Some become richer, some poorer. But even then the effects on the conditions of the various individuals are not absent. Each change in the money relation takes its own course and produces its own particular effects. To the social consequences of an inflation those of a deflation are added. There is no reason to assume that all or even most of those favored by one movement will be hurt by the second one, or vice versa.
Money is neither an abstract numeraire nor a standard of value or prices.
It is necessarily an economic good and as such it is valued and appraised on its own merits, i.e., the services which a man expects from holding cash. On the market there is always change and movement. Only because there are fluctuations is there money. Only because people expect changes about the kind and extent of which they have no certain knowledge whatsoever, do they deep money. While money can be thought of only in a changing economy, it is in itself an element of further changes.