Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Last week I quoted from a 1975 book by Adam Fergusson, WHEN MONEY DIES, about the Weimar era hyperinflation. One point the book makes that was new to me was that the Germans weren't the only ones hit. All three of the defeated powers (I say 3 because of course after the war Austria and Hungary were separate countries, no longer connected by Emperor or hyphen) were subjected to the ruinous war reparations demands of the victorious allies, and all three countries gave in to the temptation to gun up the printing presses. As to the consequences, I found this passage of great interest: Only the country people were surviving in Germany [in autumn 1922] in any comfort: anyone who lived off the land had the readiest access to real values. It was not surprising that even when they ensured that the money receipts for their goods were no more than equivalent in purchasing power than what they were used to, they were accused of extortion-- the more so if they del...

When Money Dies , by  Adam Fergusson, is a well-known study of the hyperinflation of the early Weimar Republic years. Here is a passage, referring to the demands of the labor unions in late 1921 and early 1922: "It was significant enough that union demands were still for higher wages to meet rising prices rather than, before all else, stable prices and a stable currency. A few of the financially sophisticated could be heard blaming the government, and the Finance Minister in particular, but  a typical view was that price went up because the foreign exchange went up, that the exchange rate went up because of speculation on the Stock Exchange, and that this was obviously the fault of the Jews. Although the price of the dollar was a matter for almost universal discussion, it still appeared to most Germans that the dollar was going up, not that the mark was falling: that the price of food and clothing was being forcibly increased daily, not that the value of money ...