A "tautological certainty" is such with respect to some given set of
axiomatic premises - thus, a "tautological certainty" in Euclidean Geometry
is not such in non-Euclidean Geometry.
In the present case, the proposition that "printing more money does not to
the value of anything" is predicated on a set of axiomatic premises
analogous to those listed by Bentham under II below.
Under the alternative set of axiomatic premises listed by Bentham under I,
the opposite is true - the following is an extract from a 1988 working note
on related issues:
Bentham's essay entitled "Institute of Political Economy" contains a formal
definition of its subject matter similar in essence to Keynes' concept of
the "Theory of Economics" and its application in the real world:
"Political economy," Bentham wrote, "is at once a science and an art. The
value of the science has for its efficient cause and measure the subserving
the art."
Or, less formally, economic science must be rigorous in its analytical
aspects, or it is not deserving of that name. Economic science must be
applied with imagination in the real world, or it is a waste of time and
money.
In "The Institute of Political Economy," Bentham also outlined in summary
form the essence of the ideas on the analytical links between "fresh" money,
employment, output, and prices, whose "propriety" James Mill had questioned:
I. "If the fresh money, on the occasion of the first employment or
expenditure made of it, is employed in purchases, the immediate effect of
which is to make an immediate addition to the mass of really productive
capital, it then makes by the amount of such purchase a clear addition to
the growing mass of real wealth, beyond what would have existed otherwise."
II. "If the fresh money, on the occasion of the first employment or
expenditure made of it, is employed in purchases, the immediate effect of
which is not to make any immediate addition to the mass of really productive
capital, it then makes no addition to the growing mass of real wealth."
III. "No sooner, however, does it ["fresh money"] pass on from this its
primary destination (that of adding to real capital) to the other, viz. that
of adding to unproductive consumption, than its power of producing an
addition to the mass of the matter of real wealth is at an end:
thenceforward and for ever it keeps on contributing by its whole amount to
the encrease of prices, in the same manner as if from the mines it had come
in the first instance into an unproductive hand without passing through any
productive one."