Economic Update: Government Deficits; Why They Happen, Who Benefits From Them, and MMT
Richard Wolff mentions the printing of money occasionally, but he never squares that with the government supposedly needing to tax and/or borrow first before it can spend.
He spends the last two minutes talking about MMT, but not as a theory of fiat money; instead as a novel monetary policy proposed by “progressive-minded economists.”
Somewhere in there he also repeats the common fallacy that what banks lend is other people’s savings. They don’t. The money they lend is created out of thin air, and the “money multiplier” is a myth.
I’m just a technerd who’s never taken an economics course, and I grind my teeth every time this expert botches these fundamentals. Why Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai never push back on him when they do talks together is a mystery to me.
For someone who has no fucking clue what youre saying what would you recommended for reading material to become familiarized with “mmt” and “fiat money”? Im just a self-taught ML so I’m curious for suggestions from more learned comrades
These Marxist explanations are critical of liberalism’s MMT errors & excesses:
These short PEGS Institute explainers aren’t from Marxists, but they touch on important ideas without veering into liberalism so much. The last one addresses the common neoclassical argument that printing money = hyperinflation.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
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The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton is a good absolute intro. L. Randall Wray’s “Modern Money Theory* is better but a bit more advanced. Kelton is more openly political so that will probably rub folks here the wrong wrong, just take those parts with a grain of salt.
Mentioning Kelton reminds of the MMT documentary, Finding the Money, wherein we visit the University of Missouri-Kansas City and interview every MMT professor but Michael Hudson, the sole Marxist one 🤬