This is an introduction to a series of 16 posts I wrote in reply to a number of posts by John Carney at the CNBC blog and Cullen Roche at Pragmatic Capitalism, and comments replying to them. The posts by Carney and Roche criticized the MMT Job Guarantee (JG) proposal. They did so by calling into question whether the JG would be effective in achieving Full Employment (FE) and Price Stability (PS), and also by calling into question the MMT goals of "Public Purpose", and "FE with a living wage" as appropriate. The critics proposed that “Full Productivity” (FP) and PS be goals of MMT, and that “prosperity” be the higher level goal. They also proposed that MMT concentrate on description and avoid policy prescriptions, and that it deal only with “facts” and not with “theory.”
The first 13 posts in this series refute these proposals, and also discuss the question of the appropriate hourly rate for the JG program. They also discuss various fallacies of composition inherent in many of the objections made to the MMT JG program, the issue of whether an FE or an unemployed “buffer stock” is more in line with public purpose, and also the issue of whether it's possible to deal only with “facts” and not with “theories.” In the 14th post I introduce the idea of the MMT Knowledge Claim Network (KCN) consisting of Social/Value Gaps, Knowledge Gaps (problems), Descriptive Knowledge Claims, Prescriptions, and Narratives. I also argue that the MMT KCN is a fused fact-value network with important value commitments, that it was developed holistically by its originators. that it is not focused on descriptive aspects of economics alone, that it offers explicit value claims, and that it's normative aspect is clear.
I also argue that many of its practitioners, offer policy prescriptions rather than simply concentrating on the way the world is right now. I note further that the social/value gap, problems, and prescriptive aspects of the MMT KCN are progressive and Second New Deal oriented, and that is why many people who are persuaded by parts of the descriptive aspect of MMT want to do what they can to place these aspects into a secondary role and drive them out of the KCN altogether.
In the 15th post, I offer my view of the current components of MMT in its five categories of knowledge claims as preparation for the concluding 16th post in the series, which answers the questions I posed at the beginning of the series; namely:
-- What is part of the MMT core right now? and
-- how ought we to change it in the future?
Since I finished the series, its importance as a resource was underlined by new posts from Cullen Roche and Mike Sankowski (Trader's Crucible), and by Cullen's revision of his earlier paper on MMT which is now an introduction to a new approach called “Monetary Realism.” Here's Cullen on MMT and MR.
”As many of you now know, the divide within some of the MMT thinkers has grown fairly substantial. The schism over the Job Guarantee revealed several points of disagreement that lead to vastly different conclusions than those espoused by the primary MMT thinkers. Several commenters and vocal proponents of MMT have made it clear that my positions are not those of the MMT economists and founders and are in fact something different. I won’t do the developers of MMT the disservice of pretending that my ideas are completely in-line with theirs. That would only serve to confuse those learning MMT and could undermine the efforts of the MMT developers.
I feel that the core operational aspects of MMT are among the most important ideas in the world and my goal here has always been to help promote those ideas. Because I believe in those ideas I will not stop promoting them. So I’ve been working with Michael Sankowski, Carlos Mucha (who most of you probably know as reader Beowulf) and several others to help formulate our thinking. I’ve also been in detailed talks with Warren Mosler over the last several weeks hashing out some differences. It’s safe to say that we have his blessing even though he’s not 100% in agreement with all we’ve concluded.”
I'm not sure I agree with the claim that Cullen, Mike, and Carlos have “Warren's blessing” beyond his wishing them luck in pursuing their orientation, which I also have done. Certainly, Part Seven of my series doesn't indicate to me that they have his blessing in the normal sense of this term, and I also think that no group that departs from the core value of “public purpose” as the goal of Government economic policy would ever have his full blessing.
”Importantly, I want to be clear that I do not view Monetary Realism as a competing idea to MMT. Rather, it is merely the form of Mosler Monetary Theory that I wish to promote (without confusing readers into thinking that I am promoting the exact MMT ideas and prescriptions). After all, Warren is still the father of the theory and it’s incredibly important to note that he is, by far, the most influential thinker in this offshoot of MMT. If anything, I hope that by focusing on the operational realities of MMT via Monetary Realism that I will bring even greater credibility to MMT and its operational realities. The fact that we have differences regarding prescriptive uses, in my opinion, gives the idea even greater credibility. But in the end, it should be clear who gets the credit for these ideas – Warren and the other developers. Monetary Realism is merely standing on their shoulders.”
And Cullen also goes on to state that he has revised his introduction to MMT, so that it is now an introduction to MR. In that paper, he also has added “innovation” and “growth” to the goal structure of MR, and also stated that: “The core value of Monetary Reality is transparency of the global monetary system.” He also states that a new web site is being created to promote MR. Two posts have also appeared at the Trader's Crucible web site here and here, announcing the new development.
My take on MR is that even though it tries to minimize the differences between MMT and its “offshoot,” these are at the core of the two systems and that if they were not there would be no MR. If MR proponents still accepted 'public purpose” as the highest level goal in their KCN, and had not replaced it with “prosperity,” if they had not replaced FE with FP as a key second-level goal, then there would have been no split.
The replacement of FE as a goal indicates that MR doesn't consider a job at a living wage as a right of every individual. That is a huge difference between the two approaches that cannot be minimized, as the MR adherents are trying to do.
Beyond these explicit differences there is the further implicit difference that the MMT commitments to public purpose and to FE are commitments to greater equality in American and global society. The abandonment of FE and the JG suggest that the MR proponents are much less concerned about social and economic justice than are the MMT founders and others who practice the MMT approach. In a time when democracy is threatened by plutocracy throughout the world, that difference between the two approaches is fundamental and will shape their future development.
In the future, I'll try to clarify further the differences between MMT and MR and illuminate some of the foundational problems of MR that are already apparent.
The various posts in the series have been previously published on this blog. In addition, the series is available in blog book form with convenient sequential links among the various parts of the series.