Reisman: Disk 4: Inflation and Price Controls – 1976: Part 1

George Reisman’s Program of Self-Education in the Economic Theory and Political Philosophy of Capitalism

Disk 4: Inflation and Price Controls – 1976: Part 1

Description of Lectures below

Supplemental Material

• Inflation and Price Controls [pdf]
• Program Guide: George Reisman’s Program of Self-Education in the Economic Theory and Political Philosophy of Capitalism, Second Edition, Enlarged (including Introduction, Syllabus, and Syllabus Supplements) [pdf]
• Other Lecture Supplements

Youtube Channels

• Overall Program
• Disks 4 & 5. Inflation and Price Controls – 1976

Lectures

• DISK 04 – 01A Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 1, Track 1 [mp3; youtube]
• DISK 04 – 01B Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 1, Track 2 [mp3; youtube]
• DISK 04 – 02A Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 2, Track 1 [mp3; youtube]
• DISK 04 – 02B Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 2, Track 2 [mp3; youtube]
• DISK 04 – 03A Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 3, Track 1 [mp3; youtube]
• DISK 04 – 03B Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 3, Track 2 [mp3; youtube]
• DISK 04 – 04A Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 4, Track 1 [mp3; youtube]
• DISK 04 – 04B Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 4, Track 2 [mp3; youtube]
• DISK 04 – 05A Inflation and Price Controls, Lecture 5, Track 1 [mp3; youtube]

Description of Lectures

From Capitalism.net:

Inflation and Price Controls

This nine-lecture series was the original basis for Dr. Reisman’s book The Government Against the Economy and makes an excellent accompaniment to Chapters 6–8 and Part A of Chapter 19 of CAPITALISM. The total running time of the two CDs is approximately 22 hours. 

The series begins by proving that only the government’s increase in the quantity of money can explain generally rising prices and that all other explanations are either completely wrong or, to the extent they have any validity whatever, only serve to confirm that the cause of rising prices is the government’s increase in the quantity of money. It then goes on to show in detail that while the uncontrolled price system of a free market coordinates productive activities and progressively raises the general standard of living, price controls, the classic response to the rising prices caused by the government’s inflation of the money supply, cause shortages and economic chaos and culminate in a totalitarian socialist dictatorship. The contents of the  lectures are as follows:

1. The Cause of Rising Prices. The quantity theory of money and its significance. Proof that the government’s expansion of the money supply is the cause of rising prices.

2. Refutation of the Alternative Explanations. The “cost-push” doctrine and its variants. The attempts to blame rising prices on labor unions, big business, and various crises.

3. The Refutation Continued. The “velocity of circulation” argument. Blaming “inflation psychology,” credit cards, installment credit and the “greed” of consumers. The Free Market. The profit motive and its economic consequences.

4. The Free Market Continued. The growing abundance of natural resources. Prices and costs. The equalization of prices over space and time. Wage rates. Why the Arab oil embargo would not have been a threat to a free economy.

5. The Free Market Further Continued. The pricing and distribution of goods and services in limited supply. Why shortages cannot exist in a free market. The rationality of the free market in distributing goods and services in limited supply.

6. Price Controls. Shortages and the destruction of vital industries: the examples of rental housing and the electric utilities. How the government and the ecology movement caused the oil shortage and made possible the success of the Arab cartel.

7. Price Controls Continued. Chaos in production and distribution. How controls on some goods cause higher prices on other goods and actually raise the general price level. Why controls tend to spread until all prices and wages are controlled.

8. Universal Price Controls and Their Consequences. Government control of production and distribution. De facto socialism.

9. Socialism and Why It Must Fail. The state’s monopoly of production and its consequences. The destruction of individual freedom. Why socialism must be totalitarian.