Grace Blakeley has replied to what I wrote about why parts of the left oppose modern monetary theory. In doing so, she has reinforced every point that I made.
Her claim is that understanding how the monetary system works adds nothing to politics because class conflict determines economic outcomes. She also suggests that explaining MMT alienates people and does nothing to change the balance of power.
Unsurprisingly, I disagree, and for very good reasons, which I need to explore.
First, she confirms the argument I actually made. I said some left commentators resist MMT because it disrupts the narrative that everything must be reduced to a class battle. Grace's response boils down to:
Fiscal policy is not some neutral, technocratic exercise in determining what's ‘true' – it's a site of class struggle.
In other words, keep the conflict alive and neither understand nor fix the machinery. That is not a strategy for change. It is an excuse for not engaging with reality.
Second, the public most definitely does not want class war, any more than they want a focus on identity politics. They want results, meaning that most people are desperate for a competent government that delivers:
-
Well-funded public services.
-
Decent incomes.
-
Affordable housing.
-
Investment in climate and care.
They do not want political theatre. They want the country to work.
In this context, technocratic competence is not a luxury. It is the basis on which trust is rebuilt, and progress becomes possible.
Third, I find it at least a little insulting to suggest I do not challenge capital because of the "technocratic" nature of my work. My work for two decades has been precisely about confronting entrenched wealth and power, inclduing by:
-
Exposing tax havens.
-
Designing beneficial ownership transparency.
-
Creating and delivering country-by-country reporting.
-
Pushing viable forms of automatic information exchange, which are now used worldwide, and now by
- Promoting viable tax and economic policy that will deliver a policy of care.
The tax haven reforms, in particular, have in practice constrained capital and abusive finance. The policies of care have yet to have the chance to do so, but they would.
Those tax haven reforms exist because I understood the technocratic system well enough to change it. To imply that this is "achieving essentially nothing, because you're not advancing an argument that helps to shift the balance of class power in favour of labour" is offensive nonsense, and a straightforward denial of the truth. The world of tax abuse was challenged, changed and diminished as a result of that work.
Fourth, understanding money is how you shift power. Grace Blakeley says that even if everyone accepted MMT, nothing would change. This is wrong. If people understood that:
a) the government cannot run out of its own currency, and
b) tax does not fund spending, but shapes the economy, and
c) bond markets do not hold a veto over fiscal decisions, then austerity would collapse instantly. So would the myths that underpin neoliberalism.
If you do not dismantle the stories used to justify exploitation, the simple fact is that the exploitation continues. MMT does that. Talk of class warfare never will.
Fifth, refusing to use available tools only strengthens the City. The left has been losing for 40 years because it accepted the rules written by finance, such as:
-
“There is no money”
-
“The markets must be kept happy”
-
“Government must behave like a household”
MMT shows that each of those claims is untrue. The question is, why would anyone committed to social justice reject a framework that:
-
removes the City's most powerful weapons, and
-
gives the elected government the fiscal freedom to deliver what society needs?
This is where Grace's argument collapses. She says the state is captured by capital. But then she rejects the very knowledge that would allow that capture to be undone.
In that case, there are questions Grace Blakeley should now answer, including:
-
Why defend economic myths created by finance when exposing them would weaken finance?
-
How does the left deliver public services without accepting bond market constraints unless it recognises MMT?
-
Why dismiss reforms that have already curtailed capital's abusive behaviour?
-
If explaining how money works is “irrelevant”, why does the City spend billions promoting false narratives about it?
-
Why attack a tool that could help the left actually govern?
In reality, the left cannot win by choosing ignorance of how the economy actually works. It can only win by understanding.
And of course, we cannot shift the balance of power by refusing to touch the levers of power.
MMT is, in that case, not a distraction from politics: It is the means of recovering democracy from finance.
If we want real change, we must start by refusing to believe the things our opponents need us to accept. Grace Blalkely is denying that. I am utterly bemused by her choice.
Comments
When commenting, please take note of this blog's comment policy, which is available here. Contravening this policy will result in comments being deleted before or after initial publication at the editor's sole discretion and without explanation being required or offered.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Class? I’ve never understood the concept, all I’ve ever seen is the rich and powerful people vs the rest of us. At least MMT offers solutions.
I hadn’t seen Grace B’s comments, but what you say here seems spot on. “They do not want political theatre. They want the country to work.” Absolutely. In the House of Commons there are MPs who make good speeches and may help to improve decision-making, but too much of it is political theatre, which is why I am frustrated at how everything is reduced to party lines. It’s been like that for most of the last 800 years, but if politicians managed to work together in the face of Hitler’s threats, shouldn’t we insist they work together now, in the face of malign world politics* and our existential threat from climate change? (*I was going to say world leaders, but are Putin, Trump etc. really leading people or are they merely dominating and driving them?)
The core of Blakeley’s argument seems to be: “knowing how governments are financed does not matter, what matters is class struggle”. Eh?
I had to laugh at “MMT proponents believe they’ve discovered the secrets of the universe” – standard technique for those losing the argument – exaggerate.
How can any one (politico, citizen) pass any informed judgement on anything if they don’t have knowledge of how a system, any system operates? This is played out every day, in courts that have juries & barristers to explain. At the moment in the UK economy we only have barristers for the neocons and “bank independence” – who like to make things complicated (natch). Strawman: “decsions about economic policy are made based on rational, intelectual debate”. The City of London wants to keep the current system – which makes some people rich and a large number poor. Of course it does &?
Blakeley invokes “class struggle” rather like a witch doctor invoking evil/good spirits, whilst ignoring Machiavelli “there is no equality between the armed and the unarmed” (there is no equality between the rich and the un-rich because the former control the means to repress the latter). It is all one-dimensional in Blakeleys world. Even the use of the word “left” what does it mean? Is having clean rivers left wing? Fairly priced energy – left wing? good education for all – left whinge? Pathetic stuff. Left? a word. what is a word? wind!
As for lobbying – again – shifting the ground of the debate. Win the MMT deabte? Of course “capitalists would not cease to organise within the state for spending that benefits capital” – and? one would hope the electorate would select politicos with the knowledge to oppose them/cut em down to size. Or could it be that “the left” is also an industry and wants to have something to whine about – instead of doing something? The control of money creation and the use to which that money is put is core. Who controls that and its use defines what society looks like. Blakeley, for whatever reason does not want to understand that, whilst at the same time portraying UK citizens as helpless & chucking up straw man arguments:
“Grace’s response boils down to:
Fiscal policy is not some neutral, technocratic exercise in determining what’s ‘true’ – it’s a site of class struggle.
In other words, keep the conflict alive and neither understand nor fix the machinery. That is not a strategy for change. It is an excuse for not engaging with reality.”
Personally speaking I have become more and more convinced that there is such a thing as class war. That said, I don’t want ‘us’ struggling with a hand tied behind backs because we don’t know what the ground beneath us is like. MMT /Sovereign Currency Powers help us to know what is happening. It exposes some of the hegemonic strategies being deployed. It helps target useful points for effort and to note what is distraction and camoflage.
Message to a Mr Zack Polanski:
I want Grace Blakeley out of the Green Party as of today or I am not voting for you or it.
End of. And yes, I am quite happy to cut my nose off to spite my face and not vote at all.
I’ve had enough of Left wing ‘dreamers’ and ‘fantasists’ who give people dealing with reality names like ‘technocrats’. I mean, is all politics then just emotion? Was the NHS/social security created just because of what? Being upset with people being ill and poor? Guilt? How different is that then to making people angry about immigration and ethnic back grounds? Or believing in ‘trickle down’ and ‘efficient markets’? All stuff from the Right. Left and Right have always been much closer than both would like to admit.
Or was it realised that investing in health and support actually made the country more productive, ready to defend itself and provided people with an income and generated an economy? How technocratic is that eh, Grace, ducky?
Where do these people come from Richard? Is it true she has the dreaded PPE? She’s pro-BREXIT too?
What Grace does not realise is this: we are living in an age of the death of ideology and its emotional baggage. Left and Right. The only recourse for humanity is the technocracy she abhors – double entry book keeping, MMT, investment in technology that will stop or slow the planet we have poisoned from wiping us of the face of the earth. For God’s sake read the news Grace!
This is the age of the need for grown up politics and problem solvers. Where are they, damn them? There’s plenty of ’em here but not where we need them and instead we get too many Grace Blakeleys.
As you can tell, I’m none too happy that such an outdated grasp of the world can still exist, passing itself off as useful.
We need a new sort of MMT….Modern Marxist Theory
Most committed Marxists want the end of the capitalist system, you don’t bring about the overthrow of the capitalist system by making it working better, for them anything that potentially makes capitalism more tolerable is as big an enemy, or maybe an even bigger one, than the ‘ruling class establishment’. The Marxist theorists, generally, don’t try to appeal to ordinary people, quite the opposite, they reckon they’ll be able to gain power when the system collapses with no real popular understanding or appeal required.
Having now found Grace Blakely’s response to you I am left wondering whether she has actually read all the stuff you have written which provides the foundations for a political economic programme which challenges capital. The struggle for the purpose of the state can only be built on such foundations .
She knows what I do.
She interned for me less than a decade ago.
My suggestion might be that ‘The Left’ as can be seen with ‘Your Party’ doesnt actually want to achieve power but remain on the sidelines unsullied by having to actually get something done.
I have always felt that
Thank you for these illuminating posts on MMT. I am starting to get it!
Strikes me that MMT goes to heart of how money actually works, it’s pragmatic and solution-focused, exposes power relationships as they stand. Shows-up Westminster for the kabuki theatre that it is; the outcome of MMT will be that it puts power into the hands of people.
🙂 Well, that’s going to be suppressed and most unpopular with the vested interests that control the UK!
Seems by nature MMT is deeply democratic, and would offer the real possibility of Localism, devolving power / money into English regional communities, like the East of England, and so an outcome of appears to be less need for centralised power and all those flying monkeys around the established power.
Also seems to me another reason why iScotland should unite around an independent Scottish currency – to initiate MMT.
The National paper in Scotland definitely promotes the last idea. That is why i write for it, or is it because i write for it?
Not quite. They recently published an article on why Scotland should keep the pound https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25604794.scotland-keep-using-pound-sterling-independence/. They also published an article on why Scotland should have its own currency https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25608443.independent-scotland-must-currency/ on the same day, please note – 10th November. This is fine by me, but I suppose some readers may find it confusing. I was not impressed with the pound arguments, and neither were the below the line commentators, I think you are definitely having an influence there.
Platforming those who disagree with them does not mean endorsing them. How ele do you create debate?
I would give all critics the benefit of the doubt, as the mainstream orthodoxy has been very persistent and persuasive over the years.
Up until only a few years back, I would have spouted the “taxes pay for spending” mantra because I knew no better.
Remember: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” and we’ve all been fooled.
I totally agree. It is essential for the left to understand economics. Ignorance or denial is recipe for failure. At least Zak Polanski seems to get it.
However after decades of economic lies and disinformation, it is really hard for people to understand that a government is not a household. This makes it a very hard to argue effectively, people just aren’t listening (but many thanks for your efforts).
Tactically, I would address antisocial (neoliberal) policies head on. Their main argument is the need to comply with the full funding rule (I think Germany even has it in their constitution!). This leads to austerity. The antisocialists scream for greater “fiscal headroom” and a balanced budget to avoid, they say, economic collapse. So give them what they (claim to) want!
You have shown, in your taxing wealth report, that the government could easily tax £100 billion more (e.g. from limiting pension tax relief, reducing ISA tax reliefs, tiered interest on reserves, taxing passive and earned income equally, and more). This needs doing anyway to reduce inequality. So why not do it, calling antisocialists’ bluff, saying this is what they demanded?
Initially, even with increased spending, this could lead to a budget surplus, something the antisocialists claim to want. In turn this would allow a change in instructions to the debt management office to, henceforth, only “borrow” from the Bank of England not via bonds. It would be hard to object because this would, initially, be “paying down the debt”. I’d also revoke BoE I dependence when, according to antisocialists, the government was doing the right thing.
Antisocialists would claim that increases would stymie the economy. The response is “hard choices”. The taxes suggested would not actually cause economic harm because they are savings, dead money, not circulating in the real economy.
Then with pressure off the bond markets, and the economy doing better the government could manage the real economy properly. Simply changing the borrowing rules, and BoE independence, would make this much easier and would be difficult to reverse.
I only advocate telling the truth. I wouldn’t say, “we have to tax more to balance the budget”, only that this is what many, “very serious people”, demand. Use their arguments against them.
Hopefully, with a new economic regime in place and working, it may be easier to address neoliberal lies and misinformation.
I can’t find Grace Blakeley’s comment from the above link.
Search on the left wingers post from Friday
OK, found it here:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/11/28/is-mmt-as-dangerous-as-its-opponents-claim/comment-page-1/#comment-1055734
“If everyone woke up tomorrow (understanding MMT)”, one side of the class war would lose two of its biggest weapons – unnecessary unemployment and austerity.
Exactly this:
‘The question is, why would anyone committed to social justice reject a framework that:
removes the City’s most powerful weapons, and
gives the elected government the fiscal freedom to deliver what society needs?
This is where Grace’s argument collapses. She says the state is captured by capital. But then she rejects the very knowledge that would allow that capture to be undone.’
So as to the ‘why’ … is this a response to the harrying that this friendship group of young politicos have experienced from those members in the proselytizing wing of the MMT community?
The Novara crowd, James Meadway, Grace Blakely etc are all in the same friendship group and, having been pushed into a corner, I think it would be very hard for them to volte face on the group think.
IMO it is a good example of the importance of bringing people with you… persuading rather than polarising the debate.
Thank you for the clarity of this post. As you have said so often, most people find it easier to understand a story and the focus should be on explaining how the ‘household budget’ is a lie… something that I think you do, extremely well. I hope that your words find a home with Grace Blakely who is otherwise an excellent communicator in explaining how capitalism works, even if she does not explicitly offer any solution.
Having caught up on the most recent posts on MMT, the left and Grace Blakeley, I’d like to add a few points.
First, I find it extremely disappointing that in Grace’s second paragraph she states several things that are far from true if one subscribes to the Richard Murphy “school” of MMT.
Specifically, Grace says that many/all of us believe that we’ve discovered ‘the secrets of the universe.’, and that having done so, ‘…all the questions, debates and struggles around economic policy would simply disappear overnight.’. And, further, that ‘This perspective assumes that decisions about economic policy are made based on rational, intellectual debate – when in fact it is determined based on class struggle between different interest groups.’.
Thanks for the insults, Grace. It may surprise you to learn that I’m one of many who read and contribute to RM’s blogs, and who subscribe to the REALITY of money creation that MMT describes, who are more than capable of recognising the following:
MMT has nothing to do with discovering the secrets of the universe and I for one have never seen it presented as such on this blog.
I, nor anyone else to my knowledge on the RM blog, have ever suggested that anything to do with decisions about economic policy would simply disappear overnight were MMT to be adopted by a government.
Nor have I, or anyone else to my knowledge on the RM blog, have ever suggested that anything to do with decisions about economic policy are based on ‘rational, intellectual debate’.
But I and many others (not the least being RM) – have on occasions too numerous to mention discussed that economic policy is determined by a struggle between different interest groups. In short – POWER AND POWER RELATIONS IN AND AROUND GOVERNMENT AND POLICY MAKING, AND THUS MMT, ARE FREQUENTLY DISCUSSED ON THIS BLOG, HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS, AND CONTINUE. The difference between you and us on that is that on the RM blog WE DO NOT VIEW POWER AND POWER SOLELY THROUGH THE PRISM OF CLASS RELATIONS.
In conclusion, it seems that Grace assumes herself and her ilk to be intellectually superior to anyone who doesn’t subscribe to what is a dated version of Marxism, to which Marx himself would no longer subscribe without significant caveats (and yes, I once was a Marxist).
Thanks, Ivan.
I was never a Marxist. But I have read more than enough Marx and Marxist thought to agree with you.
Thanks Richard – this confirms my assumption that the argument for MMT is essentially a technocratic one – ie how do we make the existing capitalist system work more effectively, rather than how do we effect a systematic redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people.
It’s not surprising that we don’t agree on this issue, because as you’ve clearly laid out here, you are not a socialist. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you also shouldn’t expect those who hold a fundamentally different view about the operation of capitalism to agree with every policy proposal you suggest.
Hi Grace,
Thank you for replying again. I appreciate you doing so.
I find your reply confusing because you do not address the issues I raised. So, may I ask some direct questions to clarify your position for the readers of this blog?
1. If you reject modern monetary theory, how do you think money works and where does money come from? Please set out the mechanism.
2. Do you think tax funds public spending? If so, can you explain precisely how?
3. Why do you think I am a capitalist simply because I do not agree with you? Is everyone who disagrees with you a capitalist? How is the world that binary?
4. If I am a capitalist, as you suggest, and you are promoting class struggle, which seems inherently non-democratic given your language, what will happen to me if you succeed in the struggle you want? I am not a member of the elites you oppose. I simply believe in democratic processes to pursue many of the goals you espouse. Is that a crime in your form of socialism? What happens to those deemed to be dissenters?
5. What is your definition of socialism? Your writings suggest (I think) that you believe that smaller private businesses should continue. But if workers remain employed by private owners of capital, how is that consistent with your socialist claims? Where is the line between capitalism and socialism in your view?
6. How will you justify to the owners of most capital in the UK — ordinary workers with pension funds, life assurance, ISAs and bank savings — why they should lose their lifetime savings as part of the class struggle you promote? Around 80% of capital is owned in this way. You appear to be advocating its sequestration. How is that democratic? How does that serve working people? How can a movement be for workers while simultaneously taking away the wealth that workers have saved?
7. More broadly, what is your vision of democracy? Who participates? Who decides? Who protects dissent?
8. What would the state you want to create look like when “the workers are in charge”? I have set out what I want. What is your desire?
If you would prefer to write a fuller piece rather than respond in comments, I will happily publish it unedited (legal caveats excepted). Use as many words as you wish.
Best,
Richard
Klein and Pettis aim straight between the eyes of Marxists like Blakeley, Meadway and Mason in their book “Trade Wars are Class Wars” by pointing out how the communist leadership in China is now on the side of the rich.
I think you and Grace are on different terrains but with common goals.
I can’t agree with you that the public isn’t interested in class ‘war’ – politics is about struggle between vested interests and you can see how effective Zack Polanski has become with taking that on, as Corbyn’s Labour was in 2017. We need more such political leadership.
I agree with you about the tools we need to achieve a fairer society but on their own this isn’t enough. I’d say people care more about class war than what money is – they are only concerned with having enough and they do care about inequality which is partly why the right is successful at redirecting anger in some parts of the country to migrants, wokeness etc.
All I see her saying is we need politics that forces change and can’t be circumvented. I think you are also saying the same but you obviously give details of what tools are ready now in the hands of the right political leadership but without those leaders the tools lie idle because the current leaders are the problem not the solution.
Thanks for this comment.
I think what is clear from Grace’s intervention – and from yours – is that we are not standing in quite the same political space, even if there are shared goals in mind.
Grace wants socialism in the form she defines it: the end of private ownership and control of the means of production and, effectively, of private property as a basis for economic power. That is not my position. I do not support the right of some to accumulate and exploit wealth in ways that extract from everyone else – far from it. But I do believe in a strong mixed economy, where enterprise plays a role alongside a confident state, and where markets exist but are required to serve the common good. My target is not the existence of private ownership per se: it is the abuse of that ownership within a corrupt form of capitalism that has been promoted by antisocial neoliberalism for more than forty years.
Where I do entirely agree is that politics is a struggle over power and resources. I have never denied that class remains a critical dimension of that struggle. But I do not think stirring anger is enough. Nor do I think that demands for confrontation alone deliver change.
My argument is that the tools to transform society already exist. The right knows this: they use the powers of the state to reinforce inequality every single day. I want the left to stop pretending those powers are unavailable. We can fund public services. We can eliminate poverty. We can restructure financial flows. We can change ownership models. We can build real economic democracy. All of that is possible within a mixed economy framework – if we choose to make it so.
And on that point I agree with you entirely: leadership is the issue. Without leaders willing to use the tools at their disposal for the common good, nothing changes. That is not an argument for waiting for socialism. It is a demand that we stop denying what we already have.
We differ in some of the framing. But the objective – a fairer, more equal society – is one I hope we both still share.
“Without leaders willing to use the tools at their disposal for the common good, nothing changes.”
Exactly!
And not sufficiently recognising that market capitalism, particularly in the finance sector, has an anti-social element is poor leadership as we see with the Starmer government and going all the way back to the post-Attlee government.
I don’t think Grace is a communist and I expect there is much common ground on what a better society looks like, including its financial systems. From reading your blog over the past two years it seems to me you are developing more of a political position on the ends rather than just the means – eg the care economy.
Such is your influence that when I hear Polanski going on about a wealth tax I think, no, didn’t he listen to what Richard said? But then I think what is the most effective way of campaigning about inequalities and political change and exposing neoliberal corruption.
I have not said Grace is a communist.
She said she is a socialist.
She says I am a supporter of capitalism as it is currenty structured. I am bemused as to why, and she has not explained, hence my latest post.
I do not know what she means by socialism, so I have asked her.
I do not know what she means by capitalism, given her comments.
We need a ‘common sense’ party – not a bunch of evil, greedy, self-serving people who go to great lengths to maintain their privelege and status – while us normal folk worry about how to heat a house, afford food, spend time witj family friends. Breath clean air, drink clean water.
I have said before, institutions and thinkers wed themselves to ideas and if/when evidence presents that they are wrong, they would rather go down with ship than admit they are wrong.
Crucially, living is on going process, not a series of absolute ideas.
We either work together, pulling and co-ordinating our intelligence and ideas or frankly – we perish.
Much to agree with
I nearly said this on the original is MMT dangerous post but decided against it but I think it now has the sufficient context.
Many of the critics you mentioned have a vested interest in nothing changing and being able to stir up an anti rich political narrative to constantly get content and interviews. The reality is we have a lot of people who like to be seen saying the right thing and being principled but when it comes to actually doing something about it they are usually not there. Worse yet they are attacking the solution and being very closed minded given current orthodoxy has resulted in an awful adulthood for entire generations, unnecessarily so.
“The purpose of an education is to replace a closed mind with an open mind.” The irony of who said that isn’t wasted on me either.
I tend to agree.
This is certainly true of many NGOs, and almost everyone in the tax justice movement, for example – where the maintenance of the status quo, and so their jobs which depend on its perpetuation because they have no idea what else to do – is the only thing that seems to matter to the organisations in question.
I think that Grace Blakeley made some excellent points.
MMT is just a description of how government finances work when the same government can print currency. It’s not a set of policies and you cannot conclude from understanding MMT whether we should subsidise favoured programmes or interest groups. Your policies accord with MMT but the policies of the last 27 years since operational bank independence also accord with MMT. It’s an MMT world and we’re just living in it.
I admit to finding your argument very hard to follow.
I agree that Modern Monetary Theory begins as a description. It explains how currency-issuing governments actually operate. But description is never politically neutral. To expose the mechanics of the system is to expose its choices — and the ideologies that shape them.
You are also right that MMT does not dictate a particular policy agenda. What it says is that a government with its own currency cannot “run out of money” in the way households or businesses can. The constraint is not finance: it is real resources and inflation. Within that truth sits a fork in the road.
To then say that “we live in an MMT world” and that this, by implication, means MMT is wrong, does however make no sense.
What follows is that the wrong policy decisions have been made, and not tht MMT is wrong.
Wouldn’t you agree?
And if not, can you explain how else we are to manage money, which is what MMT is about? Then I might understand your position.
I look forward to your explanation.
For those on the left (or any political persuasion really), falling to see the potential policy benefits an understanding of MMT offers is a bit like buying a formula 1 car and refusing to drive it above 30mph. The machinery offers way more potential!
As a regular Novara viewer, I’m puzzled by the stance some contributors take toward MMT.
The electricity example makes it very clear for me: MMT explains how the current flows, and Marxism describes the social relations; who owns the power station.
And with MMT, once you understand the monetary reality, the obvious follow-up question is how that flow is directed and who ultimately benefits from it.
[…] Blakeley has responded to my suggestion that she is wrong about modern monetary theory (MMT), […]