What’s wrong with trying to define one’s terms ? If we use the same word to refer to different things we’re going to talk past each other. Should we use language to miscommunicate ?
Nothing. You were just bashing each other, at least it seemed to me, for having the wrong definition.
“i am looking for a good, compact, definition of inflation…”
“- a general increase in money supply (Shostak) - very clear”
rereading you original post is seems that you have your definition.
as for the rothbard refining the definition to pinpoint an activity where a worded paper title to a ‘money amount’ , thats still inflation…but perhaps done with some direct deceit - not enough specie corresponding to paper titles.
There’s nothing wrong with defining one’s terms. What was being objected to, I think, was having an argument about that definition. If the goal is communication, say that inflation1 is a decrease in purchasing power, and inflation2 is increase in money supply. Then we can argue about propositions like “inflation1 causes inflation2” “inflation2 causes inflation1” and so on.
Who mentioned aggregate demand? I think we all agree here about the evils of aggregation. The idea that “demand for money” is an absurd concept is, well, absurd. Do you really think it makes no sense at all for Rothbard to write about the reserve demand for money? Certainly the concept demand for money makes as much sense as the concept of demand for donuts - which also should not be aggregated.
Well, no, no one wants, all else being equal, the money in their pockets to be devalued. When all else is not equal, though, they might - such as people who owe more money than they own.
from what i have read at the austrian economic websites inflation is nearly always defined as an increase in the money supply and then the austrian sites go on in as nearly many cases to say that mainstream economists define inflation differently (stressing incorrectly).
if austrians (those responsible for the school of thought and followers) define inflation (as i have read at the mises site and at lrc) as an increase in the money supply , if this was the true historical definition in previous centuries (claimed as such at the mises site), then this shouldnt be such an issue.
I didn’t have the time to engage in the discussion, but it was instructive. 
In the end, it was jason4liberty’s extensive answer that persuaded me to take the “increase in supply of money” as the most useful definition (well for me), big thanks to him. Also, richie2044’s article link was extremely useful (was aware of the book, but the summary came in handy). I have marked both as verified answers.
Thanks to all of you!
Which is not much.
Of course. Some people want to cheat. Are we talking about the ‘demand for cheating’ ?
Which is not much.
Ok, I have no idea what you mean here. What is your objection to the idea of “demand for donuts?”
I originally objected to this definition of inflation
because it’s meaningless. The supply of money is more or less quantifiable. There’s a certain amount of gold and or paper in circulation/cash holdings/whatever. The demand for money is not quantifiable. Unless you want to say that the supply of money equals the demand of money, which doesn’t provide much or any new information.
As for the demand for donuts I’m not sure what you want to say about it. Yes, an amount of donuts is exchanged for money periodically at certain price. There are producers of donuts who supply the stuff and consumers who ‘demand’ it. If the producers of donuts produce more donuts than their customers want, they won’t be able to sell them - so ‘demand for donuts’ is more or less quantifiable.
The case of the production of token money is, of course, different.
It seems you’re giving me demand for donuts, then. So, the demand for donuts can be given as a sequence of points - at each money price x, we have quantity demanded y. Graph this as a series of discrete points. Now, reflect it over the line y=x. Isn’t the result the demand sequence for money in donuts? At each price, it tells how much money is demanded for a given unit of donuts.
This is only the curve in donuts, though. There’s a demand curve for money in each commodity, of course. Salerno explains the concept of demand for money as a reflection of uncertainty - because we are uncertain about the future (not in an ERE) we decide to hold a certain quantity of money - or more correctly, a certain purchasing ability in money. For instance, we might decide to hold our spending over a 3-month period - which for me might be, say, $10,000. If you inflate the money supply, cutting the purchasing power in half, then a 3-month supply for me becomes $20,000. Why isn’t this a perfectly reasonable idea of demand for money?
No it can’t. This is not physics. You can’t vary price to build your curve - that’s just neoclassical nonsense.
You don’t have the points. Not to mention you’re assuming in typical central planner fashion that you know how many donuts (or whatever) are produced.
Meaningless mathematical manipulation…of data which you don’t even have!
Even if those constructs were valid (and they aren’t), it turns out there’s NO single curve for the demand for money but possibly MILLIONS of such curves. So the whole exercise is pointless.
That is usually referred to as cash holdings. It’s not a global/aggregate demand for money but the decision of some people to hold more cash.
Given that I think that most of your assumptions are wrong I haven’t got a clue as to what you’re saying there.
So you mean to tell me that there’s no such thing as a downward-sloping demand curve? If Rothbard were alive, would you be willing to tell him to his face that Man, Economy, and State is simply an exercise in neoclassical nonsense?
Someone linked that today or yesterday ^^, and I think it is relevant to the conversation.
Why not? If the argument is sound (I’m going to read the article LS provided in a few mins…) against use of curves in economics, we should not exempt Rothbard simply because he is a perceived authority; it would be not better than socialists being informed by other socialists to ignore libertarians when they bring up something about “marginal utility” in youtube comment wars.
Argument doesn’t stop at authority, it begins with authority, imo. I don’t think anyone would argue, however, that MES was a waste of time, though; maybe not completely right in light of arguments challenging it, but not a waste of time at all, methinks.
Well, if a seller of donuts increased the price of his donuts he probably would see the number of donuts sold decrease. He could try different prices and get some data points. So he could build a historical graph of sorts…I guess he would do that if he was interested in the business of curve plotting, not in the production of donuts…
Now, how is that related to the definition of inflation I criticized, I don’t know…
I swear I hadn’t read that article =]
The same is true for token money.
I love the ending…
Very good article, that was quite enlightening…
"In the end, it was jason4liberty’s extensive answer that persuaded me to take the “increase in supply of money” as the most useful definition "
That’s a pity.
Confusing Cause and Effect
It seems to me, the definition you picked to use is erroneous, because you are confusing cause and effect, although looking at many of the replies here, your confusion has good company.
Effect
The effect , or economic condition commonly called “inflation” is a phenomena whose main characteristic is the lowering[devaluation per unit] of the currency in use.
For example, in the US each $ would be worth less , and have a lower purchasing power [ able to buy less goods and services in general, as a result], than it could last week, last month or last year. To put it another way, each $ has a lower “price”.
In extreme cases this devaluation can be experienced on a day to day, or even an hour to hour basis.
[Possible] Cause
Assuming that by “supply of money” you mean the original, bank- system created supply and are not using some other definition, then “increasing the supply of money”, or to put it another way, “inflating” the supply of money, is only a possible cause, which may result in “inflation” under certain conditions , but ultimately , as with any other price, the value [or price] of each dollar at any point in time must always be determined in the end by the final outcome of the interplay of the two factors, supply and demand, not supply alone.