By J.D. Alt I spent the last couple days reading and contemplating “Political Aspects of Full Employment”, the transcript of a lecture―given in 1942!!―to the Marshall Society by economist Michal Kalecki. This was recommended to me by Nat Uerlich in his May 2 comment to my post “False Choice or Real Possibilities.” Many thanks to Mr. Uerlich for taking the time to make the comment. I urgently recommend Professor Kalecki’s lecture to anyone who feels a little fuzzy (as I have lately been feeling myself) about what we are up against as a collective society as we now confront, once again, how collective society itself is structured to inexorably be its own worst enemy. As I pondered Professor Kalecki’s analysis, I was also trying to decide whether to go public with an admittedly “amateurish” video I’d put together to promote the book “The Millennials’ Money.” I was having doubts (having produced it with a miniscule budget) whether the quality of the video is good enough to be useful. Also, I was beginning to have doubts whether these ideas actually connect with, or fit into, any kind of potentially achievable future reality. Kalecki’s lecture erased any doubts about the latter―but it also makes it clear that the path to getting there is going to be overwhelmingly obstructed by the present dominance of the corporate economy over our collective governance.
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By J.D. Alt
I spent the last couple days reading and contemplating “Political Aspects of Full Employment”, the transcript of a lecture―given in 1942!!―to the Marshall Society by economist Michal Kalecki. This was recommended to me by Nat Uerlich in his May 2 comment to my post “False Choice or Real Possibilities.” Many thanks to Mr. Uerlich for taking the time to make the comment. I urgently recommend Professor Kalecki’s lecture to anyone who feels a little fuzzy (as I have lately been feeling myself) about what we are up against as a collective society as we now confront, once again, how collective society itself is structured to inexorably be its own worst enemy.
As I pondered Professor Kalecki’s analysis, I was also trying to decide whether to go public with an admittedly “amateurish” video I’d put together to promote the book “The Millennials’ Money.” I was having doubts (having produced it with a miniscule budget) whether the quality of the video is good enough to be useful. Also, I was beginning to have doubts whether these ideas actually connect with, or fit into, any kind of potentially achievable future reality. Kalecki’s lecture erased any doubts about the latter―but it also makes it clear that the path to getting there is going to be overwhelmingly obstructed by the present dominance of the corporate economy over our collective governance.
In the end, I decided to go ahead and put the video out there, hoping that, in spite of its production shortcomings, it might become useful as a quick MMT introduction that is accessible enough to actually be absorbed by a lot of otherwise busy, distracted, or only peripherally engaged people. Here it is:
Nat Uerlich | May 2, 2016 at 8:39 pm |
” . . . why don’t we?”
Sad to say, Michal Kalecki may have provided a pretty good answer to your question in the early 1940s. See “Political Aspects of Full Employment” at http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/kalecki220510.html .