I am writing this when at the launch event of the Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies - which I think is an amazing new intitiative intended to promote the idea of modern monetary theory here in the UK.
There is good reason for this blog though. The GIMMS website has been launched, and it includes some great factsheets on MMT issues. They are available here.
For these reasons alone I welcome this initative - and strongly believe they will achieve a lot more than this, although it is a great start.
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Hurrah! Long overdue. An important step in spreading the word in the UK. Thanks to the lay-perspective’ of the 5 women behind it, it’s a simple, well designed website. I’ve started to circulate the above link.
‘Oak trees from little acorns grow’. Corny but true 🙂
Excellent stuff. They are also worth following on twitter.
The Fact Sheets are good, although I prefer this one 😉
http://www.progressivepulse.org/economics/economics-101/a-brief-history-of-money
🙂
Thank you Richard, thank you for letting us know.
Thank you for this Richard, looks like there is tons of good info there! Just what I need, relating MMT and politics.
I understand that Bill Mitchell is to speak tomorrow. Such a shame that I have a prior engagement. In our village -Uley in the Cotswolds – we are unveiling a memorial to a gorilla called John Daniel who lived in our village from 1918 to 1921. Tragic beginning and ending to the story but for three years he was raised as a child by an eccentric lady and that was probably the sweetest period of his life. So sorry Bill, would love to see you but the unveiling has been 11 months in the pipeline.
If you think this is a wind up just Google it.
A great day at the launch. Thanks to the five + Patricia and Bill and all the others that made the event such a great success. Now feel ready to rock n roll with activism with the backing of the website. Congratulations all.
This is great – well done to the instigators. I think they have been very astute to call it Modern Money STUDIES. I much prefer this to MM THEORY , since it purports to describe what is the case without the need for any theory. When I tell people about MMT , I always feel open to the criticism that “. …..well it’s just a theory, isn’t it?”. In fact, could anyone explain what is theoretical about it please?
As you say, MMT describes things as they actually are; it is a body of work that constitutes a way of viewing and appreciating what is economic reality. So in that sense it is not ‘theoretical’: it’s not a theory waiting to be applied in some bold real-world experiment. As Bill Mitchell said in a recent blog post:
”MMT is a lens which allows us to see the true (intrinsic) workings of the fiat monetary system.
It helps us better understand the choices available to a currency-issuing government.
It is not a regime but an accurate perspective on reality.
It lifts the veil imposed by neo-liberal ideology and forces the real questions and choices out in the open.
In that sense, MMT is neither right-wing nor left-wing — liberal or non-liberal — or whatever other description of value-systems that you care to deploy.
I mean by that, that while MMT provides a clear lens for viewing the system, to advance specific policy platforms, one has impose a value system (an ideology) onto that understanding.”
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=40457
I think the last point is particularly pertinent. Whether we prefer left-wing or right-wing policy prescriptions, does not alter the validity of the MMT perspective. But returning to your question, Bill reminds us in the same blog that
there is a large body of academic work going back 25 years that informs the MMT perspective. In that sense MMT has a strong foundation of ‘theory’ to back it up.
Bill reiterated that yesterday
It was good to see him
@ Jim Green “I think the last point is particularly pertinent. Whether we prefer left-wing or right-wing policy prescriptions, does not alter the validity of the MMT perspective. But returning to your question, Bill reminds us in the same blog that
there is a large body of academic work going back 25 years that informs the MMT perspective. In that sense MMT has a strong foundation of ‘theory’ to back it up.”
In an interview I saw recently – link I’m afraid is lost, he seemed to suggest that in effect the theoretical bit is the Job Guarantee. That the inherently counter cyclical nature of it would automatically stabilise the economy. Although I agree, I’m worried about its practicalility. The actual MMT ideas on the fiat money system have been pretty much agreed by the BoE and the Treasury, if just not any of the mainstream media and hardly any politicians (?Chris Williamson?)
Mind you Dr Philippa Whitford MP (SNP) got pretty close on BBC R4 Any Questions? which I heard today (quite by chance as unless I’m driving – and rarely then – I never listen!) it’s about three quarters of the way thru’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000mps
I will try to find the right link
On twitter Philippa acknowledged my influence on this
Just watched Prof. Kellton, very informative and I think well explained. Spend and tax was very well explained. I feel that the real problem will be getting those that know but it is not in their interest to explain in a corner. Imagine if the nurse who was scolded by Mrs May about the money tree had been able to explain what Prof Kelton said. I still have questions and the obvious one for me is what about Venezuela?
I know there is an answer but struggle with this. I feel the swamp and zeitgeist consuming my head.
The Venezualn issue cab be explained in a single word
It is the dollar
“The Venezuelan issue cab be explained in a single word
It is the dollar”
I think four words sums it up more accurately.
United States’ Foreign Policy.
The Dollar is not the cause but the weapon, in this case.
The latest podcast from Richard Wolff for Democracy at Work mentions this. It also feeds into my views about the violence of Capitalism. The dollar has been weaponised in South America for a long time, throw in sanctions, military actions, etc and the results are no surprise.
Do we need a reserve currency, should it maybe be a world bank style one with no national ties?
As Keynes suggested – and which the US blocked in 45
Funnily enough I’d just been reading up on reserve currency both history and concept, interesting stuff.
Some links are broken eg
Can the UK run out of money? Didn’t Gordon Brown sell all the gold?
Give the team time
This is all done completely voluntarily
Agreed。
There is no need to be frightened of theory. Practice informs theory as indeed does theory inform practice. There is no practical solution to any problem without also a theoretical one. Imagine trying to land a space vehicle on some distant space object without the theory of ballistics. Or trying to cross a busy road without the aid of perpective. Perspective is pure theory. It doesn’t exist in the physical world.
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a conference so much before – for the content as well as the people/atmosphere. I really needed Bill’s presentations to embed the MMT narrative – and I got him to sign the book (lost previous in Clapham Junction waiting room). The women were wonderful, especially Deborah who began and finished with warmth and intelligence. So many notes, so much to do to follow through with GIMMS girls.
One thing which perhaps I could raise here. I don’t believe that the Job Guarantee is necessary because a Labour government, unconstrained by monetary policy, would have no need to scrabble around looking for jobs which need doing – there are thousands of those now, let alone those ‘wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had people to do this’ jobs. The only problem I see is that, even with technological progress, we won’t have enough labour to meet demand for services. And this cannot be solved ultimately by more immigration. We also need to reduce the working week so that people have time and energy to do their own thing. Perhaps give up sleep. OK, I exaggerate…
A good point Carol in your last sentence about leisure time.
Leisure is also where we spend our money that makes the real economy go around – as well as on the purchase of essentials. Therefore leisure is a necessity for a sustainable economy. As Krugman says – ‘Everyone’s wages is someone else’s wages’.
I see loads of work that needs doing all around me all of the time:
1. Road maintenance – many of the roads I drive and cycle on are disgrace. Sometimes it’s like cycling on the bloody
moon or on some WW1 shell hole filled battlefield.
2. Litter and rubbish – I dream of a well paid land army in this country gong around urban (even rural) areas and picking
up rubbish. It blights this country. Coastal areas too.
3. Too many derelict buildings – why? Get ’em knocked down or doing something for goodness sake.
4. Brownfield sites – why? You want to save the green belt? Remediate them all. Every last bloody one.
5. Why does the permanent way in this country now tolerate having weeds growing in the four foot? This never used to
be the case. Sort it out. Why are so many Victorian bridges and viaducts in such poor condition? And we need more
electrification of our rail routes.
6. Why do too few cities have trams? We know what the internal combustion engine does now. Lets build up public
transport infrastructure again. And open a few more Beeching closures too.
Carol says “ we also need to reduce the working week so that people have energy to do their thing”. And reduce it further so that the whole population can contribute to the governance of the organisation they work for as well as constitute the membership of the second chamber. A second chamber (largely internet based) were governance and audit is available 24/7 365 days a year.That would remove the disproportionate influence of the 1% over the 99%.
John.Adams says:
“….. And reduce [the working week] further so that the whole population can contribute to the governance of the organisation they work for as well as constitute the membership of the second chamber. …”
What ?
You mean like a functional democracy, John ? Steady-on, Mister !
MMT does not leave governments unconstrained. I am not sure it should claim to be an objective descriptor of modern money – there are no neutral observation languages (the standard mistake of the positivist view in social science is to assume there are). We can arrive at many of the good possibilities of MMT without much need for theoretical context. Job guarantee is a good idea with or without MMT. One part of this we don’t see being much considered is the impact of job guarantee on zero hours contracts and bullshit jobs – not least that things may already much worse than official unemployment shows. The upside would be the need for the private sector to up its own game on wages and conditions.
You are right that MMT is simply a description
As Bill said on Friday, it is amenable to a left wing overplay inclduing the JG but that is an addition
I continue to think it ‘non-core’