Say
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
567 points (89.5% liked)
Political Memes
5402 readers
3364 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
People with large amounts of capital are focused on capital retention and not growth, so it is not short sighted for them to leave there capital in a deflationary currency. It is a low risk investment that will beat inflation by default. It is actually a great investment for them. Normally the rich would use treasury bonds that will beat inflation instead. Lowering the interest rate of treasury bonds forces the rich to risk their capital in the market where they could lose it. They reduce this risk by diversification of stocks, but it is still riskier than a treasury bond or deflationary currency which they would prefer.
I bring up the unequal negotiating power because wages not keeping up with inflation is the core complaint you had. Regardless of inflation or deflation the business owners will try to reduce costs and will often screw over the working class. If the currency inflates than they don't give you a large enough raise. If the currency deflates than they will have to reduce your wage and will find a way to justify it. In both situations the business owner will screw over the working class because of unequal negotiating power.
Basically using deflation to fix worker compensation is like using a hammer on a screw. A screw looks like a nail, but a hammer is not the right tool for this problem. Unions are the drill that fix unequal negotiating power and the US has been undermining them for decades at this point. Inflation is a tool to force the rich to invest and risk their capital while deflation benefits the rich and their ability to maintain their status. If you want to imagine a society without capital then fine, but no such society has ever replaced currency which is just an abstraction for work done, but payment not yet redeemed. Gold, coupons, and dollars can all be currency. It is bad for a society if individuals can horde a currency and deflation makes it extremely easy to do so. As long as currency exists it is better to force the wealthy to risk their capital in the open market where they will lose some or all of it.