When money changes, everything else anchored on money starts to change as well. Prices being the most obvious one, but crucially, not the only one.
1/ Wow, what an essay, trying to distill thoughts from this masterpiece: https://t.co/bxR3cnNJrM
Hat tip: @NSKinsella
The essay is about inflation's effect on culture, through the analysis of a short story set in Weimar Germany. I've selected some quotes and will comment.
When money changes, everything else anchored on money starts to change as well. Prices being the most obvious one, but crucially, not the only one.
The insanity and disorder of society, in other words, can be traced back to monetary policy.
Unreal, in this sense is counterfeit or fake. Societal attitudes become as fake as the money we use because it no longer just represents value provided, but also value fraudulently obtained.
Money helps us to know where we can expend our labor to best provide value. If our sense of value is skewed, we will no longer properly value our labor, time or energy.
Fake money leads to fake values leads to fake people.
Relativism develops because there are no anchors, no fixed values. That comes from a constantly changing money.
Bad money causes uncertainty and uncertainty makes everyone become a lot more high time preference.
Low time preference saving and working are spurned in favor of hitting it big on one big gamble.
Postmodern art, in particular, is all about representing itself and not anything else. Its value is derived from itself. It's literally fiat art.