According to DuckDuckGo AI (using GPT-4o-mini) : The quote “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens” is attributed to Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian-British economist and philosopher known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism. This statement reflects Hayek's views on the effects of inflation and government monetary policy on individual wealth. It is often cited in discussions about the consequences of inflation and government intervention in the economy.

The quote you mentioned is often associated with Friedrich Hayek, but it is not a direct quote from John Maynard Keynes. However, Hayek did critique Keynesian economics and discussed the implications of inflation in his works.

The specific phrase you referenced does not appear to be a direct quotation from Keynes, but rather a summary of Hayek's views on the effects of inflation. Hayek's critiques of Keynesian economics can be found in his works such as "The Road to Serfdom" and "Prices and Production."

If you are looking for a specific instance where Hayek might have referenced Keynes in relation to inflation, it would be best to consult Hayek's writings directly, as he often engaged with Keynesian ideas throughout his career.

Not quite as pithy, but making the same point, AI agrees, The passage you quoted is from Alan Greenspan, who served as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. This excerpt is from his essay titled "Gold and Economic Freedom," which was published in 1966. In this essay, Greenspan discusses the relationship between the gold standard, economic freedom, and the implications of inflation and government monetary policy on wealth and property rights.

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense—perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire—that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.