If you want a giggle this analysis of MMT from a hard Marxist perspective is amusing for the politics and economics geek. Written by Adam Booth, it could have been improved by even a little reading of what MMT is about. It makes the most basic of errors. So many in fact, I have no time to point them out.
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Frankly – this is embarrassing.
It’s one thing to have the extreme capitalists bashing MMT but when the criticism is from a Left perspective (so-called) there is simply no excuse.
And to speak for Marx – or Adam Smith or whoever – oh come on – it’s rubbish.
I thought Marxism was supposed to be “dialectical materialism” so as materialism changes – and most of it has, it’s become financialisation – so the dialect was supposed to change.
The article exhibits zero evidence that it has.
Marxism can, it seems, be dialectical only if Marx is around to tweak it. Now he isn’t, it seems to have ossified.
đ
Marx in his own time was dismayed by what some ‘Marxists’ were saying. He even said that if ‘that’ was Marxism, then he wasn’t a Marxist. I doubt he would have much time for many contemporary Marxists.
Itâs rather akin to the idea that Jesus would almost certainly not be a Christian, at least not of the sort many claim to be
“Itâs rather akin to the idea that Jesus would almost certainly not be a Christian….”
Well he lived and died as a Jew…….. (there’s something for the white supremacist, racist bigots to get their heads round)
And there is no Christian church. It’s inherently a Pauline structure.
A wonderful start to the week, Richard. Thanks. How does it feel to be the author of Corbynomics and a leading bourgeois traitor?
The editor of socialist.net not only gets you wrong, he doesnât seem to understand money either. Money is more than commodification, it existed before capitalism and will long after. Karl Marx knew this, but Adam Booth doesnât seem to care, Heâs got an economic system to ridicule and left wing thinkers to characterise as âuseful idiotsâ and bourgeois enemies..
Booth shows how irrelevant his conflictual ârevolutionaryâ marxism is and makes me wonder if it is deliberate on his part. Some say âoverthrowâ, others say âtransformâ, most people (including me) donât care.
Thanks for inviting readers to check how futile Adam Boothâs article is.
I can live with my paradoxes đ
This looks to be the same article Booth wrote in June which we have already discussed. Which of course contains the same mistakes. What I find puzzling is why he chooses to write about MMT at all. I struggle to see any obvious contradiction between Marx’s ideas of value and MMT’s. But he clearly thinks there is one and thinks it destroys MMT. But I am not sure he really understands either Marx or MMT.
I would say he needs to clarity the difference between Marx’s definitions of use and exchange value and the distinction between nominal and real value used in MMT. They are clearly not the same thing. Booth repeatedly mentions ‘value’ being created by both workers and markets but does not make clear which kind of value he means in each case. And of course he then makes no attempt to relate that to the real v nominal distinction used in MMT.
To my mind to get anywhere we need to at least look at a three way distinction: use value/exchange value/nominal value.
I rather agree with your suggestion that he neither understands Marx or MMT
” I struggle to see any obvious contradiction between Marxâs ideas of value and MMTâs. But he clearly thinks there is one and thinks it destroys MMT. But I am not sure he really understands either Marx or MMT. ”
I don’t know that he does think there’s a contradiction. Nothing Booth has written convinces me of it.
I think he just characterises history as a cowboys and indians film. One of them are goodies and the other isn’t. Elsewhere (on other subjects) he’s very selective and even contradictory. He simply wants anything that might ‘transform’ capitalism (and extend its life) to be seen as bad. MMT is bad – not because of anything about it, but because it can renew a bad thing. A doctor saving the life of a murderer is obviously a bad man to him.
Qwertboi,
Absolutely correct in my opinion: the Marxists I’ve spoken to about MMT respond in exactly the same way as Adam Booth and I strongly suspect for the exact reasons you state.
qwertboi says:
” Nothing Booth has written convinces me of it.”
If he had anything useful to say on the subject it wouldn’t have taken so many words. I didn’t make it to the end.
In my mind, Booth seems ignorant of the fact that the Government can create value by using MMT. It is as though his ideology even prevents him from seeing the value created by MMT in the terms of tax returns and investment returns which translates into real cash for workers and those on benefits.
Booth’s focus on value creation by the worker-individual is unwittingly it seems no different to the anti-statism found in Neo-lib orthodoxy – an individuals first approach.
And as for Marx – he is dead. We cannot speak in his name because Marx to my knowledge never dealt with the issue of MMT or Government macro policy.
Marx always had an emphasis on the micro economy and the tendency for private management to award themselves too much of the surplus.
The Government and MMT are not private concerns.
Personally, I think that Marx might have been very critical of the QE we have had since 2008 because it propped up the banks whilst but he may have actually approved of MMT because it is aimed at fiscal invigoration of the whole economy – not just the banking sector.
hello,
I have followed your articles on this subject as I have many others of your own and other persuasions. Personally I’m totally confused even speaking as a banker about the merits or demerits of this particular newfound doctrine.
To clarify the situation once and for all would it not be a good idea to have a foor-person debate in a closed room I.e. without partisan applause, moderated by somebody serious like say Andrew Neil.
This would contain two representatives each from either side of the spectrum and there could be delineated time periods for the cases to be put and forquestions to be asked by either opposing party.
Yourself and a like thinking cohort could form one side and two other luminaries of similar mental capabilities the other.
Obviously this would not be prime-time TV viewing so in the assumption of its not being able to secure a media spot, it could be produced as a free to air YouTube video accessible by all.
Do you agree and do you have three other participants in mind?
I am open to this
SS, MMT isn’t new. It has been around for around 25 years or so. It has only been taken up by certain mainstream commentators recently, though, which may be why you haven’t heard of it.
Syrus Stray says:
“moderated by somebody serious like say Andrew Neil.”
You have a finely honed sense of humour, Syrus.
Or you are trolling….or an idiot…
I prefer to go with the sense of humour. đ
For me this is potentially dangerous territory as I’m neither a qualified ‘expert’ on Marx nor MMT. Just a layperson with an interest in both and always eager to learn more, even at my advanced age. Hence, subject matter needs to be kept as simple as possible for me to get my head around it – a sort of litmus test for the 80%, lol. So here goes ….
I wonder what prompted him to write a lengthy negative and inaccurate diatribe, which adds nothing to such an important debate? Even a cursory search throws up articles that recognise the potential synergy of Marxism and MMT – and how an understanding/interpretation of both can offer practical insights for the construction a better socio-economic framework than the one currently dominating our lives and jeopardising the sustainable future of people and planet. The imagination behind the new story we so desperately need must be underpinned by feasible functionality if it’s to progress further than Base Camp One.
While I’ve not looked through the following in depth, here are a couple of links that appear to suggest Marxism and MMT are not mutually exclusive:
Some Remarks on MMT & Marxism in Light of David Harveyâs âMarx, Capital, and the Madness of Economic Reasonâ – https://urpe.wordpress.com/2017/07/04/some-remarks-on-mmt-marxism-in-light-of-david-harveys-marx-capital-and-the-madness-of-economic-reason/
How Marxism and Modern Monetary Theory Go Hand-In-Hand – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQNt-SYatbc.
Apologies to you and any other academics for my cursory comments. But we’re living in the Age of Complexity where there are no silver bullet solutions. Unless the complexity can be digested into a narrative that so-called ‘ordinary folk’ can relate to, peaceful change will not be possible. That was the simple elegance of the household analogy which has proven to be the stumbling block for radical progress. Unfortunately for us all it was more ideological than factual. Injecting the empirical lessons to be learned from Marx & Engels into MMT’s monetary insights would surely be a sensible way ahead. Over to the experts …. đ
Thank you for Scott Ferguson’s article on Marxism and MMT (and David Harvey). Greatly appreciated.
John D says:
“I wonder what prompted him to write a lengthy negative and inaccurate diatribe….”
If I’m being charitable I would suggest he’s trying to get his head round a set of conflicting ideas and emotions. It is the essence of ‘Therapeutic Writing’; until you’ve written it down you can’t be sure what you think.
We, because we’re ‘so clever’, think he’s got himself into an awful tangle.
If he’s wise he will be reading this ‘lengthy negative and inaccurate diatribe’ as you call it, and trying to make sense of it. He’s dealing with a conflict of religious proportions; attempting to understand Marxist ‘scripture’ and how it relates to the world around him.
Karl Marx was doing something very similar a century ago.
MMT co-founder has posted several times on Marx and MMT at billyblog.
Marxist economist Peter Cooper has posted extensively on Marx and MMT.
These are the go-to sources on Marx and MMT. Criticism that takes neither into account is poorly researched and woefully uninformed.
“Instead of trendy new ideas, however, we need the clear, scientific analysis of capitalism that Marxism provides”
I love this.
Maybe he’d like to reference some of the empirical evidence from the various Marxist experiments history has so far thrown up if he wants to drop the S-bomb into the debate. LOL
More seriously I get this a lot from Marxists: “we don’t need these new ideas – Marx has this covered”
I have some respect for Marx but I doubt even the great man himself would claim that he absolutely nailed everything there is to know about economics in a single lifetime.
Were he here today do these Marxist acolytes really believe he wouldn’t have something new to say after he had a chance to review the intervening 136 years?
Rather well put!
Adam Sawyer “I have some respect for Marx but I doubt even the great man himself would claim that he absolutely nailed everything there is to know about economics in a single lifetime.”
Of course Marx was not able to foresee or forecast the exact changes that the most adaptive, constantly changing economic system the world had ever known, capitalism, would produce. Yes, many evolutions of that economic system would have truly astounded and surprised him.
However (and this addresses your point on intention, above, too), those of us who happily base our thinking on his method and his principles (even if not intently), strongly expect that Karl Marx identified every single systemic contradiction and dynamic of his target system, i.e. capitalism.
On MMT and Marxism, Karl Marx believed that the humans who do not control capital (but, instead, create then distribute then benefit from its products), the group he called the ‘working class’, are the only source of wealth. Wealth is, of course, quantified by currency or money. It cannot be otherwise, but the wealth that underpins it is exclusively the product of the working class. Ricardo et al, and other ‘liberal’ thinkers in the early days of capitalismâs history constantly sought to assign ownership and control of this wealth-concept to the ruling elite (not the hoi polloi). They dedicated themselves to configuring – world view to embody and guarantee this. The thing which Bill Mitchel calls ‘MMT’ acknowledges every single economic (and potocal) tenet of marxist analysis (esp. that wealth is necessarily the product of the working class) and reformulates economic thinking on the basis of it. It is economic theory for the twenty-first century. Whether capitalism is a key part of it is unknown and almost unimportant.
So maybe, as you assert, above, Karl Marx’s economic theories (as expressed in Das Kapital and the Grundrisse)) did have a non-capitalist (post-capitalist?) explanation covered, he just didn’t know the details or the timeframe. Still donât.
Qwertboi,
Though I used to I know longer believe value just comes from the working classes.
Leaders, whether business, educational, political, legal, military or philosophical/religious are also important in creating the conditions necessary for value to be created – not as important as some of them would you have us believe! They’re arguably more important today as technology and human knowledge
Of course there’s also automation, which was in its infancy in Marx’s day. Soon the working classes will be more silicon based than carbon based. False consciousness replaced by no consciousness – but for how long?
I think there is an obvious point of reconciliation: many of these people do work
The value of their work may be mis-stated but that does not mean there is none
Richard,
Yeah, agreed. I think the categories of working class and capitalist class necessarily simplify a more complex and nuanced reality – much more so today than perhaps they did in Marx’s day.
Another issue that Marx was fully cognisant of at the time (as far as I know) and has become much more important since his death is that a tremendous amount of value is actually not generated by anyone.
Global warming is the consequence of humans unleashing the energy locked up in fossil fuels to do work for us – physical work that previously could only be done by humans or animals (maybe some windmills/watermills/sailing-boats).
I think most of our huge productivity gains have come from a combination of scientific/technological/organisational advances combined with vast quantities of effectively free labour supplied by machines fueled by coal, oil and gas. It hasn’t all come from the workers of the world working ever harder.
I’d argue that “class conflict” ceased to be the main issue of concern a long time ago. It has been replaced by ecological conflict – conflict between humans and the rest of the biosphere. That’s probably only been overwhelmingly the case since the mid 20th Century – over a hundred years since Marx’s death.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve had bizarre arguments with Marxists who seem to believe global warming and efforts to address it are all a right-wing establishment hoax to keep the workers down!
Adam Sawyer says:
“…. I no longer believe value just comes from the working classes.
Leaders, whether business, educational, political, legal, military or philosophical/religious are also important in creating the conditions necessary for value to be created…..”
There’s no real conflict here. If it is the working class (product manufacturers of whatever kind) that create value it follows that they are likely to need supporting services to enable them to do the producing in an efficient and effective and timely manner.
It’s an inherent result of the understanding of the efficiency of division of labour that it makes sense for the agricultural labourer to not have to make his own spade or plough. That is all fairly simple and not at all contentious. But that division of labour remains within the realms of the productive worker class.
Where we get (perhaps I should say ‘have got’) into difficulties, I think, is when “business, educational, political, legal, military or philosophical/religious”- support workers decide they are a cut above the productive workers….and therefore deserve to be paid more. Then we get the socio-economic divisions developing which gradually mutates into ‘class war’.
At bottom there is a lack of mutual respect for other people’s skills and contribution to society. The ‘Working Class’ needs social aswell as physical infrastructure, but do the providers of that ‘deserve’ to be more highly rewarded ? I seriously wonder why we think it appropriate to pay our political class any more than a median-wage salary. (After the debacle of the past three years or so I wonder why we pay them at all đ )
I’m recalling from ‘The Lord of the Flies’ that Jack’s choir cohort which becomes the Island’s military and hunting elite regard themselves as more important than the rest of their makeshift community. That schism proves to have lethal and destructive consequences.
Yeah, I know it’s a work of fiction, but….illustrates the point of social superiority delusion quite nicely I think. Without Piggy’s spectacles they can have no fire to cook their pigs so they kill him (?) and steal his glasses because they believe they have that ‘divine right’.
We have an upper class elite which oozes a sense of self-righteous, self-reinforcing entitlement. ‘I am rich because I am virtuous and virtuous because I am rich. And we live with this.
Class conflict and the ecological crisis are completely entwined. The climate emergency will only get worse while we have an economic system based on exploitation which requires the creation of ever more consumers and new markets. The rich have wonderful lives in Dubai, in Mumbai, in Arizona and Marrakesh, climate change for them under the current political conditions means little more than extra security and air con.
As for the working class being replaced by automation it’s a strange prediction to make when there are now 700 million industrial workers in the world and the number shows no sign of decreasing.
We know that……
Try reading some of what I have written
Start with The Courageous State
qwertboi says:
“Wealth is, of course, quantified by currency or money. ”
You have nailed the nub of our discontent.
Because that statement is bollocks. And quite explicitly is why we are in the mess we (laughingly) currently call civilisation.
Life isn’t about money. OK, it ranks up there with oxygen, but it’s a constructed tool not a natural element of life.
I have to agree: a very particular type of wealth is quantified by money
“Money arises historically, not by design, but as a result of the development of commodity production and exchange. It begins primarily as a âmoney commodityâ, such as the precious metals, with a value of its own, but later develops to be a mere symbol of value. This is clear today, where money is predominantly not coins, but cash and credit; notes and numbers.”
– Adam Booth
And what, pray tell, was the value of gold to human beings at the time it was first used to make coins (i.e. long before it’s practical use in electronics etc.)?
The trouble is lots of people truly believe they understand what money is when they actually don’t.
I suggest he reads 5,000 Years of Debt by David Graeber for an anthropologist’s evidence based take on what money is and how it evolved rather than regurgitating fairy tales invented by the first capitalists.
“And what, pray tell, was the value of gold to human beings at the time it was first used to make coins”
The value arose from the labour required to acquire the gold.
SB,
“The value arose from the labour required to acquire the gold.”
Are you really suggesting that lumps of gold that have been in human hands for many generations have value purely based on the long forgotten effort required to find/mine it by some long dead and similarly forgotten ancestor?
Doesn’t that seem ridiculous to you? It does to me.
Obviously now, in a market economy, gold has value because others value it and until recently many governments voluntarily chose to back their currencies with gold (ignoring it’s actual industrial uses).
But why was it ever valued by our distant ancestors? It’s obviously of no practical use to a hunter gatherer, pastoralist or early farmer and clearly they couldn’t readily trade it in the market because there were only very limited markets in ancient times.
Anthropologists believe it goes something like this: Gold is a stable material which once mined (or found in a stream or someone else’s house) tends to hang around in human hands because at one point in time it was chosen to have important social value in certain prehistoric cultures. It was used as social currency.
Social currency is very distinct from the credit based systems ancient cultures would have used to manage everyday transactions for food, tools etc.
Other cultures (other than those that have rise to “Western civilization”) without ready access to gold used all sorts of other objects as social currency – objects made of things that don’t last as long and now either don’t exist or have negligible value compared to their value when embedded in their historical societies. Shells, bolts of cloth, copper rods, all sorts of random stuff.
The important thing was that the social currency items were collected up by the older generations and so the younger generations could only reasonably access sufficient quantities of them by achieving the approval of their elders. In one sense social currencies were used to help reproduce the cultures that used them by helping to tie each new generation to the traditions and social rules of the one before.
These social currency items could only be exchanged for non-commodiity items: roles in society, status in general but mostly in “exchange” for members of other families to become wives/husbands. It is believed these social currency objects were frequently chosen to be of little practical value precisely to make them purely symbolic.
The symbolism is this: a person (wife/husband) cannot be bought like food, clothes or tools can be bought. By exchanging social currency for the person to be married these (mostly) prehistoric societies constantly reminded themselves that people are not commodities to be bought and sold. You have to exchange an item of no practical value for your wife/husband precisely because they are priceless to their family. It’s to remind you of this fact – people should not be bought.
The creation of money by taxation (initially backed by brutal use of force) allowed early warlords to become kings by welding together disparate tribal communities in a much more efficient way than sending large numbers of armed men to force people to do their bidding everytime they wanted something done. The application of force by outsiders twisted the old social currencies. Probably this initially occurred by warbands simply taking all the social currency of any tribe they wished to subdue to use as leverage but later by turning it into coins and imposing taxes.
The new kingdoms and empires created both the peace (at a price) and the universally accepted means of exchange (money) that allowed the first large scale, markets for long distance trade. In the western world that meant gold and silver became intrinsically valuable in the sense we understand it today – everyone else values them so they have value to everyone. At the same time all the social currencies not turned into money by ancient kings have been entirely forgotten in the west and so don’t have the special intrinsic value of gold.
Money has evolved a long way since then (now being backed by mutually accepted laws in democratic countries) but force still lurks in the background. Try refusing to pay your taxes or debts and see what happens to you…
In a very real sense in the modern, civilized world people can be bought with the same money you buy your food with while in our tribal pasts this was impossible. Mostly we’ve lost the symbolism of our long forgotten social currencies. However, we are still expected to offer a useless but expensive ring at engagement and exchange gold rings on our wedding days – we just don’t fully understanding why.
I wholeheartedly recipient Read Graeber’s 5,000 Years of Debt. I really can’t do the subject justice (and haven’t here).
Adam Sawyer says; (paraphrasing a bit of Graeberâs 5,000 Years of Debt, I think)
“The important thing was that the social currency items were collected up by the older generations and so the younger generations could only reasonably access sufficient quantities of them by achieving the approval of their elders. In one sense social currencies were used to help reproduce the cultures that used them by helping to tie each new generation to the traditions and social rules of the one before.”
Hmmmm…. this is a very interesting point and goes some way to explaining the current tendency towards divisive inter- generational friction; Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials etc .
With the introduction of student fees, for example, we’ve changed the culture, in a very major way. The same applies with respect to finding it very difficult to afford to join the home owners club. Many of those who can afford to, only do so courtesy of the bank of mum and dad. So seeking the approval of the older generation has been ‘privatised’ by a generation for whom these ‘rights of passage’ were a social good.
Hmmmm…..The apple cart has been well and truly upset if this is really what is going on. The repercussions will be with us for a good while yet and will lead inevitably to an entirely different societal culture.
Sharp intake of breath….. is this the neoliberal experimenters’ aim, or are we looking at unintended consequences? If the latter it indicates a serious lack of foresight, or a very high-risk strategy because the consequences were not difficult to predict.
Money arises historically, […] as a âmoney commodityâ, such as the precious metals, with a value of its own, but later develops to be a mere symbol of value.
Oh, dear.
A Marxist goldbug.
I am struggling to see what is funny about this? The author makes a very valid criticism of MMT in that it takes very little account of power and seems to run on the assumption of a single societal interest for which the state can strive which is obviously ridiculous.
For a while I assumed that MMT and UBI were trojan horses for communism. A large part of the UK economy is based on low wages, exploitation and scarcity. These aren’t problems they are essential features of capitalism and their erasure would result in a conflict between the state and capital. I don’t think it’s ridiculous to ask MMT advocates how they would deal with that.
Forgetting for a second that full employment within one country is an absurdity in the 21st century never mind within the single market why try and guarantee fully employment when a large proportion of UK jobs are completely unproductive creating no value? Why focus on controlling monetary issues when the climate crisis is a crisis of production and consumption?
Why not link the issues together as the GND does?
I do not follow your logic
Exactly! And we have discussed power in relation to MMT too here on this blog on a regular basis.
Stu’s statement here is a little weird:
‘….seems to run on the assumption of a single societal interest for which the state can strive which is obviously ridiculous’.
Is it ridiculous? Is that asking too much? What is a state for? Who is the state for?
Clue: Who votes the politicians in? The opportunity: BREXIT and the need for a written constitution.
What we have now is a system in denial about the base money/investment power Government has (because apparently it is the sole cause of inflation – another lie), which only creates an excess of credit from the private sector who fill the gap in real money with debt and who of course benefit from rent of that credit (interest). Oh – and that is why we get boom and bust cycles BTW.
I mean honestly! Couldn’t we do better than this?
The State should be the bastion of society – all of us, not the few. It is increasingly the latter these days – whether by enabling a bunch of minority lunatics destroy a decent trading agreement or by sheltering corporations and very rich individuals from their tax obligations.
Thanks
Stu says:
“…a single societal interest for which the state can strive which is obviously ridiculous.”
Not ‘obviously ridiculous’ if you consider the single societal interest as being the welfare of the entire population rather than just a minority. (?)
“For a while I assumed that MMT and UBI were trojan horses for communism”
Well I’m glad you got over that…..the neoliberal elite has used MMT very profitably for its own ends for four decades unchallenged.
” A large part of the UK economy is based on low wages, exploitation and scarcity. These arenât problems they are essential features of capitalism….. ”
Exactly so. You are getting the hang of this.
“….why try and guarantee fully employment when a large proportion of UK jobs are completely unproductive creating no value?”
Ah…. You assume ‘value’ to mean profitability… in financial terms. What, for example, would be the value of caring for one of your elderly parents….? or your sick child…..? Let the buggers die; they are financially useless (?)
“Why focus on controlling monetary issues when the climate crisis is a crisis of production and consumption?”
Because…….it is precisely BECAUSE we have focussed on nothing other than ‘monetary issues’ (for at least the past four decades if not longer) that we have got ourselves into this parlous state of climate crisis etc….
Sorry….what were you asking ?…you seem to have worked out all the answers for yourself.
“Not âobviously ridiculousâ if you consider the single societal interest as being the welfare of the entire population rather than just a minority. (?)”
There is a Marxist definition of the state from Ernest Mandel which is extremely helpful.
“The state is the product of irreconcilable class conflict within the social structure, which it seeks to regulate on behalf of the ruling class. Every state is the organ of a given system of production based upon a predominant form of property ownership, which invests that state with a specific class bias and content. Every state is the organized political expression, the instrument, of the decisive class in the economy. The principal factor in determining the character of the state is not its prevailing form of rule, which can vary greatly from time to time, but the type of property and productive relations that its institutions and prime beneficiaries protect and promote.”
So to have a state which acts in the welfare of the entire population would require a massive change in the form of property ownership AND class relations.
The Marxist criticism is that attempting to apply MMT principles to state functions with the intention of changing the nature of class relations without changing the form of property ownership will lead to a reactionary response from the dominant class.
Marxism has not been good with such predictions, it has to be said
Stu,
What’s funny is that people with no understanding of MMT get super defensive about their own “thing that’ll save the world” ( or their “thing that explains everything”).
What’s particularly hilarious in Adam Booth’s case is he correctly states MMT is a bit of a misnomer and even registers that people trying to explain MMT to him describe it as a lens yet he obviously remains oblivious to what that actually means. That’s funny because it is such a clear example of someone’s dogma blinding them in the face of andundantly clear and honest communication.
MMT doesn’t explain everything. It just explains the reality of the human construct that is our modern currency. There’s nothing very theoretical about it. It’s just an accurate description of how our money system works. The basics of the macroeconomic system of modern sovereign states is not a natural phenomenon that will remain forever fundamentally unknowable. It’s just a set of rules created by humans, written down in our human languages and easy enough to understand when you jettison your dogmatic beliefs.
So there’s no need for Marxists, conservatives, neoliberals or any other idealogical group to get antsy about MMT. That’s like a sports team claiming the rules of the the game they play are wrong because they fear another team’s strategy is going to defeat them.
The rules are the rules. Each team’s strategy is up to them. We could change the rules if we can all agree but then we’d end up playing a different game or even breaking the game entirely.
Critics of MMT – if genuine in their criticisms – usually fall into this sort of serious and unwitting category error. Adam Booth does here and it’s just funny to watch because it’s so obvious and yet becoming wearily predictable.
It’s a case of “better to laugh than cry” from our perspective.
I promise you the blinkers are very widespread – I have read a new book that is blighted by this issue that will be out next week
So many straw men in the article!
Thanks SB for that definition.
MMT then is the way to orientate the state from the few to the many in my view.
BTW I reject that description SB – it is as too deterministic, nomothetic – the left wing version of all the crap we get from the new right about human competition and rationality etc. It too is reductionism of the worst kind. It is not class that is the problem. It is the way in which we choose to use money or not that is the problem.
It is a problem of cognitive mapping, of information, of truth even – not a class problem. I say this because both the Left and the Right are hopelessly badly informed about what money is and how it can be used along with effective and fair taxation at a fiscal level. Money has power, yet we seem to want to deny democratic Governments power on this basis of this almost universal lack of understanding.