08 Aug 2013

George Orwell on Politics and Language

Federal Reserve, Inflation 144 Comments

From his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” some key passages that perhaps have relevance to our recent controversy over the quixotic Austrians attempting to resurrect (what they claim is) the original meaning of the term “inflation” (all bold is mine, and I’m not going to italicize the whole thing so you can see Orwell’s original):

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible.

And

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, “I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so.” Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

“While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.”

We can argue about whether the above applies to the Austrian fight over the term “inflation,” but I want to make two specific points:

(1) The general arguments people like Gene Callahan are giving–saying the Austrians are analogous to people pining to call the sun a planet because apparently that’s what term they used in 1400–would apply against Orwell too. So is he wrong for chafing against political euphemisms? Am I out of line for objecting to the term “collateral damage” even though everybody nowadays “knows what that means”?

(2) Guys like Nick Rowe and Scott Sumner are quite openly saying they want to pick terminology to describe monetary policy in ways that won’t scare off the general public. I think everybody knows that if you had polled Americans in the fall of 2008, “Hey, do you think Bernanke should create another $1.5 trillion in new money electronically by buying up government bonds and mortgage-backed securities from the institutional traders who currently hold them?” that a strong majority would answer “no.” Look at the huge public reaction against TARP, which occurred at the same time the Fed began its “extraordinary” operations. So this is definitely political, on both sides. It’s not that the Austrians are injecting ideology into the mainstream’s objective science.

144 Responses to “George Orwell on Politics and Language”

  1. Gene Callahan says:

    “The general arguments people like Gene Callahan are giving–saying the Austrians are analogous to people pining to call the sun a planet because apparently that’s what term they used in 1400…”

    Wrong. That is not what I am saying.

    My point is this: You say “WE are not redefining inflation!”

    I am saying, “Yes, you are: the definition you want to use is not current, and just like someone who wants to again call the sun a planet, you ARE in fact asking for a redefinition. (And that is not always wrong: sometimes redefinitions are called for.)

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Don’t make me pacify you, Gene.

      • Collin says:

        How are we supposed to know if “price inflation” ever exists? The prices of what? There would always be some prices that aren’t “going up”.
        The “common usage” of the term “inflation” in my neighbourhood has to do with floatable beach toys and not economics.

    • Innocent says:

      So when Austrians say ‘Inflation of the Monetary supply’ what should they say instead in order to differentiate between that and CPI?

      In other words the word inflation for Austrians has always meant ‘Inflation of the monetary supply’, so it is not ‘redefining’ but using in the same as it always has been.

    • Bala says:

      Your argument is as ridiculous as it gets. The concept “planet” stands for a celestial body (with my limited knowledge, I understand it must be a non-star of a certain size-range, though I am not sure if it is in absolute terms or relative to a particular star) moving in an orbit around another celestial body, a star. When people considered the sun to be a planet (assuming they did) it was because the concept they had was that of the sun being in orbit around the earth. When they realised that it was the other way, there was no option for them but to redefine the earth as a planet and the sun as the star.

      This does not apply to the inflation discussion. There existed the original definition of inflation. It had a lot of economic significance. It explained important economic phenomena like the steady, inexorable rise in prices that is not expected on a free market. There is absolutely no justification for changing the definition from that to the current one. No new find was made (unlike in the case of the solar system) that enlightened us to some reality of the universe to which we correctly adjusted our definitions.

      The point is that language was systematically distorted to suit the political positions of its most highly placed users. This is what Bob is highlighting. That you use such a silly example to try to defend your indefensible position is revealing.

      • Gene Callahan says:

        “The concept “planet” stands for a celestial body (with my limited knowledge, I understand it must be a non-star of a certain size-range, though I am not sure if it is in absolute terms or relative to a particular star) moving in an orbit around another celestial body, a star. ”

        It does now. In 1400 and earlier it meant “a celestial entity wandering among the fixed stars from the point of view of earth.” You don’t know what you are talking about. See Thomas Kuhn, an actual historian of science, on this point.

        • Silas Barta says:

          Oh man, Kuhn is so passé! Philosophy of science has advanced since Kuhn, you realize.

          (Sorry, couldn’t resist giving your stock response. )

          • Ken B says:

            Gene is trying that crap on me over at his blog right now. Philawwwwwsophers have proven evolution cannot be true it seems, and I missed it. The blunders one makes when one reads science not Aquinas!

            • Blackadder says:

              Ken,

              Given that Gene believes in evolution, I’m guessing that you are misinterpreting him.

              • Ken B says:

                The disput is whether mind is a fundamental constituent of the universe. Gene says it is, I say it isn’t, and that mind evolved. Gene believes in theologically guided evolution.

                If minds evolved I am right, if they didn’t, if mind was there before brains or bodies, Gene is right.

                Gene thinks philosophers have proven mind cannot be reduced to the workings of brains.

              • guest says:

                Gene thinks philosophers have proven mind cannot be reduced to the workings of brains.

                There can be no capacity to choose, if the mind is subject to determinism.

                Every event and thought that happens today would have to have been the necessary result of every event and thought of the past.

              • Ken B says:

                That may or may not be so, but its not an argument for or against.

              • guest says:

                That may or may not be so, but its not an argument for or against.

                True. But a consistent Fatalist will admit that there’s no reason you should consider anything he says, since he would have spoken those words no matter what.

                To presume the capacity to choose to analyze something, or to choose to express knowledge, is to also presume the capacity to be a source of first causes.

                The capacity for first causes can’t come from determinism, so it must come from an agent which also has the capacity to be a source of first causes.

                An infinite regression is illogical, so there must exist one or more agents which was never created.

            • Bob Murphy says:

              Ken B. wrote:

              Gene is trying that crap on me over at his blog right now. Philawwwwwsophers have proven evolution cannot be true it seems, and I missed it.

              Ah, I feel much better now. This is clearly a worse misrepresentation of Gene’s position than anything you’ve ever done to me, Ken B. So now I don’t feel picked on.

              • Ken B says:

                No Bob. Gene thinks mind cannot have evolved and cannot be explained in terms of brains. But evolution — by which I mean the modern Darwinian synthesis — requires exactly that.

              • Ken B says:

                Just to be clear here Bob. When someone says “evolution” in a context where they are talking about life on earth the word MEANS the Darwinian theory, antural selection and all. It may or may not be the result of a conspiracy to redefine, but that’s what it means. And Gene, who believes in theistic guidance of it, rejects that theory. And he does so NOT on the basis of any scientific finding at all, but on the basis of philosophy.

              • guest says:

                And he does so NOT on the basis of any scientific finding at all, but on the basis of philosophy.

                Evolution is no more based on science than Creationism – both are philosophies based on the evidence.

                Except that the sphere of scientific discovery has been arbitrarily defined as being confined to empiricism; And so, science is “not allowed” to consider other kinds of evidence:

                As Richard Lewontin said:

                Billions and Billions of Demons
                [WWW]http://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Review.htm

                Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

                Now, what he’s saying here is that in order for science to be science we must preclude divine interventions.

                Which is fine, if that’s the definition of science one wants to use – the distinction between “the laws of nature” [regardless of whether or not God set them up] and any other law that may or may not exist outside of them, is a useful one.

                But if that’s the definition we’re using, let’s be careful to note that evidence that might prove the existence of God is merely being precluded by definition.

                Evolutionists forget that they are allowed to consider other evidence when extrapolating from empirical evidence.

                It’s like how the NRA forgets that they are allowed to defend the First Amendment while defending the Second; There are other areas worth considering.

        • Razer says:

          Terrible analogy. A proper analogy would be where the people redefining the word were doing so to hide or deflect blame because the definition was damaging to them. For instance, a rapist redefining the word rape so that what he does no longer falls under the definition rape. Since that word conjures negative feeling among the public, it’s better for the rapist to redefine it so he can continue to do what he likes undetected and without prosecution.

          What you are describing is not an intentional changing of the word to suit certain parties that would be harmed by continuing the initial definition.

      • Gene Callahan says:

        “When people considered the sun to be a planet (assuming they did) it was because the concept they had was that of the sun being in orbit around the earth.”

        Oh, and, nope. You are thinking like a modern astronomer and projecting backwards. The sun was a planet first, and THEN Ptolemy proposed a model to explain WHY it was one, which involved it orbiting the earth. Your explanation is exactly backwards.

      • Gene Callahan says:

        Oh oh, and: I actually studied the history of astronomy for an entire year in graduate school. And what I am reporting is not even my own idiosyncratic view, but comes from Thomas Kuhn, a master on this topic.

        That you are so willing to confidently make claims on a subject about which you obviously know nothing is… revealing!

        • Major_Freedom says:

          Kuhn’s thesis of paradigms is self-contradicting, in the context of practical, as opposed to the purely rhetorical, foundation of science.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      “I am saying, “Yes, you are: the definition you want to use is not current”

      So you agree then with the point being made that people in the past “redefined” the term inflation, because their new definition “was not current” at that time.

      • Gene Callahan says:

        Of course they did. If they had claimed they were not redefining it, I would have called them on that as well… if we had had blogs back then.

      • Gene Callahan says:

        Major, I have nothing against redefinitions when called for. But “Our definition was there first!” is not a good argument for tossing out the current term. Of course, Austrians have other arguments, and some make some sense, but this “We were there first one” is irrelevant.

        • Bob Murphy says:

          GC wrote:

          Major, I have nothing against redefinitions when called for. But “Our definition was there first!” is not a good argument for tossing out the current term. Of course, Austrians have other arguments, and some make some sense, but this “We were there first one” is irrelevant.

          It is astonishing how we can describe the same situation in such different terms, and categorize each point/counterpoint differently.

          The Austrians are most certainly *not* saying, “We were there first, so our term is better.” They have reasons for why their term is better. We bring up the history to show people that the term was deliberately changed for crooked reasons. So call us conspiracy theorists, but don’t say we’re arguing, “Earlier definitions are better, other things equal.”

          Now, when people come along and say it should raise red flags that we are redefining terms, that’s when I bring up the fact that no, it was “our definition” first, which was corrupted. So yes, I harped on the historical timeline, but only because we were being accused of redefining.

          You can continue to tell me your planet analogy is a good one, but I still think it’s convenient you picked one where everybody agrees the current usage makes more sense. If you had picked, say, Pol Pot redefining what “bushel of wheat” was in order to starve people, and then said “So Blackadder is right, the people who in Cambodia wanted to go back to the old definition of bushel were redefining terms” then it wouldn’t have been as compelling.

        • Major_Freedom says:

          I don’t think Austrians are claiming that their definition of inflation is better because it was the first definition.

          They are saying it’s better because it helps clarify questions that would otherwise go unanswered, such as WHY prices keep rising all the time.

          When Austrians say their definition was the original definition, that is only in response to accusations that Austrians are the ones guilty of redefining terms. Even if we accept that Austrians are redefining it from its current generally accepted definition, I don’t see those same people ever considering, let alone accusing, those who redefined the word inflation all those years ago. It’s almost as if Austrians are “guilty” of some new offense that nobody has ever committed prior with the term inflation.

        • Razer says:

          You still never addressed the point. The word was redefined because it showed that the government and Fed to be the cause of inflation. This is an embarrassing position for these entities to be in, since the public still holds this word in a negative light. So, naturally, the word gets redefined as to mask the perpetrators and deflect any blame that would normally come their way. The government does this all the time. It has nothing to do with having better information or reclassifying something that no longer meets the definition because of new information learned about it. Your sun example fits perfectly. The word planet was not redefined. The sun, after learning more, was discovered to no longer fit the definition of a planet. See the difference?

  2. Gene Callahan says:

    By the way, do you know that despite his criticism of the passive voice in the essay, Orwell in fact uses it at a rate 50% above average?

  3. Blackadder says:

    First, I agree with Gene’s argument about calling the sun a planet.

    Second,, “inflation” isn’t the only term where Rothbardians have adopted a not-currently-common definition. “Coercion” and “aggression” are other examples.

    Third, I don’t think Orwell’s point was that we should all go back to speaking Old English or that it’s wrong for the meaning of words to ever change. His essay was about using language to obscure and mislead rather than to clarify and reveal.

    From my perspective, it is the Rothbardians whose use of “inflation” falls into the category Orwell was criticizing. In my experience, most of the time Rothbardians use “inflation” in the same way as the general public (i.e. to refer to an increase in the price level). It’s when they get called on their failed predictions that they fall back on their non-standard definition.

    • Tel says:

      Our actual understanding of astronomy has improved, and the terms have been refined to reflect a physical distinction. Admittedly that leaves Juliter in limbo a but, but the physical world is continuous wheras language is necessarily broken into discrete concepts. Within this limitation, the Astronomers have done the most reasonable thing.

      In terms of our understanding of inflation, there has always been a recognition that if you print enough money prices will go up. It’s been tested often enough. The usage of the word “inflation” didn’t shift arbitrarily, it shifted because people do understand these concepts of monetary inflation and price inflation are linked.

      Has our overall understanding of the process improved? Personally I think not, not like the way Astronomy has improved. Economists simply found it more convenient to stop looking in one place and start looking somewhere else.

      • Gene Callahan says:

        “Our actual understanding of astronomy has improved, and the terms have been refined to reflect a physical distinction.”

        Yes, of course: I thoroughly approve of the new definition of planet!

        But the point is, the sun stopped being a planet because the term was re-defined (as did Pluto).

    • Major_Freedom says:

      In my experience, Austrians always think inflation in terms of money supply, but only use the definition of rising prices when conversing with others who use that definition.

      I think those who changed the definition from money supply to rising prices way back when are those Orwell was talking about. Take the focus off the fact that money is being printed, by diverting attention to the fact that consumer prices haven’t increased, or haven’t increased by much, thus enabling inflation (of the money supply) to continue unimpeded.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Blackadder wrote:

      In my experience, most of the time Rothbardians use “inflation” in the same way as the general public (i.e. to refer to an increase in the price level). It’s when they get called on their failed predictions that they fall back on their non-standard definition.

      No, abso-frickin-lutely not. This is what I was blogging about.

      Blackadder, I promise you, Austrians have been “whining” about this for as long as I joined the official movement. This is not some CYA strategy that we cooked up in 2009.

      BTW, to be clear, I think Schiff was being too cutesy in the debate with Sumner. You’re right, he was trying to evade the fact that he had clearly predicted higher consumer price inflation than had occurred. But, him explaining what he thought “inflation” really was, wasn’t some attempt to throw sand in Kudlow’s eyes. If you had asked Schiff in 2007 how he defined “inflation,” he would have said what he’s saying now.

      • Blackadder says:

        Bob,

        I didn’t say that the only time Austrians bring up there definition is when they get called on bad predictions. I’ve read Hazlitt et al. and I know that’s not true. What I am saying is that most of the time when Austrians use the term “inflation” the use it to mean an increase in the price level. It’s only on special occasions that they use it to refer to a monetary expansion per se.

        • Bob Murphy says:

          What I am saying is that most of the time when Austrians use the term “inflation” the use it to mean an increase in the price level. It’s only on special occasions that they use it to refer to a monetary expansion per se.

          OK and I am saying this has not been my experience at all. Maybe it’s because I’m usually talking to Austrians at an official Austrian event, whereas you are arguing with high school kids on Facebook. (I’m not denigrating you, I’m just explaining our different experiences.) In fact, if I went to Mises U and gave a lecture where I talked about “inflation” and clearly was referring to CPI, I bet people would email me telling me I was wrong, as if they were talking to a 6th grader.

          • Dan says:

            I’m not typically hanging out at Austrian events, but that has been my experience as well. Seems like it must be the experience of a lot of non-Austrians, too, or they wouldn’t be saying we use a different definition for inflation in the first place.

          • Blackadder says:

            Bob,

            I’m traveling right now, but if you want tomorrow I can post links to examples from your Mises articles, YouTube videos, blog posts, etc. where you use “inflation” to refer to price increases.

            • Bob Murphy says:

              Hang on a second Blackadder. I said from the outset that I will use the terms “monetary inflation” and “price inflation” to avoid confusion. So I hope you don’t quote examples of me saying “price inflation” or talking about the CPI, and say that proves that I think “inflation” means “rising prices.”

              What I was claiming is that if I just used the term “inflation” with no adjective, and it was clear in context that I meant rising prices, then somebody would bust me for it and tell me to go re-read Mises. So I hope your examples are me using just the term “inflation” when it’s clear I’m talking about prices. If you found 2 such examples, I will be genuinely shocked.

            • Bob Murphy says:

              The only thing I can remotely imagine you will find Blackadder is that I may have occasionally said in the title (but not the post content) something like, “Update on my Inflation Bet with David Henderson” or something. Like I said, even there, I will be shocked if I use inflation to mean rising prices in the post itself, but since David and Bryan call it our “inflation bet” I may have occasionally been lazy and done that in the title, rather than the more awkward “Update on my (Price) Inflation Bet With…” Yet don’t be surprised if you see it even in the post titles.

              The reason I am so adamant about this is that you have no idea how nitpicky Austrian readers are. If I ever write an article about the “Nobel Prize” in economics, for example, I tense up because I know someone will “inform” me that there is no such thing.

              So it’s the same with using “inflation” to mean “rising prices.” It’s a Pavlovian thing; I don’t want to get a little jolt of electricity from someone who thinks I’m ignorant of “the Austrian” position.

              • Ken B says:

                Bob, could the nit picky thing be because its a shibboleth?

      • Ken B says:

        “I joined the official movement.”

        Is there a special handshake or a secret decoder ring?

        • Major_Freedom says:

          No, just tact.

    • Razer says:

      It’s wrong whether you agree or not. The sun no longer fit the DEFINITION of a planet after more was learned, so it had to reclassified. The definition of planet didn’t change. If we classify an amimal as a mammal, then later learn that it doesn’t meet the definition and reclassify it, we are not redefining the word mammal.

      And that is completely besides the point. The point is others who benefit from changing the definition are the ones who have done this — inflationists are the ones who changed the definition of inflation for their own purposes — and now these same isolationists are pointing the finger at Austrians for using the ‘old’ definition as if we’re doing it as some type of dishonest tactic. Why can’t we just accept their new meaning of the word, boo hoo.

  4. Daniel Kuehn says:

    The trouble is you’re not some heroic Orwellian fighting obscurantist euphemism that provides a “defense for the indefensible”. At least you’re not that anywhere other than in your own head. You’re using an archaic definition that just confuses people (yours is better than many Rothbardians because you clarify monetary or price inflation) without offering any clarity in a political sense that Orwell is concerned with here.

    This always seems to be the problem with citing Orwell. Everyone seems to think he’s on their side.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      The trouble is you’re not some heroic Orwellian fighting obscurantist euphemism that provides a “defense for the indefensible”. At least you’re not that anywhere other than in your own head.

      And I don’t even exist, at least not in the same way Big Brother exists. Thanks Daniel.

      Yes, if Krugman et al. are right about the effects of trillions of dollars of bond buying, then maybe calling it “quantitative easing” is harmless. But if you think economics works the way I do “in my head” (not sure where else I would think that–since you’re not a dualist), then what we’re doing is perfectly sensible.

    • Rick Hull says:

      > The trouble is you’re not some heroic Orwellian fighting obscurantist euphemism that provides a “defense for the indefensible”. At least you’re not that anywhere other than in your own head.

      Would you say that about Milton Friedman as well? “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Was Friedman not fighting for truth, clarity, and insight with that conclusion? I hope you’ll agree, and if so, what distinguishes Bob’s position from Milton’s?

      • Blackadder says:

        Rick,

        When Friedman said that inflation was everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon, he was using “inflation” to mean “an increase in the price level” not “an increase in tbe money supply.” That an increase in the money supply is a monetary phenomenon would not have been either a novel or an informative statement.

        • Rick Hull says:

          Insightful!

        • Ken Pruitt says:

          “When Friedman said that inflation was everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon, he was using “inflation” to mean “an increase in the price level””

          I’m sorry but this statement is patently false.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE7zxo61Xc8

          • Dan says:

            Seemed like he was using inflation to mean rising prices to me. He was just saying that increases in the supply of money is what causes it.

          • Gene Callahan says:

            Of course he was. The difference is between saying the presence of germs CAUSES the flu (Friedman’s position) and the presence of germs IS the flu (Mises’ position).

            One reason Rothbard dumped on Friedman as a monetary economist is this difference. I am sure Bob will agree here: Friedman’s definition of inflation is NOT the Austrian definition.

          • Ken B says:

            Ken, this is daft. The *whole point* of Friedman’s remark is that in the long run all the other factors that contribute to rising prices pale in comparison to the effect of the money supply. That’s why it’s a substantive observation.

      • Daniel Kuehn says:

        Friedman was not using the Austrian definition. And if he was I would not say he was some kind of Orwellian vanguard of free society – I’d say he was advocating a particular definition.

    • Tel says:

      Because the operation of the Federal Reserve is so carefully and clearly explained to the American people in the most non-confusing way possible, right?

      So it must be Bob who is the one going around confusing people.

    • Bala says:

      That something is old does not mean it is archaic. Further, the definition of the economic concept inflation as increase in the supply of money is not confusing. It is very clear and very clarifying. It gives us explanatory power. Defining inflation as price rise is in fact the confounding definition. It makes explanation impossible and, worse, makes it possible for many to confound the explanation of the problem of the steady rise in prices that people face.

      • Gene Callahan says:

        “It makes explanation impossible”

        WTF? Friedman did not explain inflation well?

        • skylien says:

          What I think to be strange is that if inflation merely means a rise in prices in consumer goods, then it by definition cannot be always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

          Easy example: Money supply is stable. Amount of goods decreases let’s say because of a huge flood and a hurricane at the same time all over America, and then prices will go up. This would clearly not classify as a monetary phenomenon.

          So I think Milton’s phrase “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” to be strictly speaking wrong if he only defines it as a rise in prices.

          • skylien says:

            And if he would define it as increase in the money supply it would be a meaningless tautology..

          • skylien says:

            On the other maybe he just wanted to coin a memorable phrase that is easy to memorize for the lay audience that in most cases it is the money supply going up and not the amount of goods going down which causes prices to rise. In this light it makes sense to omit the rare exceptions since it is impossible to coin memorable phrases with words like “mostly”, “rarely” or “quite seldom” in it.

            So he faced an economic decision. Do I want to be precise or do I want to say something people remember. Since his words were directed at the lay person the decision was clear. I think it was the right decission.

          • Ken B says:

            Yes. And Friedman knew that AND SAID SO. He was exaggerating for rhetorical effect. This was discussed in some deatil on Henderson’s blog last year.

        • TheDjinn says:

          Not that. It’s that the definition (“Net rise in aggregate price levels”) doesn’t explain anything. A net rise in the measurement of aggregate price levels (e.g. CPI) in the long term could arise from:

          -Increasing the money supply relative to the productive capacity of the nation.
          -An exogenous shock that significantly reduces the productive capacity of a nation without affecting the money supply.
          -Significant depreciation in the value of a currency on the exchange market.
          -The measurement tool of aggregate price levels completely changing or being modified in light of new research.

          The key is, defining X to be “change in quantitative measurement of some value” rather than “actual event happening that causes change in quantitive measurement of some value” is stupid, as impedes communication rather than enhancing it.

          All of those events are patently different events, and therefore ought to have different names. Furthermore, they do not share the same policy justifications. Conversely, “increase in money supply” is clear, explanatory, and the set of policy recommendations that arise from it is consistent and small.

  5. Blackadder says:

    Also, it just occurred to me: originally “Austrian” referred not to an adherent of a particular economic school, but to a citizen of Austria. Therefore, anyone who uses “Austrian” to talk about an economic school is GUILTY of a political abuse of language.

    J’accuze.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      I realize you’re kinda sorta joking, Blackadder, but this is my point vis-a-vis Gene: You guys are making it sound like we’re nutty, when (as Orwell shows) there could be plenty of good reasons for what we’re saying.

      Gene of course denies it, but then, I wonder why he used the example of the sun being a planet in 1400? Why didn’t he instead focus on “collateral damage” or “climate change instead of global warming”? Because if he did that, then his readers might be sympathetic to the Austrians, and the purpose of Gene’s post was to disagree with us.

      • Blackadder says:

        Bob,

        The issue with “collateral damage” as an example is that that’s not a case where someone took a pre-existing term but gave it a new meaning. They created a whole new term for the purpose of obscuring what was really going on. There are plenty of example of this “kinetic military action” instead of war, etc. But as I said before, to the extent that anyone here is using language to obscure meaning, it is the Austrians, er, I mean the followers of Rothbard and Mises.

        • Bob Murphy says:

          But as I said before, to the extent that anyone here is using language to obscure meaning, it is the Austrians, er, I mean the followers of Rothbard and Mises.

          When people say they are “liberal” in the classical sense, are they using language to obscure meaning?

          • Blackadder says:

            When people say they are “liberal” in the classical sense, are they using language to obscure meaning?

            Generally no (usually when I hear people use the word “liberal” in this way, they include some explicit statement of what they are doing).

            On the other hand, if someone kept switching between definitions, or used the term in one sense knowing that his audience would take him to be saying something completely different, then they would be using language to obscure meaning.

            • Major_Freedom says:

              I take it then that when it comes to calling coercive extractions of money by the state “taxation”, whereas that same identical action by myself or another “citizen” would be called “theft”, you don’t flip back and forth between those two terms that characterize the same activity, depending on who is doing it?

              Identical actions should be given identical words.

              • Bala says:

                MF,
                They aren’t identical actions, are they? One of them has legal backing and the other doesn’t. Isn’t that so?

                🙂

              • Major_Freedom says:

                I lol at tautologies.

                It’s not theft because I said it’s not theft.

                Oh, OK.

              • skylien says:

                What happened in Egypt was no COUP!

            • Bob Murphy says:

              BOB: When people say they are “liberal” in the classical sense, are they using language to obscure meaning?

              BLACKADDER: Generally no (usually when I hear people use the word “liberal” in this way, they include some explicit statement of what they are doing).

              On the other hand, if someone kept switching between definitions, or used the term in one sense knowing that his audience would take him to be saying something completely different, then they would be using language to obscure meaning.

              OK, because before you said changing definitions was a “red flag.” Are you now amending that, to be that switching back and forth between definitions, knowing this will mislead the audience, is a “red flag”?

              (I think changing your accusation mid-argument is a red flag, myself. Nobody would have bristled at your new & improved position. It was your original assertion that prompted my post on this, and since people saying “liberal in the classical sense” are doing exactly that, with no objection from you, it seems your statement was too harsh?)

              • Blackadder says:

                Bob,

                No, changing definitions is still a red flag. Just because there is a red flag doesn’t necessarily mean there is danger, just that you should BOLO. In the case of liberal the red flag is usually a false alarm.

              • Bob Murphy says:

                Just because there is a red flag doesn’t necessarily mean there is danger, just that you should BOLO.

                Instead of “Blackadder,” you should switch your online persona to Houdini.

      • Gene Callahan says:

        “Gene of course denies it, but then, I wonder why he used the example of the sun being a planet in 1400?”

        Because it made clear that reverting to an older usage is in fact a redefinition. That’s all. (By the way, the older definition was NOT WRONG. If you think I’m mocking that definition, you still haven’t gotten this point.)

        And you keep failing to place my posts in the context in which they arose: responding to Catalan’s “the Austrian definition is really no different than the monetarist one.”

    • Tel says:

      Austrian in the old sense, just means someone from the East.

      In a more modern context, you might have an Austrian wife who is no longer a citizen of Austria the nation, or you might have an Austrian cuckoo clock that never was a citizen but did come from Austria, or you could ski the Austrian Alps that also aren’t citizens but nor are they about to leave Austria.

      If someone was slack in their context and used Austrian in some general sense when they had a specific usage in mind, I agree that would be confusing. Using “Austrian economics” to mean the economic theory that comes from Austria seems to fit the historic usage pretty closely.

  6. Wonks Anonymous says:

    Linguists don’t have a very high opinion of Orwell’s essay, because linguists are more more Hayekian (descriptivist) about language.
    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/index.php?s=orwell
    Also, Orwell didn’t seem to know what he was talking about and violated his own rules in that essay.

  7. Bob Roddis says:

    Guys like Nick Rowe and Scott Sumner are quite openly saying they want to pick terminology to describe monetary policy in ways that won’t scare off the general public.

    In case no one has noticed, my hobby is to find terminology to describe monetary policy and its advocates as monstrous, criminal, dishonest, dishonorable and the cause of most of our modern problems so that the general public gets scared and mad as hell.

  8. Bob Roddis says:

    Personally, I don’t like any of these terms taken from physics and applied to economics and monetary policy, inflation, bubbles, liquidity etc.

    Money isn’t liquid. There’s no wet spot on my pants from money being in my pocket.

    This fussing about the term “inflation” is just the typical changing of the subject by the anti-Austrians. Instead of suggesting better terminology to express what we are trying to get across, they spend all of their time being picky picky picky about terms like “inflation” or “equilibrium” or “a priori”. They do this to avoid discussing the basic and most important issues such as:

    a) the purpose of monetary policy is to rob the public of purchasing power under a veneer of gobbledygook and jargon; while

    b) the process distorts economic calculation which leads to malinvestments.

    • Gene Callahan says:

      “Money isn’t liquid. There’s no wet spot on my pants from money being in my pocket.”

      Right. And no one should ever say, “Kill the lights before you leave,” since the lights aren’t alive and can’t be killed. All metaphors are to be banned in Roddis land!

      • Joseph Fetz says:

        Gene, you must admit that metaphors often are the cause of some confusion and that they often make certain concepts murky and non-exact. Granted, they are often great for explaining complex concepts to a lay-public, but I think that they should typically be avoided in terms of theorizing. I think that even you’d agree that to further abstract from the concrete is to get further from reality, a metaphor is a good example.

        Then again, I sustained a concussion earlier this week, so I may just be out of sorts.

        • Ken B says:

          “metaphors often … make certain concepts murky”

          Irony alert.

          • TheDjinn says:

            That’s not irony at all.

            The statement that “sometimes metaphors can cause problems with comprehension”, expressed using a metaphor that couldn’t possibly cause any problems with comprehension unless you were illiterate to begin with, is not ironic.

            Rather, its the opposite of ironic: it’s to be expected that someone who acknowledges that some metaphors could potentially cause problems with comprehension would ensure that any metaphors he or she uses would not cause problems with comprehension. Fetz did just that.

            • Ken B says:

              Complaining about metaphors using a metaphor isn’t ironic. When Gene Callahan calls people rude that isn’t ironic either.

              • Joseph Fetz says:

                Ken, I did that on purpose, in case you didn’t know. And I chose the word “murky” specifically for a reason. I thought that it was clever, but oh well.

  9. Collin says:

    Gene’s “sun” example would make sense if we used to call the sun a star and now popular definition called it a planet, even though that definition would not make any actual sense. Redifining it to mean a (local) star would then be the intelligible thing to do if you care about communication and ideas.

    • Gene Callahan says:

      Are you saying that talking about price inflation makes no actual sense?! That is certainly not Mises’s position, or Bob’s! They both talk about price inflation!

      • Collin says:

        Yeah, every time someone gets a raise we all say ” thank you inflationary policy” not good work becoming better at your job.

    • Gene Callahan says:

      Oh, and the original definition of the sun as a planet made perfect sense: it wandered among the fixed stars, as observed from the earth. It was based on very real observations. (“planētēs” MEANS “wanderer” in Greek.)

      • Collin says:

        Gene thinks the sun is a planet!!

        • Collin says:

          …And that drug prohibition is a free market environment.

      • Razer says:

        Wrong. The definition in this example is of the word ‘planet.’ The sun, according to our ancestors, thought the sun met this definition. It no longer does. The definition did not change. Your analogy fails. And not just because of that.

  10. Jason B says:

    Is this really that big of a deal? I personally use “inflation” exactly as it’s historically defined, at least according to all the dictionary sources I’ve seen, as the increase in the supply of money. If someone else wants to use it in a modernized form, as a euphemistic term, then that’s fine by me because I understand the way they’re using the word. All I ask is that when I use it by its historical definition that it’s not on me if you muddy the definitional waters. Meaning, if you get confused how I’m using it, that’s not on me.

    Personally I think there is a level of intellectual laziness associated with the modernized definition, because it doesn’t connote causality, but if you want to use it in a manner that you feel doesn’t scare people about economic reality then I’ve got no problems. Just don’t get bent out of shape if I expose your definitional jiu jitsu as you intend it to be, a euphemism.

    • joe says:

      What’s the annual rate of inflation right now?

      • Jason B says:

        Up to June it’s 3.5%.

  11. Ivan Jankovic says:

    Bob, your use of language is completely crankish: there is no such a thing as “climate change” anymore; it’s called now “global climate disruption” (in order to emphasize how awful it is). 🙂

  12. Ken Pruitt says:

    The only possible way you can be confused about the definition of inflation, i.e., that inflation is an increase in the supply of money, is if you’ve had it drilled into your head repeatedly that it isn’t so. According to the logic that the people who would have us believe (quite wrongly) that inflation means an overall increase in prices, Unions or an overall decline in Supply can create inflation, but as Milton Friedman proved in his Free to Choose Series, unions are not responsible for inflation, neither is it true that an overall decline in Supply would create inflation.

  13. joe says:

    So Peter Schiff is once again right because either:
    1) he was referring to an increase in the money supply rather than prices and/or,
    2) the labor department and the commerce department are rigging the numbers

    That’s fine so long as you realize that eventually you’ll have to eat crow and admit you made a bad prediction.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      What prediction?

    • guest says:

      1) he was referring to an increase in the money supply rather than prices and/or

      Peter Schiff
      [WWW]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peter_Schiff_Show

      In his 2007 book Crash Proof, Schiff wrote that United States economic policies were fundamentally unsound.[21] Since then, he has stated many times that, without a change in U.S. government economic policy, there will be hyperinflation in the U.S.[21][22]

      According to Schiff, the U.S. government’s approach of replacing “legitimate savings with a printing press” could result in hyperinflation.[57]

      2) the labor department and the commerce department are rigging the numbers

      The Illusions of Hedonics
      [WWW]http://mises.org/daily/1873

      Most of what appears like an objective standard of measurement in economic statistics is a deeply flawed endeavor to measure the non-measurable. As the price statistician must admit, there is no meaningful way to measure the “price level”. At best, it is changes of the price level that can be constructed. But even with these changes, the measurement is flawed, because one cannot measure something, when both, the measurement rod and the object of measurement, are subject to change.

      Peter Schiff – The Fed Unspun: The Other Side of the Story
      [WWW]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdB9I79BQRI#t=1h20m12s

    • guest says:

      Oops. Here’s a longer quote from “The Illusions of Hedonics”:

      The Illusions of Hedonics
      [WWW]http://mises.org/daily/1873

      Most of what appears like an objective standard of measurement in economic statistics is a deeply flawed endeavor to measure the non-measurable. As the price statistician must admit, there is no meaningful way to measure the “price level”. At best, it is changes of the price level that can be constructed. But even with these changes, the measurement is flawed, because one cannot measure something, when both, the measurement rod and the object of measurement, are subject to change.

      The price statistician constructs a basket of products in order to measure the changes of the value of money. He claims that this basket is representative. But he cannot ignore the fact that the composition of this basket changes over time. Some products become obsolete, other products get modified and new goods and services appear. So he will change the composition of the basket. By this procedure, however, he implicitly changes also the units of measurement.

      • Ken B says:

        Right. All this applies to coastlines and sea-levels too, which is why map-making is such a fruitless endeavor. All you ever end up with is an approximation that’s useful for a while, and what good is something like that?

        • Matt Tanous says:

          The “basket of products” approach is like measuring the coastline around Boston and extrapolating to map the rest of the Eastern seaboard. And at least in that case, your definition of a “mile” isn’t changing as does the value of a dollar.

          Not only is there no way to measure the complete price level, nor its changes, but even if you could, you would be neglecting the fact that these changes affect each person differently, as relative prices and wages are not changing at the same rate.

  14. Ken B says:

    Have we ever discussed the civil war on this blog? I think not. OH SURE we discussed the American civil war endlessly. But I bet we never discussed the English one. But if you read any book in English on political theory from say the 1780s you’ll find that when they say “civil war” they mean the English one (Oops, I mean “the war of Royal aggression.”)

    Was this shift driven by conniving political hacks to disguise their agenda? Was it a hijacking, not a natural evolution? No, it was driven by context. And so was the changing use of “inflation”. Once it became a word in common parlance its use gravitated to the meaning that concerned most people. Everyone cares about the price of food and shelter, and very few know about M1.

    People would find it odd to say that Arthur was elected as King of the Britons when he pulled the sword from the stone, but in the parlance of the time he was. And just look at how John Calvin used “elect”. But in a modern context those are archaisms; you can use them in special circumstances but you need to be careful not to cause confusion or mislead.

    • Ken B says:

      Bob: I don’t like the 17th amendment.
      Gene: Which one is that?
      Bob: Election of senators.
      Gene: You’re crazy. Senators have *always* been elected.
      Bob: Gene, that’s nuts. And what about the guys who were simply appointed to fill vavancies?
      Gene: Elected. Criminy Bob, don’t you read Orwell?

      • Bob Murphy says:

        This is pretty good, Ken B. I especially like that Gene didn’t know political history until I reminded him.

        • Ken B says:

          One of the things I enjoy in our discussions Bob is that notice when I reach for style points.

  15. Blackadder says:

    Bob,

    Is it really the Austrian position that the definition of inflation “was deliberately changed for crooked reasons”?

    Do Austrians believe that language is centrally planned now?

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Blackadder, you agree that what used to be called “global warming” is now called “climate change,” right? Am I ignorant of Hayekian spontaneous order if I say I think that change was deliberate?

      You didn’t notice the deliberate attempt to transition everyone off of “headline CPI” and into “core CPI” two or three years ago, when the latter was running lower than the former?

      • Ken B says:

        OK, I agree with that example, but that’s not an example of the same common word being used in two different ways, and one of the ways atrophying. It’s pretty clear that “climate change” like “pro-choice” and “pro-life” are made up tendentious phrases. But inflation is a widely used pre-existing word. Not the same. There weren’t two different uses of “climate change” in 1830, one of which is now obsolete.

        • Bob Murphy says:

          Ken B. for somebody who likes to stress how mathematicians are “willing to be proven wrong by counterexample,” you sure don’t like when I give counterexamples to someone’s argument, do you?

          Blackadder didn’t say, “Your specific argument on this one term seems implausible to me, Bob,” no he made a blanket statement that my theory implies central planning of language. So I’m bringing up examples where my claim is totally fine, to show we’re arguing over degree, not over who is Hayekian and who is a central planner.

          • Ken B says:

            Quite the reverse Bob, I like to see you score a point; variety is the spice of life! But I think I DID agree with you on that point. Let me check:

            “OK, I agree with that example,”

            Hmmm, yes it seems I did.

            But I’m not defending Blackadder’s wider claim, I did cite other examples above after all, just the case about “inflation”, which is after all the topic of the thread.

      • Blackadder says:

        Bob,

        The comment about centrally planned language was tongue in cheek, but even so: touché. I withdraw the point.

  16. Keshav Srinivasan says:

    Bob, you always say “price inflation” or “monetary inflation”, but here are a few posts where you use “inflation” to mean price increases:

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2009/05/why-the-editor-of-the-new-republic-hasnt-quieted-my-inflation-fears.html

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2009/12/matt-yglesias-inflation-denier.html

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2008/08/recession-does-not-mean-low-inflation.html

    Of course, that’s not really dispositive over which definition of the term is better.

    • Ken B says:

      That only shows how insidious and successful the redefinition conspiracy has been ….

  17. Blackadder says:

    Bob,

    Here are a few examples of you using “inflation” to mean a rise in prices without using any sort of qualifying adjective (e.g. “Price inflation”). The examples given by Keshar above would also work:

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/09/did-i-ever-predict-hyperinflation.html

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2012/09/inflation-is-the-plan.html

    http://mises.org/daily/5574/On-the-Brink-of-Inflationary-Disaster

    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/we-already-went-over-the-fiscal-cliff/

    http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/19/setting-the-stage-for-stagflation/

    http://mises.org/daily/5172/

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2013/06/scott-sumner-tries-not-to-laugh-at-those-silly-inflation-hawks.html
    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/09/did-i-ever-predict-hyperinflation.html

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2012/09/inflation-is-the-plan.html

    http://mises.org/daily/5574/On-the-Brink-of-Inflationary-Disaster

    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/we-already-went-over-the-fiscal-cliff/

    http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/19/setting-the-stage-for-stagflation/

    http://mises.org/daily/5172/

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2013/06/scott-sumner-tries-not-to-laugh-at-those-silly-inflation-hawks.html

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/05/even-supercore-inflation-might-not-do-the-trick.html

    Sent from an iPhone. -inflation-might-not-do-the-trick.html

    Note: I would agree that you tend to be more careful than a lot of Austrians when it comes to this. I found plenty of examples where you do say “price inflation” instead of just “inflation.”i

    • Bob Murphy says:

      I will look at some of these later Blackadder, but your American Conservative example is actually a beautiful illustration of how I am being very precise, and using terms correctly.

      First, I don’t write the subtitles; the editors do that.
      In the text of the article, I say the gov’t will pay off the debts through the hidden tax of inflation.
      Think about that: The only possible way that makes sense, is if it means monetary inflation. You can’t pay off debts by making prices rise, you pay off your debts by printing money.

      Last, when I *am* talking about price inflation, I specifically say “price inflation.”

      But I do concede that Keshar found some examples where the average reader could think that I defined “inflation” as “rising prices.” In my defense, I would say in those cases I was responding to Yglesias et al. and so they were setting the tone, but I will officially retract my umbrage at your statements. Can you re-read my American Conservative (“we already went over the fiscal cliff”) and agree that actually I was totally precise in that one, and that to say “inflation is a hidden tax” and “you can pay off bondholders via inflation” really only makes sense if you are talking about monetary inflation?

      • Blackadder says:

        For the American conservative article, I had in mind this paragraph:

        The escape hatch Krugman has provided himself is to say that the threat of a bond strike, and the ensuing inflation, will help our depressed economy; it could only lead to trouble once unemployment has been solved. Yet this view is hard to reconcile with the British experience. According to this website, U.K. inflation was 9.2% in 1973, rose to 16.0% in 1974, rose again to 24.2% in 1975, fell to 16.5% in 1976 (when the IMF agreed to an austerity loan to rescue the falling pound), and steadily fell back down to 8.3% by 1978. Looking at those figures, armed with Krugman’s worldview, one might suppose that U.K. unemployment fell from 1973 through 1975 and then began rising, and that unemployment in 1976 was lower than in 1974 (because of the higher inflation rate).

        • Bob Murphy says:

          Right Blackadder, but before that paragraph I wrote:

          “In other words, even if Krugman were right and the falling dollar did give a boost to US exports and thus reduced unemployment, it’s not as if world investors would suddenly become bullish on dollars right when the economy recovered. No, it’s very likely that there would be an overhang, where the large price inflation—which Krugman welcomes as a way to induce more spending—would lead to a prolonged period of wariness for Treasuries.”

          So yes, as I am talking about Krugman talking about (in his mind) “inflation,” I first say “price inflation” just to dot my i’s and cross my t’s, but then I don’t keep saying “price inflation” just like to constantly say “his or her” is a pain.

          But look, I am now admitting that I totally see why you wrote what you wrote about Austrians using “inflation” like everybody else, in normal conversation. I admit I was surprised that I wasn’t more adamant–in saying that I’m referring to “price inflation” to set the tone–in some of the posts that other guy found (I can’t remind myself of his name from this screen).

    • guest says:

      Just wanted to note that, in the first link (“Did I Ever Predict Hyperinflation?”), the word “hyperinflation” or “price inflation” occurs wherever the word “inflation” is used.

      I didn’t check the comments, though.

      • Blackadder says:

        Huh? Is “hyper” a synonym for “price”?

        • guest says:

          That’s what everyone means by “hyperinflation”.

          Remember, the claim was:

          Here are a few examples of you using “inflation” to mean a rise in prices without using any sort of qualifying adjective …

          But, at least in that one article, they were all qualified.

        • guest says:

          I just realized you were the same guy who posted the list. lol.

  18. joe says:

    So apparently, we’ve had tremendous austerity since 2008. Once you take inflation into account under the Austrian definition of the word inflation, we’ve had 15% across the board cuts in state, local and federal spending.

    2008-04-01
    M2 7686.1
    state, local, federal spending 5254.7

    2013-04-01
    M2 10550.4
    state, local, federal spending 6125.3

    (10550.4/7686.1) x 5254.7 = 7212.91

    (6125.3/7212.91) = 84.9%

    • Tel says:

      What does “austerity” have to do with state, local and federal spending?

      I thought that “austerity” was when people live less luxurious lives, consume less, or practice asceticism.

    • Razer says:

      So if the state grows bigger by X% but was expected to grow larger than X%, this represents austerity? If you expect a 100% raise next year but get only a 50% raise, did you receive a cut in income? Does that meet your definition of austerity too?

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