It is indeed true that the reduction of inflation came at a big price—that Volcker's tightening, for instance, succeeded in lowering inflation only in the wake of a severe recession. But this possibility was, first of all, one concerning which monetarists were perfectly aware: they understood the danger that, once inflation, and accelerating inflation especially, came to be anticipated by the public, putting the breaks on money growth would result in prices and wages continuing for some time to rise beyond their new, less-rapidly rising equilibrium values, with a consequent rise in unemployment.
George Selgin