As economist Martin Feldstein has frequently pointed out, price stability also permits tax laws, accounting rules, and the like to be expressed in dollar terms without being subject to distortions arising from fluctuations in the value of money. 3 Economists like to argue that money belongs in the same class as the wheel and the inclined plane among ancient inventions of great social utility.
Price stability allows that invention to work with minimal friction. In principle, the problem of inflation could be reduced by the practice of indexing dollar payments such as interest and wages to the price level, but people seem to find indexing costly and avoid it when they can.