Grace Blakeley has commented on the posts I made over the weekend (here, here, here and here) on her Substack, which is free to access. Doing so, she chose to do three things:
- Not tell me she had replied to my comments.
- Not share her comments here, as I invited her to do.
- Not answer any of the reasonable questions I asked in a spirit of curiosity.
I guess that's what I should have expected, given that she has declared me an enemy in her class struggle, but it was disappointing, nonetheless, most especially as I had tried from the outset to make clear I was seeking to discuss ideas, and nothing else. I will still try to do that, although I accept it is getting harder now it is clear that I am apparently her enemy and she will not make clear what might happen to me as a consequence when she wins her "class struggle".
That said, let me address what she has written on Substack.
In summary, in my opinion, the response:
- Is patronising (most especially to those in the working class who she clearly sees as cannon fodder in her class struggle, but who are not, in her opinion, worthy of being informed of, or educated about, what it is that they might be fighting whilst being denied the right to know about MMT, which could, as I explain in a video this morning, ensure all their needs are met).
- Is riddled with ad hominem attacks.
- Includes violent imagery, which compounds my concerns about my personal safety as a result of the threats I think implicit in what Grace has written.
- Fails to answer any of my quite genuine questions, including as to what my fate might be for being her chosen, supposedly capitalist, enemy in her class warfare if she were to win the "struggle".
- Is internally incoherent.
However, in a spirit of generosity (despite the venom aimed in my direction), let me note Grace (whose first name I will continue to use, since that is how I would greet her if we met again, even though she persistently refers to me as Murphy), saying this:
Needless to say, I have never made any of these arguments [Murphy claims I support]. Those with a sophisticated understanding of MMT would find it easy to refute each any of these points - which is precisely why Richard chose them. As far as I'm concerned, MMT is an entirely internally-consistent theory - and one which largely describes the operation of fiscal and monetary policy correctly. My issue is that proponents of MMT have an utterly incoherent view of state power under capitalism.
So, to let me summarise:
- Even though her own first response to the arguments I made on Friday (here), rather bizarrely, and I presume inadvertently, confirmed that all the arguments I had made were justified and were typical of those she and others use, she now says otherwise.
- She now claims a superior knowledge of MMT, presumably seeking to put me in my place. After all, what do I know?
- She confirms that MMT is right in all it says.
- But, she then says, those who promote MMT, despite it being correct, are necessarily seeking to maintain rentier capitalism and are, as a result, enemies of the working class, even if MMT is entirely correct.
- That is, apparently, because the state as it now is has been, in her opinion, irretrievably corrupted by capitalism, presumably requiring the overthrow of the state as we now have it through the class struggle she now promotes in workplaces, communities and on the streets, which I can only presume means that there is to be a direct confrontation with democracy in any form that we now recognise it, and it is this need that we do not understand - because I am genuinely confused as to what else it is that I do not comprehend.
Grace then summarises her argument by saying:
Murphy is not a socialist. But you can still be a socialist and agree with many of the precepts of Modern Monetary Theory (I count myself among this group). A socialist, however, would realise that those precepts were secondary to the broader project of building power from below.
Socialists who sympathise with MMT have a strategic decision to make: do they spend decades trying to teach people how government spending really works, while much more powerful forces preach the common sense argument that the government is like a household, and can only spend as much as it earns? Or do they spend their limited time and resources supporting people to win the battles that they are already fighting in their communities, in their workplaces, and on the streets - and advance a policy agenda that supports them in these struggles? Less ‘learn MMT'; more ‘freeze the rent', ‘strengthen workers rights', and ‘public ownership now'.
I actually believe this question has a much broader relevance for the left. At issue is what kind of project the socialist movement really is. Is it a technocratic, paternalistic project, aimed at electing a new managerial class capable of administering capitalist institutions more effectively? Or is it a democratic, popular movement, aimed at supporting people to take back control over their lives? In my mind, it always has been, and always will be the latter. Which means socialists need to spend less time teaching, and much more time listening.
I would argue that what I do here, and what I propose, is the exact opposite of a technocratic, paternalistic project. My aim is always to:
- Say what the problems we face are
- Explain why they exist
- Identify what power structures maintain them
- Suggest what solutions can be offered to achieve better outcomes
- Detail what those better outcomes might be
- Persuade people that change is, in fact, in their best interests.
Quite simply, I aim to provide people with agency, power and the right to decide for themselves.
In contrast, Grace:
- Does not believe people want to learn, or have things explained to them, as this comment posted on her Substack suggests:
Push back against austerity arguments? Absolutely – I've been doing so my whole career!
Force people to sit down a listen to an economics class about monetary financing? I don't think so – few would listen, and many of those who did wouldn't understand. It's just not a solid foundation for a mass political movement.
- Is treating working-class people with contempt as a result.
- Is paternalistic, by definition, as a consequence of that attitude.
- Is denying them agency as a result.
- And is recruiting people as cannon fodder for her campaign of "class struggle" without explaining what the alternatives are, why anyone should support her choice, or what they can expect from it, which is contemptuous, in my opinion.
The last thing I can see Grace Blackley doing is recognising people's agency.
There is much else I could say, but I will do so from now on without reference to Grace, her declaration that I am an enemy of working people with the threats implicit in that, and her obvious contempt for working people, all of which I think are profoundly unsavoury and suggest to me:
- She is no believer in democracy
- She is no friend of the working class, and
- She, along with others who share her views, is a profound threat to the electoral credibility and prospects of the Green Party if it provides her or them with a platform for their "class struggle," with everything that implies.
It's time to move on. Answers are needed, and Grace Blakeley has none, so I had better work on them instead.
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That’s a really good piece from Grace, thanks for sharing the link.
She does agree with the MMT framework then. That must be a relief for you.
I am not sure how you could reach that conclusion.
She agrees MMT is right and then says those espousing it are enemies and it must not be taught to the working class. The thought “how very Leninist” did, to be candid, come to mind.
My understanding of that article is that Grace (correctly) identifies the fact that MMT is just a framework and is not inherently left wing in nature. Even if it was widely accepted that does not mean policy would not still be skewed to benefit the rich.
If it’s not political why suggest those explaining it are enemies of the working class then?
I think you have seriously misunderstood the debate on this.
You’re very patient Richard
“Cannon Fodder” Marxists about sums up the likes of Grace Blakeley, James Meadway and Paul Mason. It also sums up those in power in China!
I do hope Zack Polanski is reading these posts as well as other members of the Green Party.
One wonders why those economists & others of a Marxist persuasion now see the Green Party as a vehicle for their ambitions. It surely can’t be because they think the average Green Party member is a budding class warrior! However left-leaning it may be, the GP is never going to be an organisation focused on class struggle. The Green Party’s language that describes its modus operandi and aims is all about peaceful transformation rather than violent or chaotic revolution. That won’t change even if the Marxist economists of the moment manage to turn the GP’s economic policy away from MMT, just when its new leader seems to be keen to embrace it (boo!).
It’s simple enough believing that the government needs taxation or the sale of treasury bonds or both in order to finance its spending benefits the finance sector including insurance and the property sector. This is basically a racket, holding the nation to ransom so government can’t invest in human resources. For example, it can build a new hospital with PFI but can’t afford to staff it. That might result in government taxes hitting the finance sector that benefits enormously from PFI. As James K. Galbraith tells us:-
“Bankers don’t like budget deficits because they compete with bank loans as a source of growth.”
“Social Security and Medicare also replace private insurance with cheap and efficient public administration. This is another reason these programs are the hated targets, decade after decade, of the worst predators on Wall Street.” (Which translated into UK terms means social benefits, and public health and social care. For Wall Street think ‘The City’ in London)
Thanks
Unfortunately, Grace does not have the grace to recognise that that you are practically pursuing the dissemination of vital knowledge / information that would inform people and, possibly, actively do something about it via the ballot box, write to local politicians, get involved in community organisations, etc.
Neither does she have the grace to recognise that, in her undoubted commitment to ‘socialism’, she espouses a similar arrogance to the aristocracy, etc., that looked down their noses at those of a lower order, i e., they don’t have the intelligence, what they think is irrelevant, etc.
It is a shame that Grace has not recognises that she has a ‘source’ of practical knowledge, with proffered solutions and options, is clearly of a politically left persuasion, etc. She could have put it to good use but, alas, she is clearly close-minded and only her ‘pure’ version of her views has any legitimacy and democracy is essentially irrelevant.
You’ve wasted enough time on her. Use your energies to look after yourself and pursue your chosen path of trying to educate, inform and provide practical options for consideration. Most of all, take care of yourself.
Thanks
It’s a little disppointing to be honest. I like a lot of the stuff Grace does and i’m left a little noplussed how vigoirously she seem to be arguing this strange “class” point, to the exclusion of all others.
Sadly this comes about time and time again
As satirised in at least two Monty Python films
Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Take an evening off and watch them with the team!
I’m very disappointed with this whole debate to be honest.
Two people on the left of politics, broadly pushing in the same direction, broadly agreeing with other, yet getting into a not particularly pleasant row about whose approach is better than the others when they aren’t even remotely mutually exclusive.
I generally agree with both of you (not everything, but that’s fine, politics should be about directions, not nirvanas), but my focus will definitely be more aligned with yours, i.e spreading the MMT lens, as that’s an area that is of more interest to me and I’m more knowledgeable on. Others will focus on other areas. But to come to the conclusion that Grace has that essentially reads to me as “this is not what I consider to be the absolute most important element of what I am trying to achieve and therefore anyone espousing it is doing the wrong thing and damaging the cause” is absolutely bizarre. Also the stuff about people not understanding it is very patronising. Essentially saying “I understand this, but the norms won’t so we shouldn’t worry their little brains with it”.
Teaching MMT to those who are interested and have the capacity to understand has to be a good thing to do.
It will likely take many different approaches to defeat the curent right wing thinking
God this sort of thing is hard to watch. Two intelligent people broadly on the left with actually quite similar views about a lot of things resorting to bickering and name calling instead of working together. No wonder we’re all screwed.
She is wrong to say that you believe simply telling politicians the truth about how the economy works will magically fix everything. Nowhere do you say that, it would be a ridiculous thing to believe. They like things as they are.
You are wrong to say she is calling you an enemy of the people. At worst she is saying trying to teach MMT is a waste of time and a distraction. Nowhere in her post does she threaten your personal safety.
You both apparently agree that MMT is an accurate description of the economy. You both agree that the current neoliberal system is failing all of us (apart from those at the top). You both agree that a much more left wing/socialist approach is needed. As far as I can see the only slight disagreement is that you emphasis the importance of MMT, and specifically of explaining MMT, more than she would, which is understandable given both your backgrounds.
Maybe have an actual conversation rather than talking past each other with ever more aggressive articles.
Yours frustratedly
The people
Politely – she did call me an enemy of the working class because, she claimed, I am working to maintain capitlism as it is and then published violent imagery about the working class struggle, I think (and I am not alone) aimed at me.
I really do think you have missed the point here.
i opopose violent revolution: she wants it.
Ah you mean this bit:
“Thanks Richard – your post confirms my assumption that the argument for MMT is essentially a technocratic one – i.e. 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.”
Yeah I think thats probably fair, she is definitely misrepresenting you there. Whether or not you label yourself a socialist is up to you but I don’t see that what you’re doing is trying to maintain the existing system.
It still seems very much a case of two people talking past each other rather than having a genuine disussion where they would likely agree on a lot. Blog posts are great for educating and sharing information, they are not a replacement for discussion. Maybe you could even talk your way out of being one of the first victims of the impending violent uprising!
I disagree. We are not talking past each other: I utterly disagree with what she is proposing. I am not and never will be a person seeking to overthrow democracy and impose my will on people via “class struggle” that she will not explain to those she seeks to use as cannon fodder. She is. It’s really that simple.
To call you an enemy of the working class is both wrong and probably offensive to you. I like your definition of a socialist in your glossary but to me that best describes an old school European Social Democrat which is me. I think you fall into this camp as well, you want to work with basically the current system and tilt it in favour of the workers. Grace is, in my opinion, A Leninist, a revolutionary. Unfortunately for her a very marginal position. The left needs to accept the best we can hope for is social democracy and a less unequal society
Much to agree with. Thank you.
i too oppose violent revolution and would pursue every available lever at my disposal to avoid this.
After 45 years of failed nroliberalism, people are desperate for change. Many have lost all hope in the power of politicians or the ballot box to improve anything. They see the rich and powerful elites setting the agenda, and de facto “ruling” without needing to be elected by the people, Now they start to believe revolution is their only route to a better life.
Intentionaly, or not, Grace’s acceptance that we are in a class war that we will/can not win by democratic means becomes both troubling and dangerous.
This is why your work of information and education on MMT and the politics of care are so important.
They can provide hope and direction for people who otherwise would have none.
Thamk you and KUTGW
Thanks
Your interaction with Grace is disturbing and has made me think a lot. We (me, you, and Grace) should all be on the same side – How to create and maintain a fairer, humane and caring society.
I am working class lad, first to go to university, 1st class engineering degree which has given me a comfortable life. It has also made me numerate, logical and questioning when it comes to any complex problem. Since retiring I have become interested in why our society has become so degraded over recent decades and why the career route I took is now unavailable to so many. The evils of neoliberalism have become self-evident although i did not see it at the time. I do not want a revolution, and Grace’s philosophy scares me. I want and believe that we can significantly improve our society progressively and that requires politicians and political parties to understand how powerful they are and what they can achieve (re post WW2). MMT gives everyone an understanding of what can be achieved by governments without kowtowing to the supposed all powerful money markets. When the full realisation of how the economy really works struck me, I was gobsmacked. Knowledge is power. Your voice gives me hope and Grace’s seems rooted in a simplistic class-warfare past. Evolution not revolution.
Thanks
A conversation takes two, you can’t have one by yourself.
Your last two sentences sum it up well. Time to move on. Your work on finding caring, practical solutions is much appreciated, as well as the quantum economics model.
It is a bit Monty Python-ish for her be calling you out as not ‘socialist ‘ despite that you are both trying to confront power relationships and to change them
Its difficult to disagree with her that we are in a class war :
” we already exist in a state of class war – and the ruling class is winning. Providing £17bn in subsidies to fossil fuel companies after meeting with fossil fuel lobbyists 500 times, while millions languish on NHS waiting lists is class war. Dishing out COVID loans to powerful businesses with connections to former prime ministers, while ordinary people lose their jobs and their lives is class war. Watering down a proposal to properly tax private equity profits, while reneging on promises to strengthen workers rights is class war.”
Just to say on the media that ‘we are not a household and we do have money’ is a vital weapon in the ‘class war’
methinks Blakely has forgotten
‘The Golden Rule’ —
‘He Who Has the Gold Rules’
“Force people to sit down a listen to an economics class about monetary financing? I don’t think so – few would listen, and many of those who did wouldn’t understand. It’s just not a solid foundation for a mass political movement.”
I have managed to teach MMT to my 10 and 13-year-olds, and my 10-year-old passed it on to his teacher. Spending before taxation, not taxation before spending, is not a difficult concept.
🙂
Exactly if MMT isn’t political why bother naming it “an enemy of the people”! The term “mindless ego” springs to mind! On the other hand with a little humility you could make the effort to properly understand it to see if it benefits the many as opposed to the few. Zack Polanski needs to quickly identify which members of the Green Party have supported the Labour Party’s “Fully-Funded Rule.” Here’s one:-
“The groundwork for the 2017 manifesto had been laid a year before, with John McDonnell’s early 2016 announcement of the fiscal credibility rule. This was based on a 2014 paper by Jonathan Portes and Simon Wren-Lewis: it is impeccably mainstream in its logic, but robust and – critically – could give us enough spending space to reverse cuts and spend a great deal of investment money. My own thinking here was that any future government committed to economic transformation would need solid foundations to stand on and some way of organising its overall programme; and, moreover, that by committing ourselves to a rule in opposition very early on, it would force us and those around us to organise and prioritise our own thinking on the economy – which it did.”
https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/17/labours-economic-plans-what-went-wrong/
Here’s Bill Mitchell on the topic of the FFR (Fully Funded Rule) back in 2018 and he predicted it would cause the Labour Party political grief:-
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=40659
In fact Mitchell was warning about this ten years previously in 2015 when he said this about the FFR:-
“It retains focus on the fiscal balance, however, decomposed into current and capital, whereas the focus should be on creating full employment and prosperity.”
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=31963
One may not agree about everything Bill Mitchell says but he was prescient on this one something Zack Polanski should note. The FFR turns you into “an enemy of the people”!
Reading through the comments on Grace’s blog I came across this one from one of her contributors.
“So true Grace, “building trust is so much more important… than being correct””
Grace has liked the comment.
The ‘horseshoe’ theory is certainly in play here.
🙂
Exactly. Richard’s economic analysis has endangered the status quo duopoly game of the ruling class. From now on be very wary of who begins to attack you and how. She is, knowingly or not, drawing you into an arena wherein you can be potentially framed later on, as a socialist ‘revolutionary’ or Enemy of the State, by your words of engagement within the confictual narratives she is initiating. Those of us of a certain mature age are too familiar with this Playbook.
Agreed
Grace mentions democracy but doesn’t define it in her response.
Ditto with “class struggle” and “class enemy”. What happens to class enemies? Am I one? I suspect I am, on several counts.
What is the route to victory? – winning elections? How? By honesty or deceit?Violent revolution? – a coup? Invasion? A different set of landowners/toffs at the top? Russia 1917? China 1927-49, or England 1066? 1640? 1688? What does she think of UK 1945-1979? What does victory in the class war look like? Is it totalitarian or democratic? Is it violent? How many deaths are tolerable?
On the omnibus, I don’t find people energised by Grace’s version of the class struggle. I don’t hear it discussed at all. I’m not sure she is even interested in their views, maybe the proletariat are too slow for her? But my neighbours ARE interested in explanations of where money comes from and they do “get it”, especially since that huge global catastrophe of Covid19, gave us all a 2nd master class – to follow the first in 2008/9, on where money comes from, how it can be used to do enormous amounts of good (and how selfish, greedy corrupt people can use power structures to enrich themselves – PPE) and the terrible consequences of state failure to use available resources or fail to invest in providing them. They may not have been to Oxford to do PPE, but they all have PhDs in real everyday life.
As for the streets, consider the Iraq war and the unlawful Israeli aggression in Gaza, W. Bank, Lebanon, Syria – we saw unprecedented street protests, direct action and boycotts. State power ignores mass protest, and effectively suppresses it. So the suffering goes on.
I asked Grace a question – what did she think would be the effect of my thousands of my neighbours understanding the truth about money? No answer yet.
We have a perfect example in the McSweeney/Starmer government, of what happens when all your energy is concentrated on getting power, and none on what to do with it when you get it.
Or maybe she DOES know what she will do, but dare not tell us? That isn’t democracy.
A final (mischievous) question – why aren’t she and Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn and Andrew Feinstein all in the same party?
Thanks
Yes, why are they getting involved with the Green Party, when on the face of it Your Party would be much more receptive to their rhetoric and goals? The collapse of the capitalist system is the ultimate goal of the Marxist, and this is viewed as inevitable due to the class struggle and the inherent internal contradictions of capitalism. Would it not be seen as a strategic error to promote anything (like progressive politics and MMT) that may stand in the way of capitalists, be they neoliberals or fascists, driving the system to its ultimate doom? If the Green Party achieves any measure of success (50 MPs! A place in a coalation government in 2029!) without becoming a hotbed of class struggle this must mean postponing the demise of the system. [DARK THOUGHT WARNING!!!] In that case is it too far-fetched to imagine that undermining rather than supporting could be the aim? No one is surprised when we hear about the security services infiltrating organisations that threaten the Establishment interests…
However difficult and unpleasant it may momentarily be, the progressive economic thinkers need to stop beating each other down, make peace and focus on where the real enemy is. Not that you’re not already doing that, but these kind of cat fights are doing nothing for public morale. Already the future feels pretty hopeless for the likes of me (60+ working class precariat) and our kids are leaving the country for other shores. The fascist right certainly manages to keep their disagreements under wraps or at least until positions of power are gained, while our leading lights fight like cats in a sack over what for us ( the less educated masses) seems like mere details. Please, you’re doing great work, you’re all passionate people, working on a diverse spread of answers and solutions, of course you’re not going to agree on everyting. For fairness sake, I’ve also posted this comment on Grace Blakeley’s substack.
If you think I am allyig with Grace’s worldview you are seriously mistaken. We are a very long way apart. I am a democrat and a believer in people and their rights. She clearly does neither, and treats me as the ebemny to be overthrown. Why should I compromise with that?
Chucking up. Both Grace and Richard are good people, committed to social justice and united in their fight against inequality. A path less followed requiring personal sacrifices. So more in common….
However those on the left are too easily pulled towards what divides them. The (socialist) ‘purity test’ gets applied. We are seeing with Your Party. The moment has been lost. I fear we’ll see this between the traditional Greens and the red/greens….which would be a gift to every other party.
When those on the progressive left are fighting between themselves they are not marching and the many feel further behind.
Strategic alliances are required if progressives are to gain real power. The real threats, from Reform to the billionaire elites require a different way of doing politics. It will also require both top down system change and bottom up mobilisation. Wars are won fighting on more than one front.
I would be happier with the opening claim if the language of emnity had been avoided by Grace. Right now, I am not in any way convinced. I have been threatened before. This feels like threatening behaviour from her. Others agree.
And candidly, I am not in favour of leaving people in the dark whilst being fed bullshit, which is her aim. I have no desire to ally with someone who thinks that apporopriate.
Add me to the list of people who finds it sad to see this sort of arguing within a broadly aligned political group. I’d like to think people can disagree with each other on a range of issues but continue to agree where there are so many shared political goals.
Having read Grace Blakely’s post I do have to say that I find her initial objections MMT really odd if, as she says, she is essentially on board with the concept. Why pick this fight?
The key seems to come in the passage quoted above, where she seems to indicate that explaining MMT takes away from a broader economic discussion of other issues related primarily to class. I would completely reject this being an either/or issue.
I wonder if Grace Blakely and others worry that Zak Polanski may find it difficult to gain traction for his economic agenda due to the overriding orthodoxy surrounding deficit spending and debt. In other words, MMT is correct, and how we fund things, but let’s not scare the children…
But then she does seem rather strongly committed to broader opposition of your views, which do not strike me as pro capitalist in the slightest, so I’m left somewhat confused by the whole thing.
I just hope the broad left can focus more on points of agreement rather than disagreement. This type of infighting helps none of us in the end.
Thanks
Going through the comments on her blog I encountered the following from Grace:
“Thanks Axel – agree that MMT could be a useful tool for any government, depending on the context, but the big constraint on investment is resources, rather than money. Few MMT advocates believe you can endlessly create money to finance whatever spending you like – they just think the constraints are on the resource side. I guess the anaology I would use is if your boss kept paying you more and more money to do the same job, but eventually you got to the point where you had no more hours in the day and couldn’t do any more work – you’d be paid more and more to achieve the same result. The constraint on the amount of work you’re able to do isn’t the money your boss pays you, but the hours in the day. In the same way, the constraints on what we can do are essentially about resources and technology, rather than tax revenues. So there are still important questions about how those limited resources should be used under a proposed MMT regime.”
Which makes think that she does get it somewhat, and what you are both really arguing over is whether or not this messaging is helpful. I’m of the opinion it absolutely is. I know many people sympathetic to the left who are tepid about radical change precisely because they are afraid of the national debt and bond markets. Every person who comes to understand the truth about money creation is lost to the neoliberals forever. It gets right to the heart of their core lie: that we need them and their money.
I wish there could be more agreement on this. I noticed a lot of “team Grace” in her comments think that you are proposing a new monetary system, rather than the one that is already in place. So if we want to solidly win over the left I think we all need to reiterate again and again that this is how it already works and that the political establishment is either useless or deceitful (and probably both).
Noted. Thanks.
What’s also unbelievable is how a self-declared Marxist like Grace Blakeley has an inability to learn from Marxist based economies. In 2019 Michael Pettis (a co-author of the book “Trade Wars are Class Wars”) wrote the following in an article in connection with the cause of global trade imbalances:-
“China’s extremely high national savings rate, like that of all the major surplus countries, is not driven by the thrift of ordinary households but by the fact that the country’s workers and retirees earn a disproportionately low share of national income, which diminishes their purchasing power.”
https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2019/10/why-trade-wars-are-inevitable?lang=en
MMT has consistently pointed out that a consequence of imposing a “Fully-Funded Rule” (FFR) on a country is this will drive up taxes in an attempt to balance current spending, that in turn of course will reduce purchasing power! Exactly the same effect that the Marxist Chinese leaders implement with their refusal to tolerate Western democracy (See economic history leading up to the Tiananmen Square Massacre). Now in the UK the Labour Party under Starmer is starting to suffer politically because of its monetary system illiteracy!
To be fair to Grace, her 2019 book “Stolen”, which is far superior to “Vulture Capitalism”, does conclude with proposals for “The Way Forward” (Chapter 7). In this chapter she does talk about “Socialist parties undergirded by strong social movements can also affect change from the top down in ways which reinforce the strength of their base”
She goes on to outline proposals for “Socialising Finance”, “Regulating the Private Banking System” , “Public Retail Banking”, “Debt Refinancing”, “Empowering Workers”, “A National Investment Bank and Green New Deal”, “A People’s Asset Manager and Citizens Wealth Fund”.
There does seem to be some common ground there Richard
She seems to have moved on from it then.
Would it be worth asking her if she still believes in what she was advocating in 2019 and if not ask for an explanation?
I cant be bothered
This is not just a technical question of how a monetary economy works. Our political system is based on a narrative controlled by those in power which is patently false and it’s important to expose that, regardless of one’s political stance. To borrow from Noam Chomsky:
“(W)hy do people consent to be governed?..It’s a question of legitimacy. The ruled must believe that the rulers are operating in their interest. This is the basis upon which people cede consent or give consent to be governed…
How is this belief developed, that governors act in the interest of the governed? By the rulers promulgating and constantly reinforcing a particular common sense (view) about the world…
By definition, everything in opposition to that common sense becomes quite literally unthinkable and becomes—and I use this term advisedly—nonsense. It is non-sensical to object to the governors, if they’re acting in your interest.”
But they are not acting in our interest, of course, and it’s important to inform people about that in order to move forward politically.
(Quote from Consequences of Capital by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone (2021), Chapter 1 -‘Common Sense, the Taken-for-Granted and Power’)
Like others here I too am dismayed that two knowledgeable, influential people that want fundamentally the same thing ie a better life for the majority, are at such odds.
I can identify with Grace’s assertion that capitalist, vested interests have such an iron grip on power that it will take something seismic to change that. However I do firmly believe that education is the best way to challenge such power.
I’m not convinced that just having ‘fervour for the fight’ is sufficient or sustainable, if it were the unions would be far more influential, even given the headwinds that they face.
It is a shame that Grace cannot acknowledge that those she wants to do the ‘fighting’ would be orders of magnitude more effective, and make far better arguments, if they properly understood how the economy works, how money is created and subsequently distributed and the huge potential for society when money is not the constraint.
We all of us would do well to start the conversation on the omnibus with ‘if money were no object how would you like the country to be?’
Interesting comments on GB’s substack with plenty of socialists putting the MMT case. She, Meadway, etc evidently do not speak for socialists, if that’s the distinction they’re trying to draw.
I must read them.
Might a deep attitudinal difference between Grace Blakely and you be that she is a keen supporter of Socialism and you are significantly Humanist in attitudes?
“Socialism seeks governmental or community control of resources whereas Humanism promotes individual moral responsibility, reason and education.” (From AI Overview)
I believe in people. So I want to empower them.
She wants to keep them in the dark and use them as cannon fodder.
It’s pretty fundamental.
I find it telling that she says, several times in responses, “It is better to build trust than to be correct.”
Liars cannot build trust.
I read Grace’s response the other day and found it quite condescending and a bit threatening.
There is a telling phrase in Grace’s response: “… while much more powerful forces preach the common sense argument that the government is like a household, and can only spend as much as it earns?”. Here she seems to admit the household notion has more power while maintaining that MMT is too difficult to explain to simple folk.
I admit I have struggled to understand MMT, but having cleared my mind of the old mythical narrative and accepted that the government is the sole source of sovereign money, I suddenly notice phrases like “can only spend what it earns!” knowing now that it doesn’t earn anything, it issues money by spending, doesn’t borrow but holds deposits and destroys money with tax. Clearly, if she had any sense, she could see that we need Robin Hood as chancellor (accountable to the people) to tax the rich and pay (fund public services for) the poor. Isn’t that socialist enough? Yes they are powerful but the fact that the Govt can Robin Hood them is more so isn’t it?
Thanks
They say that MMT is difficult to understand. I say that MMT is easy to understand, though it may be difficult to accept depending on one’s level of indoctrination with neoliberal framing. In any case, they say, MMT is irrelevant, as the class struggle is the thing. I say, if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!
Grace says, “Less ‘learn MMT’; more ‘freeze the rent’ […,] and ‘public ownership now’.
Whilst agreeing with ‘public ownership now’ and the sentiment behind freezing rent, how does she think this will actually happen and what does she think the consequences will be? The only way to understand this is to understand economics and that means MMT’. Without an understanding of economics, what does she plan to do; simply expropriate all and any privatised assets ignoring the rule of law?
Sadly I conclude that her thinking is inconsistent and dangerously undemocratic. I do hope her party leader is reading this discussion and will keep her in check.
In Grace’s substack pieces there’s a paragraph in which she argues that in challenging the capitalist system that dominates our lives (which we usually refer to on the RM blog as neoliberalism) EITHER you take (what she refers to as) a ‘technocratic approach’, or you take a ‘bottom up’ approach.
My point would be, these two approaches are in no way exclusive of each other. Indeed, any policy makers faced with the problems neoliberalism confronts us with would be pretty shite at their job if they thought they were – which would actually be my criticism of so much of the policy making we’ve witnessed for decades now. Strangely – because the Blair governments get stick from so many sources these days – one thing they did recognise – and work toward – early on was the concept of ‘joined up government’. And despite the silos within central and local government, they were pretty good at trying to make that work – and they succeeded in quite a few policy domains.
Interestingly, it wasn’t an entirely new concept. I knew this first hand because in the late 1980s early 1990’s I worked in a specialist unit in Manchester that sought to bring together all of the various greater Manchester local authorities to develop and implement policies across the greater Manchester region. It was based on the model of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE), which was replicated at the political level by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA). (I’lladd that the work of both these bodies was made easier because at that time only one of the eight local councils was controlled by the Tories).
But to return to my main point. Within these bodies we had people taking BOTH a technocratic and bottom up approach to delivering policy to advance the interests of the people of greater Manchester. The unit I worked in focused on the bottom up bit (and yes, I would have called myself a Marxist at the time). But I never had an issue working with people on the technocratic side, even if I often felt they weren’t “left” enough. The common thread was we were all committed to trying to find SOLUTIONS to the shite the Thatcher governments threw at the people of Manchester.
Thanks
I am very disappointed (in Blakeley) & worried (for you) concerning Blakely’s responses. She & those like her want to totally replace our current system of govt & society. Not going happen w/out a forced overthrow & all that, that entails. So in short, never achievable, but it does mean they have a vocation for life…the eternal struggle. Meanwhile, back in the real world,
1. unemployment is high(real world figures are at an all time record)
2. National infrastructure is untended, failing, unfit for purpose
3. The NHS is struggling, services late, delayed, overwhelmed,
4. productivity is flat
5. wages are down
6. Real poverty exists
7. Working people skip meals
8. workers in paid employment are in receipt of govt top ups, just to make ends meet (sort of)
9.education is a side project, w no real plan to actually elevate those whose need is greatest.
But the wealthy get wealthier, with record profits for all.
Where does it end? In a peaceful transition to real economy & hopeful politics or Blakeley’s distopian nightmare?
Care, I hope.
Let’s hope Zack Polanski doesn’t believe in “Cannon Fodder Marxism” it doesn’t feel as though he does.
I must first admit to knowing very little about Grace Blakeley until recently so I took the time to listen to what she had to say on YouTube and found myself largely in agreement with her. She noted that “toxic individualism” (her description) of Thatcher is so deeply ingrained 40 years on, that any sense of collective action is an uphill battle. This makes me bewildered as to why, whilst acknowledging MMT as the way government finance works, she fails to recognise the power of us ordinary folk knowing this as it helps us to see how we have been hoodwinked for decades. My understanding is new and limited but growing by the day and I pass the message on to whoever will listen! Grace thinking that things will change for the masses purely through people taking action locally, or through uprising, is naive and reminds me of my 20 year old self. It worries me that when Zack Polanski was asked by Rory Stewart on The Rest is Politics which economists he was talking to, he mentioned Grace Blakeley, (as well as Richard). I’m not sure she should be in a prominent position for a future credible leader. On a positive note Zack held his own very well against the ever arrogant Stewart. There were many comments wanting Richard to be invited to discuss economics with him.
Thsnkd
I was driving home last Wednesday and heard the middle of a radio 4 discussion about the Reith Lectures. The speaker was saying how he admired the way ( but not th e aims )that very different Right Wing groups in America manage to form allowances to advance their agenda. Repealing Wade v Row ( about abortion ) being one of them.
The Left seem to do the opposite. You have, Richard, mentioned this in relation to MMT it goes more widely. It does seem to be a ‘thing.’
It most definitely is
Reading through all of this I’m reminded of militant entry into the Labour party during the 1980’s. I fear for the Green Party if this proves to be the direction of travel.
Me, too.
Chill out, Geoff. Whatever Grace might desire, the Green Party will remain a centre-left organisation, and the British people aren’t up for revolution – they just want the new iphone. That, alas, is the upshot of the de-collectivisation of the working-class set in train by Thatcher which Grace laments. They are up for understanding precisely how they’re being ripped off, however; they are up for a more equitable distribution of spoils; they are up or public ownership/control of acknowledged ‘commons’ etc. They are up, on other words, for the sort of remedies advocated by Richard and by Polanski.
Grace has done some great work, but she just hasn’t met enough working-class people (as opposed to activists).
My city, Bristol, will be psephologically interesting in May 2026 regarding the popular appeal of the Greens to lower income or disadvantaged voters.
The Greens have one Westminster seat here (Carla Denyer, Bristol Central) who ousted Labour’s Thangham Debbonaire from what was Bristol West, after Labour apparatchiks closed down and thoroughly antagonised the local CLP), and currently the Greens have minority control of the city council (just short of 50% of the seats and just as Bristol ditched its Mayoral system).
Greens are weakest in the poorer wards where I live, on the southern edge of the city, but in 2024, still beat Reform into 3rd place in my (traditionally safe Labour) constituency.
My MP (Bristol S) sat nodding next to Chief Sec Treasury for yesterdays garbage debate on OBR leaks (Reeves hid in Wales). Darren Jones (Bristol NW) is now in Downing St gang with Starmer’s controlling McTeam cabal.
How will the poorest wards here vote in May (if they vote at all)? There is no visible “further left” presence on the streets here – just Labour and Greens No one knocked on my door for July 2024.
Turnout is very very low.
Community activity (apart from party politics), is lively, especially when it impacts directly on people’s lives.
It will be very relevant to Bristolians which way the Greens go politically. People here (in the poorer wards) don’t buy “performative/protest” politics, or gesture politics. They get royally pi**ed off when they think they are being either ignored or patronised. When an issue affects them directly (a housing development or Liveable Neighbourhood street plan, roadworks, closure of facilities), they turn up and make their feelings known, robustly and get changes made).
But there is a huge gap culturally and socially, between my neighbours and Grace Blakely/Novara presenters/intellectual left.
An ideology-based class war? They aren’t interested. But they will turn out for an Acorn housing protest (and win).
So, watch Bristol in May. Let’s hope we can keep Zack out of class warfare or identity politics and committed to a politics of care that makes the world a better place for me, AND for people am different from.
So much to agree with.
I will be watching.
So all socialists are equal, but some socialists are more equal than others? I’d love to know how the class struggle is going to come about. Who will be leading from the front? How will it happen? And won’t it just produce the usual result: “‘Forward’ he cried from the rear as the front men died”…..It’s always good to re-read “Animal Farm”.
I may sound sceptical, if not cynical, but being from a true working class background (and not privately educated or possessing a PPE Oxford) my experience is that people from my background simply have no inclination for a class war. It ain’t going to happen. For that reason I find the “solutions” like those suggested by the privileged political talking heads patronising, irritating and unrealistic. In my humble opinion, it is far better to work from within to bring about real positive change by pursuing MMT.
I remember my Granny’s bath hanging on the back of the kitchen door when I was young. I know where I come from. And I know, like you, there is no appetite for class war, which sounds horribly like fascist thuggery to me. In fact, when the blows are flying I suspect no one will be able to tell the difference.
And do I kn ow workimg from inside works? Yes. That is how I create change in tax justice, workinmg at the OECD. No one has done since John and I left – they have just destroyed the mechanisms that might deliver it, and that block on progress has been deliberate on their part.
I think we need a definition of “Cannon Fodder Marxism” which basically goes as follows:-
“Marx needn’t have bothered creating any economic theory (like people do today with MMT for example) because the people are too thick to understand it!”
I am not an economist, but have been enthused by listening to and reading both Blakeley and Murphy. It seems to me that both have very valid criticisms of the current economic and political systems and that, potentially, both have much to contribute. It saddens me that this has turned into a battle of egos. How much better if you could find a way to find common ground and work together. The debate, it seems, is not so much about MMT but about ways to change society for the better. In my view, no one has ‘the answer’, but healthy debate and discussion would help us all to move forward.
I have no desire to cooperate with someone who is contemptuous of the very people she says she wants to represent whilst overthrowing democracy – as is clearly her aim. She and her cohort are a threat to thbe Greens, and this country. I will happily call them out for what they are.
I want an end to neoliberalism – and know we can do that using what I suggest.
If 1% of people in this country could relate to what she says I would be amazed. No one but political charlatans talk about class war. If any9ne wants to talk about it here they won;t last for long – becasue I have no time for revolution – real people get badly hurt.
It’s not a battle of egos it’s a battle of theory. See my post below about some Marxists believing UK fiscal policy is held to ransom by the UK’s financial sector.
Roger, what do you think was the message intended by Grace when she included in her post about Richard being a class enemy, that Orgreave picture of a mounted policeman raising their baton to strike down an unarmed miner?
What message was intended, given that it illustrated a post about class warfare and class enemies?
For me that would be a massive barrier to any sort of dialogue. We live in times when imagery and language on social media has serious real world consequences. That picture choice shocked me to the core, it was totally irresponsible, it raised the temperature, it lowered the tone, and it needs removing urgently, along with an unconditional apology.
A battle of ideas is one thing.
A battle with batons is an entirey different matter, because heads get cracked.
I agree.
I was also shocked, as the obvious target.
I note there are those saying I should work with Grace.
Why won’t I?
1) I don’t work with people who call me their enemy. That leaves no space.
2) I never condone violence. As a Quaker that is unsurprising.
3) I cannot trust someone who posted that.
So, no this is not some minor spat. I susoect I am at least as far from Grace as I am from Farage. I consider both to be threats to democracy. Extremism is, and never can be, an answer to our problems. Both are exactly that, and are blind in differing ways to the real needs of poeople as a result, in my opinion.
Hi Richard
Just a plea to keep trying to get a dialogue going between your good self and Grace, even if it takes a while to find the right coffee shop. I think it is worth persevering despite the disagreement.
You are kidding aren’t you? Why should I engage with someone who considers me the enemy in her violent overthrow of democracy?
On the 11th October 2018 Bill Mitchell had a meeting with John McDonnell (JMD) the Labour Shadow Chancellor. Present at the meeting was James Meadway. Here is Bill Mitchell’s recollection of what James Meadway said:-
“James Meadway (JM) said the fiscal rule was not neoliberal. I disagreed noting that the idea that we pursue a fiscal aggregate, which the government can’t control anyway, that is independent of the behaviour of other sectors was a neoliberal construct.”
“JM responded by claiming that it was likely that the next recession would trigger a zero bound situation. I replied that that surmise was just a guess and that history suggested such an outcome was rare. But the very idea that fiscal policy can only enjoy freedom at the behest of an unelected and unaccountable MPC is pure neoliberal thinking.”
Bill Mitchell also reminded James Meadway that he had said MMT was only valid for the US as a result of its reserve currency status and that he Bill Mitchell believed this view was incorrect. James Meadway he said responded by saying that the UK was a special case because its financial sector was so large relative to the size of the financial sector in other nations. The inference was that the fiscal rule was necessary to placate any hostility that might arise in this ‘large’ sector. I said that Australia was a small and very open economy with a significant financial sector as well.”
In reference to the idea of the UK financial sector effectively holding the UK’s fiscal policy to ransom Bill Mitchell said:-
“In relative terms (to size of economy), the finance and insurance sector in the UK is broadly similar to the sector in Australia. So I posed the question, given Australia has run current account deficits of around 3 to 4% of GDP since 1975 about, and fiscal deficits for much of that time, why hasn’t the finance sector rendered the Australian currency worthless?”
The response he records was being told there was a difference in relative size of the financial sectors between the two countries!
So is Zack Polanski snookered before he really gets going?
For once, I agree with Bill.
What’s interesting though is the pretence of Grace Blakeley that MMT is irrelevant yet here is a key issue where MMT says people like James Meadway are wrong! For the good of the nation you might think there should be an open debate not an attempt to shut it down! That’s why I use the term Cannon Fodder Marxist to describe people like Grace Blakeley..
I am sorry but I cannot help make the comment looking at Grace Blakeley’s background, i.e. privately educated, gone through Oxford, that putting a picture of Orgreave to illustrate her blog does not make her the “porte-parole” (the spokesperson) for the “working class” and for those of us who were born working class (blue collar working class, in contrast to while collar who are also really working class selling their labour), the “porte-parole” of OUR struggles. And this is when I claim my heritage and a chunk of my life as the daughter of steel workers, with parents and grandparents who really struggled for their livelihoods, lived through strikes, Trade-Union Members who marched many a time singing the Internationale, while the police was waiting for them…. they would rather have had other options…. to curtail their hardship during the 20th century. Fighting, their ‘class struggle’ was really a last resort, not an anchor for glory. I always get a bit annoyed when I find someone , claiming that they know or remind us ‘we are’ in a class struggle… as if they needed to remind us of our life journey… when theirs has been an ‘intellectual one’.
Thanks
You are pointing to a gross deficit. Growing up in the the late 60s and 70s I was aware of working class representation in politics, through the trade union movement, on TV – from news to dramas to comedies – and across media more generally. That working class voice often came with a Northern accent, Scottish in the case of many Union leaders. There was a.lit of anger but there was representation.
When you don’t feel seen or heard you don’t feel as if you belong or are being offered place in society. Those invisible numbers we have allowed to grow and include many of the young who feel they are being offered a future designed to maintain and growing equality.
I’m going to predict that in 2026 media talk won’t be about high net wealth individuals leaving the UK but a new ‘brain drain’ of the young, skilled and educated – the wealth creators. That’s human nature responding to economics. Another self inflicted wound.
The key question Zazk Polanski now has to ask members of the Green Party is do they believe that the fiscal policy of the UK government is now held to ransom by the financial sector because A) the government is reliant on the bond market for funding instead of being able to create its own spending money and B) the country is now over-reliant on the financial sector given the decline in manufacturing and this state of affairs has to be accepted to maintain the exchange rate value of the pound rather than encourage a managed decline to bring in more manufacturing investment. After all not everybody can work in the financial sector!
Agreed
Feather-brained fairy or not?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/dec/02/ella-baron-rachel-reeves-fiscal-rules-cartoon
To suggest that Grace: was threatening was wrong – she wasn’t in any way; was demeaning the working class – she wasn’t, she was saying that the left should focus on real world substance without focusing on technicals as Socialist don’t have the power in society and should use their time on more important things. I disagree with her on this as I think understanding MMT opens up doors to improve real world substantive change but the point she makes is clear even though I disagree; that she doesn’t believe in democracy? I don’t even know where that comes from to be honest other than completely misunderstanding what Marxism or Socialism; and hand waving “class struggle” as something dangerous and scary, which it isn’t, it exists today and will always exist, Socialists simply want the majority of people in the form of the working class to win that struggle against the oligarchs and political elite. Although I am a Marxist and Socialist – which I know you are not – I have always been fascinated by your analysis and it was you that taught me about MMT and got me a lot to think about in your blog posts and videos. I find your positioning against Marxists and Socialists and painting them to be scary, violent and dangerous to be cold warrior nonsense that I think we should be past by now. Bluntly I think Grace doesn’t know enough about what you advocate for to make the comments she has made and she was wrong in this back and forth exchange in this regard but I also believe your hand waving of Marxism to be based on the lack of understanding of it as it comes across as capitalist dogma rather than a thought out critique of marxism – which I believe you are more than capable of delivering if you knew Marxism well enough. I think you and Grace would be surprised at how much you both agree on together and I find this exchange to be unnecessary. I will continue to read your blog and watch your videos regardless but I would kindly urge you not to utilise Cold War dogma against Marxism and Socialism as I believe you to be better than that.
I am not using Cold War dogma.
I am pointing out I feel decidedly threatened by Grace, who sides me with capitalism and uses violent images to portray her “class struggle”, in which I am, apparently an opponent.
To deny the reality of my sentiment is akin on your part to agreeing that Farage was not racist or threatening when seeking to intimidate when at school.
And all I am actually pointing out is that anyone with even the slightest political sense knows that talk of class war is always rejected in democratic UK politics, is always viewed by entirely sensible and balanced people as the language of extremism, and it therefore has no prospect of democratic success here, whatsoever, meaning that those who, despite being aware of this, propose it are necessarily talking about the overthrow of democracy as a consequence of the policy they promote. I have no truck with that.
I respect people, even when I disagree with them. I will oppose those who do not.
Thanks for your post, Adam Harding. Grace and Richard’s spat resembles Corbyn’s and Sultana’s. the infamous People’s Front of Judea trope, and indeed, echoes Richard’s recent snipes at Gary Stevenson. They all need ;locking in a room with a bottle of vodka or something. Grace is in love with workplace activism, which she’s organising from her beach in Cornwall. Gary’s a bit too obsessed with dentist mates in London whom he wrongly assumes to represent ALL UK young people and the “impossibility” of their ever buying a house, and Richard’s spent too many years lecturing undergraduates who haven’t done the reading that he too often falls into a patronising tone’. All are modern popular heroes doing great work in their own ways.
Out of Grace and Richard, who has better chance of success? Grace, with her notion of ‘overthrowing capitalism’ or Richard, with his focus on a ‘mixed economy’? Undoubtedly the latter, as Polanski recognises by constantly referencing the self-employed, the working-class strivers (described so accurately by Daniel Evans) who drive discourse among the communities any left project needs to part-convince, a discourse currently consumed by rage-filled nativism.
As a disaffected Labourite whose parents worked their whole lives for practical progressive solutions (that, during the ‘trente glorieuse’ actually delivered a buoyant mixed economy for the working-class they came from) I believed (vainly) the ‘gloves would come off’ when we finally regained power. I’m now politically homeless and considering joining Polanski’s project while recognising it is still one largely appealing to downwardly mobile urban graduates without rich parents (like my kids!) Both Gary and Richard are capable of reaching out, in their own ways, beyond this segment, and give Gary credit, his focus has been on the Left coming together. To defeat Farage, we need either PR or a broad Left ‘Transform’ alliance (with Richard as putative Chancellor) which supports a green transition, a mixed economy with nationalisation of ‘commons’, and a national mission’ to build affordable houses. Starmer and Reeves have so weakened the Labour brand that any new leader must recognise this new reality. Polanski gets it, maybe Burnham will too. Give the Lib Dems a free run in their seats also. The stakes are too high. The Left must bury its differences and agree on the basic priorities! Richard?
Neoliberals rubbing their hands with glee! Two good people clashing with each other, diverting attention from the fundamentals. Neolibs invented “woke” to do this. Now they can add (sometimes personal) disputes between the reformers themselves to their obfuscation. Stay tolerant, everyone.
For heaven’s sake, notice the reality. There is as much common ground between me and Grace Blakely and me and Nigel Farage.
You can’t really believe that, Richard, much as she’s rattled your cage…
Both threaten democracy whilst seeking to manipulate people solely in pursuit of their own interests and not those of society. I see masses in common between them. There is no social contract in the superior thinking of either of them. I meant what I said.
Richard, thank you for engaging with Grace Blakeley on this. I have not read all of the conversation or all of the comments here–but it is certainly possible to be a marxist and agree with MMT, and not think that espousing MMT ipso facto makes someone an enemy. I’m a marxist supporter of MMT; Bill Mitchell is a marxist (I think). Lots of the “marxist” critique is based on misunderstandings and mis-representations.
I recently wrote a lengthy study/report on the theme of “remaking home heating in the UK”:
https://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/decarbonising-the-built-environment/
Appendix A is “How are you going to pay for it?” Perhaps of interest–I’d really welcome any feedback on that. Perhaps the rest of the study is of interest too. I quote your taxing wealth report amongst other things.
I wonder if you have come across Bill Mitchell’s criticisms (from a few years ago) of criticisms directed at MMT by James Meadway, Paul Mason, Doug Henwood and others? See eg these two posts by him:
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=42246
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=47229
Thanks
Thanks for posting these two Bill Mitchell articles which really need to be read by Zack Polanski to defend himself from the infiltrators in the Green Party who are trying to pretend that MMT has nothing useful to say about the state of the UK’s economy. In effect by pushing this pretence these infiltrators are aligning themselves with the racket the finance sector are running in this country that the people can have no control over growth in the economy (the country will go bust if the government doesn’t balance its books, etc.!).
Dear Grace, I think my credentials allow for my comment, as I was once a reader of the Morning Star, back in the day, and I joined the Ecology Party , the precursor of the Green Party ,when it first formed, and I still have my copy of Seeing Green by Jonathan Porritt. And I am currently a paid up member of the Green Party .
I am currently now reading The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton. I noticed that in the fly leaf amongst the reviews, one from The Morning Star. “Essential reading for anyone interested in reducing inequality and eliminating poverty …. Kelton challenges us to imagine a people’s economy and and gives us the tools to make it happen”. In my opinion this is everything that Richard stands for.
I googled and found the original 2020 review . https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/shattering-tax-and-spend-deficit-myth
🙂
I still have ‘Seeing Green’.
Thanks Deborah for posting this Morning Star link. The real question members of the Green Party should be asking themselves is who exactly benefits from the denial of some members that MMT has nothing useful to offer in terms of helping the nation and the planet. The beneficiaries are particularly the finance sector as the American economist James K. Galbraith has tried to point out:-
“Bankers don’t like budget deficits because they compete with bank loans as a source of growth. When a bank makes a loan, cash balances in private hands also go up. But now the cash is not owned free and clear. There is a contractual obligation to pay interest and to repay principal. If the enterprise defaults, there may be an asset left over–a house or factory or company–that will then become the property of the bank. It’s easy to see why bankers love private credit but hate public deficits.”
and:-
“Social Security and Medicare also replace private insurance with cheap and efficient public administration. This is another reason these programs are the hated targets, decade after decade, of the worst predators on Wall Street.” (Which translated into UK terms means social benefits, and public health and social care. For Wall Street think ‘The City’ in London)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265071141_In_Defense_of_Deficits
Huge irony then that the so-called “revolutionary Marxists” who’ve joined the Green Party turn out to be big supporters of capitalism in their dismissal of MMT’s diagnostic relevance!
Hopefully Zack Polanski will “twig” this contradiction!
I think this post from Grace Blakely on her substack today suggests you might be misinterpreting what she means by “class struggle”. What she describes is very much like my own experiences of community activism and it goes on everywhere when communities fight for themselves
https://substack.com/home/post/p-180598921
Exceot she does in no way say that is what she means.
Sorry Richard but this post of hers suggests she supports local grass roots based democracy which is clearly distinguishable from the notion of a “violent overthrow of democracy”. If there is going to be any violence it will be initiated by those with vested interests in the status quo, who will undoubtedly resort to violence to protect their interests and defend their power. In those circumstances there would be a choice of either giving up or taking them on.
We’ll have to disagree Jim.
If a social democrat used those terms I would agree with you.
She is a hardcore Marxist who defines all she does around “class struggle” and in most Marxist theory class struggle is cosndiered inevitable and, eventually, revolutionary to defeat a capitalist class (who I apparently support) who are not willing to give up power because democraccy was not asusmed to exist, so violent conflict was likely.
So, I cannot agree with you. Sorry. This is a leopards and spots issue.
Class struggle takes place at both the local and national level and one of the biggest cons at the latter level is believing the UK government can’t create its own spending money but must rely on taxation or government borrowing or both. MMT points out this con yet Grace Blakeley airily dismisses it as irrelevant to class struggle! Frankly in doing so she is actively supporting this con or racket just like James Meadway who’s also now joined the Green Party.
Hopefully Zack Polanski will recognise the nature of their posturing and that the UK problems can’t simply be resolved by “messaging” of the Grace Blakeley type. Same going on at national level in the United States as well as here:-
“But the Administration, lacking the imagination and will to change course, appears to genuinely believe, as did Team Biden, and as we pointed out early on, Obama, that every problem can be solved with better messaging.”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/12/trump-goes-full-biden-insists-no-inflation-affordability-a-con-as-strained-consumers-know-better-and-trumps-polls-sink-further.html
Richard, this is all welcome discussion, but you seem to be treating marxism in a similar way to how some marxists treat MMT: you’re boxing a straw man.
Class struggle is just a part of the world, it’s not something marxists on their own initiate (!). Yes, many workers have a stake in capital through pension funds etc. That does not dissolve class conflicts. And as Jim Osborne suggests above, violence is far more often initiated, and far more likely, from the side of those with power, those with an operational and controlling stake in capital—and those with an interest in violently foreclosing anything that might disturb their controlling stake.
Nobody (as far as I can make out) has suggested (here and now) direct violence on the part of the working class, but you suggest that class struggle leads automatically to that? I think you would be very hard pressed indeed to find any professed marxist today who thinks that revolutionary violence is inevitably a good thing, or somehow to be welcomed—so to insinuate an equivalence between marxism and the initiation of violence seems a bit unfair. I doubt you would say to a republican, “Aha, so you’re a fan of the guillotine are you? A leopard doesn’t change its spots!”
To be clear (and pedantic): people will say they’re marxists for many different reasons. Marxist generally refers to some combination of two things: (a) an analysis of capitalism or view of capitalism influenced by marx; (b) marx-influenced ideas about historical change, the need for socialist transition, etc (ie, strategic-programmatic questions).
On (b) Marxists have (famously!) always disagreed amongst themselves about the efficacy of various political strategies or choices, revolution versus reformism, the inevitability or otherwise of certain conflicts or structural tensions (“contradictions”) working themselves out in one way or another. They’ve also disagreed about what all of those terms even mean.
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Oh come on, Marxism assumes the violent overthrow of capitalism as it will never surrender. That’s wrong: it can be beaten, but please don’t talk nonsense about Marxism that can’t be sustained by its history of thought.
Here’s Randy Wray on “Cannon Fodder Marxists” written in 2019:-
“Henwood wants us to believe that Government needs inequality. We’ve got to cater to the rich. They get to veto our progressive policies. If there weren’t rich folk, we’d never be able to afford a New Deal. We only get the policies they are willing to fund. If we actually did tax away their riches, government would go broke.”
And here’s the killer line:-
“As Kelton puts it, people like Henwood think money grows on rich people.”
This is what so-called Marxists like Grace Blakeley and James Meadway covertly ultimately believe!
https://neweconomicperspectives.org/2019/02/response-to-doug-henwoods-trolling-in-jacobin.html
And guess what Grace Blakeley Richard Murphy referrenced Stephanie Kelton’s killer line quip in 2015 ten years ago:-
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/08/13/money-does-not-grow-on-rich-people/