Despite its technical jargon, the message of the Hawtreyan model was actually quite simple: infl ation was the main threat to the market economy, and the causes of infl ation fundamentally rested in exaggerated spending on the part of the general population— especially its lower ranks. Indeed, the “unruly” nature of credit and its tendency to expand excessively was fundamentally based on the unruly behavior of the majority of citizens who undertook “unproductive” consumption.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 877