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78 Primarily a gainer when prices are falling, because his wages fall more slowly than prices, he nevertheless suffers more unemployment during this lowered cost of living than during rising prices, and in the mismanagement, at the end, he suffers with the rest.

In short, almost no one gains long or gains much either from rising prices or from falling prices. To society as a whole, there is, in either case, a great net economic loss as well as great injury to social justice and good will.

17. Conclusion

Thus this seemingly simple little matter of shortening or lengthening the monetary yardstick, so far from being a merely nominal and unimportant change, is really more or less responsible for some of the greatest events in history. It causes mighty convulsions of prices and these, directly or indirectly, rock the social structure to its foundation.