Liberals framed inflation as a greater threat to liberty than Marxism

Evidence

Friedman argued that inflation damaged free societies by strengthening unions, which were more able to win pay rises in inflationary conditions, and by generating pressure for government subsidies and price controls to protect people from rising prices. … Friedman’s fellow panellist, the French philosopher Jacques Reuff, gave an even starker account of the problem: ‘Inflation is a far greater threat to liberty throughout the world today than Marxism’, he told his fellow liberals. Reuff argued that inflation weakened the regulatory role of the price mechanism and discouraged submission to its dictates. … ‘The crucial problem’, which in 1958 remained largely unresolved, was ‘how to get such “restraint”’. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 338

Categorization

• XREF: Ties directly to debates on market ethics and freedom: ‘inflation as threat to liberty’ resonates with Hayek/Friedman’s liberal freedom-of-contract tradition. — connects to: Neoliberal thinkers explicitly prioritized fighting inflation over reducing social friction. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 187