Five years ago, if you asked me if I would be proselytizing an economic theory at every opportunity, I would have thought you mad as an orange, adderall-gorging, tweeting. racist sociopath.
But one day in 2015, I was listening to David Waldman’s Kagro in the Morning on Daily Kos Radio, and a woman named Arliss Bunny was explaining something called “Modern Monetary Theory.” It was riveting. She explained a new way of looking at the economy, especially how to look at deficits and surpluses. I was skeptical, but fascinated. I listened to her again on The After Show and this time called in questions.
I started reading articles by the leaders of MMT — Stephanie Kelton (then at U of MO, KC; Bill Mitchell (Australian economist), Pavlina Tcherneva (at Bard’s Levy Institute) and others. I watched videos, especially Kelton’s. I was hooked. I met Arliss at the 2016 NN conference in St. Louis, and we talked about MMT for hours under the Arch.
After that, anyone I had lunch with was almost assured of a conversation about MMT. I became increasingly good at responding to friends’ questions and I’m sure I opened some people’s eyes to it. (Others will never lunch with me again, but that’s another story.)
What is it and why is it important? Let’s start with the importance.
MMT is the key to better lives for millions of Americans and dominance of the Democratic Party if it adopts its premises.
Why? Because this country and the Democrats have been constricted by the false premise that low deficits in and of themselves are an important goal, permitting Republicans to be predators and Democrats suckers, as I showed in Democratic Deficit Obsession: A Surrender to the GOP's Asymmetrical Debt Warfare.
This does not mean there is no limit on spending and we can “print money” without limit (as many mischaracterize MMT). It’s just a different limit: Inflation. Through economic and historical analysis, MMT debunks the idea that deficits cause inflation. Inflation happens because of a lack of real resources — human and natural. You don’t necessarily have to raise taxes or cut other spending to “pay for,” e.g., health care, education, climate measures. You have to assess whether the spending will be inflationary because of the lack of real resources.
Key: Don’t Balance the Budget (Spending = Expenses)
Balance the Economy (Low unemployment and low inflation)
And now, two vitally important books guided by MMT principles have been released: Stephanie Kelton’s The Deficit Myth, and Pavlina Tcherneva’s The Case for a Job Guarantee. Both are must-reads. A video by Stephanie Kelton, Top Ten Things to Know about the Economy is below.
The Job Guarantee is the prescriptive part of MMT — advocating for a federally funded, locally administered program guaranteeing any American a job at $15 an hour, with health and other benefits. This policy is immensely popular, as I wrote in What Policy has the support of 71% of Republicans, 87% of Democrats and 81% of Independents?
So here I am, five years later.
And I’d like you to be here too, so please respond to the poll about forming an MMT/Job Guarantee Group on Kos,
If there is such a group, please let me know.
If your answer is yes, please comment, so you can be invited to a new or existing group.
Let me know any other ideas you may have about promoting MMT and the Job Guarantee.