I have, this morning, published the last in the currently planned series of what I have called “economic questions”. A little reluctantly, and as a result of persuasion, I have included myself in this series as a concluding entry to indicate the point I have reached after 50 or so years of thinking about economics, after considering the work of 50 people who have influenced me along the way. Some of those influences have been deeply beneficial. Others have fuelled my anger and spurred my reaction. I include both because they matter.

The question that arises as a consequence of this is, what happens next with this series? It could, of course, be left just as it is at present, but I have, again, been persuaded that I should do something more with it than that. The plan is, then, to turn this into a book to be made available as a free PDF download and potentially as a Kindle publication in both electronic and physical form.

My son, James, has so far put most of the collection together, reordering the entries to create a logical progression through a series of groups. It already exceeds 200 pages on A4. I now need to write both an introductory chapter and an introduction to each group of thinkers, now that they are structured in a logical progression. I will also be rewriting one entry because what I wrote for Paul Krugman in the first instance could, I think, be improved, and justifiably so.

This activity will now fit into other work themes. Publication will not happen overnight. There is still a lot to do and a bit to learn about publishing on Kindle. A price of around £12.99 is likely for this book in physical format, although we cannot be sure as yet.

While that is going on, James is moving on to another project, which I mentioned here in December but which was put aside then. It has been suggested to me of late that the problem with this blog is that finding what I have written on various themes is difficult, and that it is important that I address this issue on some key topics. One of the key topics on which I am most often asked questions is Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). As a result, James and I have revisited the work he did on assembling some of what I have written on this subject into a single volume, with the intention that those who are interested in it can download and use this when seeking answers to questions that they have, because most of them I have already addressed.

To contextualise this project, there were around 70 posts when we put it aside in December, totalling around 300 pages at that time. I have been particularly busy on this theme this year, and I even think that one or two posts yet to come might be included as late entries because of the thinking I am now undertaking on issues such as money and the job guarantee. This means that there are likely to be 100 posts in this book.

That said, with an established workflow and relatively little commentary to add to this volume, this one might make it to publication before the economic questions series.  Due to its bulk and assuming an A4 layout, a target price of around £14.99 might be required for this if produced as a book.

Any comments and suggestions on either topic are welcome. If there are other collections that people might think might be of value based on prior work, please also let me know.

My intention, however, is to focus on new work. What seems most pressing to me is to create a publication on the politics of care.

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