Sorry if this is a silly question. I was wondering, under what axioms of set theory is it true that if $\alpha$,$\beta$ are cardinals, and $2^\alpha=2^\beta$, then $\alpha=\beta$? Do people use these conditions to prove interesting results?
This question is prompted from a recent perusing of Johnson's "Topics in the Theory of Group Presentations", where in the first few pages he "proves" free groups of different rank are non-isomorphic: the number of mappings from a free group of rank $\omega$ to the group $\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ is $2^\omega$, which would be invariant under isomorphism; and then he assumes the topic of my question: $2^\alpha=2^\beta$ implies $\alpha=\beta$.
But I remember reading something a few years ago about a student of R.L. Moore (I only remember his last names was Jones) "proving" the Moore Space conjecture, and using that $\alpha > \beta$ implied $2^\alpha > 2^\beta$, but that this was incorrect.
Anyway, I realized I don't know anything about when this is true or false, so I thought I'd ask.