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.

  • Three_Magpies [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    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.

    • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      this site is mostly privileged college kids, they don't give a shit about the poor

      • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        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.

        • seitanicRights [she/her]
          hexagon
          ·
          3 years ago

          Revolution? A militant working class?

          Weird how many of the worst cases of inflation in history happened just after a socialist state liberalized.

      • CyborgMarx [any, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        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

        • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          i refuse to coddle the profound ignorance of the privileged when i literally spell out exactly what the problem is and they ignore it