Wealth & Money Quote by Arthur Laffer

“Sound money” is one of those phrases that pretends to be a technical term while doing the work of a moral verdict. Laffer’s “sine qua non” lands like a courtroom Latinism: not an argument, a threshold. If you disagree, you’re not just wrong about policy; you’re failing the prerequisite for “prosperous society” itself. That’s the intent: set monetary stability as the non-negotiable baseline, the thing you must secure before you’re allowed to talk about redistribution, industrial policy, or ambitious public spending.

The subtext is a quiet jab at the political temptations of inflationary finance. “Sound money” typically means low and predictable inflation, a credible central bank, and restraint around deficit spending that might be monetized. By framing it as the necessary condition, Laffer elevates price stability above other goods that often compete with it in democratic politics: full employment at any cost, cheap credit, debt forgiveness via inflation, the short-term sugar high of stimulus without taxation. Prosperity, in this view, isn’t a product of heroic state planning; it’s what happens when the currency stops being a political football.

Context matters because Laffer isn’t a neutral monetary priest. He’s a Reagan-era supply-sider whose brand is simple levers and hard constraints: marginal rates down, incentives up, growth follows. “Sound money” pairs with that worldview as the anti-illusory companion to tax cuts: don’t let loose monetary policy fake the growth you’re promising. It’s also a cultural signal, reassuring investors and affluent voters that the rules of the game won’t be rewritten by stealth inflation.