understand this?
food costs more, therefore i can afford to eat less
no I understand your situation. Food costs more money because money is worth less now. Yet your labor should also cost more money for the same reason. Of course it's the USA so capitalists won't raise wages unless they are literally forced to, but that is their fault. It fucking sucks I'm sorry you're in that situation but blaming inflation for the problem excuses the capitalists.
Inflation is just the price of money and that price is kept artificially high by a variety of capitalist institutions because capitalists hold the more money than anyone else. A socialist state could use higher inflation rates in some very positive ways that would benefit workers the most.
jesus fucking christ, it's like talking to a fucking condescending wall
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thanks. I'm not going to argue with people about their real material conditions like hunger, but the effects of inflation are literally basic economics and are already well known. Inflation hurts economic growth, and capitalists rely on increasing economic growth to survive. If you want to attack the capitalist financial system that dominates and enslaves the world, high inflation is like a stake to the heart of that beast because it directly reduces returns across the board. Yeah sure the capitalists are so rich they will never have to worry about starving, but it's not like poor people weren't starving in America before inflation went up. Declining material conditions cause destabilization and precipitate revolution, which you should be interested in as a communist anyway.
Prices go up
Wage doesn't go up
I can afford less
How the fuck do you not understand that, just cause you managed to get a pay bump doesnt mean everyone else is
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any cash and/or savings they have is still a financial asset, and, as was said, is vulnerable to inflation unlike real assets
Those hoarded real assets, or at least the claim on them as private property, aren't going to last very long without a functioning market. Will you pay the cops to guard your vault with holo charizards? Useless hunks of metal? Bags of flour?
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No, if you look through the comments, this is an Orthodox Leninist position
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That's a lot of words and conjecture you attributed to me. The line going down doesn't cause suffering. The violent enforcement of property is doing that. The line is a smokescreen, and y'all bought it hook line and sinker. Either way, I have COVID and just got out of a really long editorial meeting for a zine. I don't have the energy to continue this thread.
Fascism is more likely to emerge if the womb of American capitalism keeps nurturing it like Rosemary's Baby than an abrupt end to the already very similar corporate police state. Order doesn't necessarily get restored when the market fails, and I'm less terrified of the currently existing Blackshirts than the ones of the near future if things continue on this course. The economy is already collapsing. The proposed further austerity coming down the line will be enforced with violence. "Fighting inflation" is equivalent to that, and it isn't the default position. It is a neolberal position that itself has a pedigree descended directly from fascism contra both a planned economy and gift economies. There are enough resources to go around, and there is enough labor available to take care of everyone better than the present system does, even in a terribly implemented socialism or syndicalism.
This is not even to touch on the fact that we need to change the economic system yesterday, and the longer we delay that, the less of whatever future you think austerity would preserve there is left. That is to say, the present and future calamity implied by a continuation of the capitalist mode of production is much graver than even a tremendous amount of terror and violence stemming from an abrupt and immediate shift in human and biological terms.
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I didn't say it would.
You really love putting words in my mouth, huh?
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That's not what I said at all. I said you think the line matters, which you do.
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Okay. Did you have anything else to add to my labor of writing you a large chunk of analysis while I'm very sick other than to try and snipe a line you could cherrypick for debatebro points?
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Rich people own a lot of assets, but I think they also own "a lot of money", as otherwise, who owns all of the money out there?
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I find it hard to believe, do you have a good source?
S&P 500 companies have ~$2.7 trillion in just cash. According to the IMF itself, the amount of money stashed in tax havens was ~$36 trillion in 2016. That by itself is most definitely more than the emergency savings of the entire world's working class. Also, around 50% americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings.
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Tell that to the working class people of Zimbabwe whose country got ruined when the west used hyperinflation against them. It doesn't work like that in the real world.
Hyperinflation is when inflation is so high money loses its ability to store value all together. This basically leads to economic collapse and is not favorable for anyone. However inflation would have to be increasing by like 50% a month to reach those levels. By contrast the Atlantic capitalist model demands a slavish dedication to maintaining a 2% annual inflation rate in order to keep a "stable business climate." You want to expand social programs with government spending? Not an option in the west because it increases inflation. The choice isn't between no inflation or hyperinflation, there is a huge middle ground that is not available because of capitalists' political interests
But the thing is as soon as any global south country tries to strike that middle ground and increase inflation, the west will use it against them, and it's pretty easy for them to tip the scales into hyperinflation territory, though economic sanctions, asset freezes and trade restrictions. Combine this with capital flight and it's very easy to end up in hyperinflation territory.
you're right and that's sort of what I am getting at. The west enforces low inflation with imperialism because low inflation is best for the capitalists. Weak countries with weak currencies will be bullied very hard over this as you described, to the point of economic collapse. Inflation there is a weakness to be taken advantage of by imperialists.
Inflation happening in the imperial core with strong currencies like the dollar can't be exploited like that though, high inflation here has the potential to destabilize the entire global capitalist financial system, which for us is a good thing.
Basically all I'm trying to say is the inflation rate is a political and economic tool and each level of inflation will benefit/hurt different people depending on how it is used. It's not as simple as low inflation = good and high = bad. It's only like that if you are a creditor.
This is best summed up my that Parenti speech about western encirclement and defending a revolution. It's not particularly about inflation, but it gets the general things right
https://youtu.be/uThpIDlfcBQ
I think it's this one, couldn't find a better video.
I mean both can be true at the same time, and both happening concurrently can definitely intensify poverty
Despite what neolibs wants us to believe, inflation isn't only caused by wage-price spirals, covid inflation is legit caused by supply side price gouging and rent seeking behavior in the face of demand uptick post lockdown
It's literally the capitalists fault