We live in a barter economy. A barter economy operates on a simple principle: if you sell something, buy something. You don't have to buy a consumer good. Funding a factory is "buying something." You don't even have to buy something yourself. You can lend your money to someone else who will buy something with it. (Sort of like "cap and trade.") So the sell/buy principle is in no way incompatible with saving or investment. The only no-no is hoarding cash, which makes sense, because only cash is eroded by programmed inflation. (Lenders take expected inflation into account in setting rates; the principal may depreciate, but the loan self-amortizes in real terms as the inflation element of the interest rate is collected.)

Inflation also makes lending cheaper because underwriting data fades as loans age. The self-amortizing feature of inflation-adjusted loans reduces the lender's credit risk in real terms and so reduces the real interest that the lender must charge. Win-win.

Predictable inflation takes no purchasing power from anyone who has bargaining power. If someone loses bargaining power, they will lose purchasing power. That's how a market economy works. But if workers can't keep up with modest inflation, that's not inflation's fault. That's labor's fault, including labor's political arm, which is charged with seeing to it that workers get what they deserve.

Because gradual inflation is good for the economy, it makes no sense to accuse the government of imposing it as an exercise in autocracy. ANY process that allows "the economy" to decide whether it will feature gradual inflation would reach the same result, because that is the best result.