Tag Archives: MMT

A recent poll from the Democracy Collaborative and YouGov reveals that most Americans are ready to spend more for social needs, even if it raises the deficit.  The debate around modern monetary theory (“MMT”) is picking up steam – with its partisans pushing the model further into the public sphere than one might expect, and the old guard of establishment economics, together with some more interesting critical voices, pushing back. The questions at stake can make the average person’s head...

By J.D. ALT According to the “invisible hand” theory—long celebrated (in America) as the most effective mode of human economics—private commerce should now be busy directing our efforts and resources toward those things we truly need to prosper as a collective society. Instead, the “invisible hand” seems to be willfully guiding us in the opposite direction. How can that be? Has something fundamental shifted, causing the mechanism of the Great American Enterprise to steer not just...

Richard Murphy addresses specific issues raised questioning MMT. "Paradigms" are overarching conceptual models of systems that create a framework in terms of which competing theories can be generated in response to issues, especially emergent ones at the frontier of knowledge. The paradigm that has been in force with respect to policy issues since the rise of the Chicago School and the replacement of John Maynard Keynes with Milton Friedman has been neoliberalism, the basis of which is...

In Part I, I considered an Australian-based attack on MMT from a Labour Party stooge. In this Part, I shift to Britain to address the recent article by a Northern Labour MP – Jonathan Reynolds – who is apparently, if his arrogance is to be believed, the Labour Party spokesperson on matters economic. For the title of his recent article (June 4, 2019) was – Why Labour doesn’t support Modern Monetary Theory – which begs the question as to who actually doesn’t support MMT – all of Labour?...

Leading proponents of Modern Monetary Theory respond to Tribune's recent article on the topic, arguing that socialists should not be afraid to "seize the means of production of money." TribuneFor MMT Thomas Fazi and Bill Mitchell

This is just a short post-script to some points in the James Meadway article I discussed yesterday. What is to be done about financial sectors that are out-of-control, and endangering economic stability?... I would add one important thing that MMT contirubtes to this debate that Brian doesn't mention here. Warren Mosler has pounded on the need to regulate banks' asset side rather than their liability side as is current practice.Brian does mention that MMT economists have criticized current...

James Meadway recently published "Against MMT" (Modern Monetary Theory), in which he lays out a number of criticisms of the theory. Although it might have helped my readership numbers, I really did not want to get drawn into the mudslinging around MMT that erupted this January. One of the public relations problems MMT faces is that it seems that MMTists are in continued arguments with seemingly everyone. The negative tone of these arguments distract from the constructive aspects of the...

In recent days the international policy-making elite has tried to distance itself from MMT, often going to hysterical extremes to dismiss the approach as crazy. No one does this better than the Japanese. As MMT began to gather momentum, its developers began to receive a flood of calls from reporters around the world enquiring whether Japan serves as the premier example of a country that follows MMT policy recommendations. My answer is always the same: No. Japan is the perfect case to...

Contra Ian Stewart and James Meadway.Aside: If this is considered wonkish in the UK, the country has a problem.Tax Research UKFor MMT (long and wonkish) Richard Murphy | Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London; Director of Tax Research UK; non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics, and a member of the Progressive Economy Forum

L. Randall Wray In recent days the international policy-making elite has tried to distance itself from MMT, often going to hysterical extremes to dismiss the approach as crazy. No one does this better than the Japanese. As MMT began to gather momentum, its developers began to receive a flood of calls from reporters around the world enquiring whether Japan serves as the premier example of a country that follows MMT policy recommendations. My answer is always the same: No. Japan is the...