The team at the Financial Times was very gracious in asking me to write a recent op-ed on heterodox economics and the financial crisis. I riff off Ray Dalio’s idea of the global “machine” and how an understanding of heterodox schools can lead to a better understanding of the machine and hopefully better outcomes for policy and economic prosperity in the future….Read it at Modern Monetary Realism
A New Way of Thinking About the Global Machine
by Cullen Roche
Congratulations on making FT, Cullen. That puts MMR on the global map. Interesting, too, that you were invited to comment on heterodox economics although you are not an academic economists with a background in heterodox economics.
23 comments:
"Interesting, too, that you were invited to comment on heterodox economics although you are not an academic economists with a background in heterodox economics."
Yes.... interesting.
FT Alphaville has linked to Pragcap many times. Think that's how he is known. Nice article though. Hopefully this will spark another round of interest in MMT. Martin Wolf may have a piece on the way too.
The piece makes only passing reference to MMR and really presents itself as an MMT piece. So this is good publicity to build on. And as Ben says, the promised Wolfe peice would help too.
Sometimes I wonder whether he makes insulting claims about mmt simply to get loads of hits and comments on his site from pissed off mmters.
Colon Roche as the FT.com's commentator on heterodox economics? That's too depressingly weird to think about. Counter-insurgency - that's what it is I tell ya. Still, 'well done' I suppose.
p.s. thanks for giving MMT some positive coverage.
What I don't get is why you bad mouth mmt the whole time on your own site, and claim that it's all 'obvious and unoriginal and everyone knew it all already' (and the only thing that distinguishes it is the JG), yet when you write on the FT site, all of a sudden mmt offers an important 'new way of thinking'. I just don't get it.
CR will always have my thanks as it was a link from FTav to his old primer where I found out about MMT. Now always feel uncomfortable about some of the stick he gets.
He would be a good politician...
OFftopic but: no comments on elections in France and Greece yet?
Greece continues its path towards civil war and revolution, if the major parties plot again the people major rejection against the system this will be only result in the near future.
Neoliberalism surely will die a slow death killing everything it can in the process (peace and prosperity). Such is the state of affairs, and the economists and 'technicians' who have supported all this should be in prison along with the politicians who allowed it all for treason.
"He would be a good politician..."
Well, he might be but I still think its a little unfair to cast him in this light. I dont think he is simply playing politics.
Cullen is absolutely committed to the truth about our monetary system..... and he knows the truth. He really just sees the JG as a non starter politically and wants to drop it from most primary discussions. Once the nuts and bolts of MMT/MMR are accepted then I think the notion of a JG might come naturally. Maybe he thinks the JG along with everything else is just too much too fast. Baby steps.
I dont entirely agree with him but he might be right. I happen to think that the way to get the Overton Window moved is too ask for a lot and get some. If you ask for some you will get less than some. The whole JG notion derives naturally from an understanding of the principles of MMT/MMR. If you dont need private sector permission to have a 'job' why would anyone accept the current status quo?
Greg,
I wrote this at MMR - in response to Mike's comment that "Perfect was the enemy of Good"
Quote:
While that may possibly be true, If you do not demand the perfect, you will never get to even an acceptable solution. This is because you are the supplicant, and not the one holding the power, and the PTB are not willing to give you what you demand. In politics, the first one to compromise loses. So in my view, if you do not demand JG/BIG, and stick to your guns, you will never get the TC rule. Compromise by the Democratic Party, and the search for consensus over the last 35 years has cost the bottom 80% of the US population dearly.
I think even Randy and Bill would approve of that piece. Financial Times is relatively neutral as newspapers go. As Joe Biden would say, "this is a big effing deal". Getting people to think a bit about what is really happening is the real goal here. Thumbs up!
If there's anything to say about this it's that Cullen has "schooled" all the MMT leadership on marketing.
But Warren has been in the Economist - with a drawing and everything, including frequent radio interviews. He's doing OK on the marketing front.
The economists have been speaking to increasingly larger audiences. Spreading ideas through the academic channel works differently than spreading them through the news media.
Why the negative comments about Cullen? It sounds to me like, despite the disagreements, MMR and MMT are friends in the battle against neoliberalism and he's acknowledging that.
Of course MMR and MMT don't agree on everything, but they agree on a lot more than other heterodox thinkers and definitely more than MMT/MMR and neoliberal thinkers.
As I've said on several occasions, this is a tempest in a tea pot, and it's a sign of taking oneself too seriously. Let's save our ammo for the real deal, which is ignorance and disingenuousness about monetary economics under the existing global money regime both generally and specifically as it relates to individual countries.
Not that we should just pass over or ignore possible mistakes that some of us may be making. That is a legitimate subject for debate, but no need to get heated about it.
All good debaters know that when one gets angry, one has already lost. It's undercutting your own position. You know, self-sabotage.
There are places that righteous anger is appropriate, like torture. This is not one of them.
I plead 100% guilty to the charge of having political motivations. I take that to be a good thing. There is no value-free, morality-free, politics-free pure science of economics. It's still "political economy" as far as I'm concerned.
"There is no value-free, morality-free, politics-free pure science of economics."
That the neoliberal line. Hey, they presume to be just describing "natural" states.
Yes Tom, the neoliberals pretend there is some kind of field of pure policy which has nothing to do with the politics of who gets what.
If some butcher took over the government and started slaughtering minorities, some economist would come up with a pair of curves to show that the butchery represented an equilibrium, and that we can't reduce it because we're already at the non-accelerating inflation rate of butchery.
My feelings is that there are many policies in any situation that will all "work" in some broad sense. But they deliver very different strokes to different folks.
Dan K"If some butcher took over the government and started slaughtering minorities, some economist would come up with a pair of curves to show that the butchery represented an equilibrium, and that we can't reduce it because we're already at the non-accelerating inflation rate of butchery."
All you have to do is substitute "military" for "butchery" and you have the neoliberal narrative.
LVG's been hatin' on MMT since back before good ol' MMR came along
Can't argue with his marketing skills and he did it respectfully.
Damn ! have I just said something nice about the guy?
Yes LVG, we are part of a vast conspiracy. And you will lose, LOL.
Clonal
I did see that comment. One thing you have to give props to the GOP for is that they KNOW politics! Its pretty much all they are. They understand about being passionate unbending ideologues and changing the dialogue. They have gone full right wing crazy and are shifting everything rightward with every compromise the Dems make. Its a dangerous way to play sometimes, always going for the hail mary pass, but I wish the "good guys" would try this play sometimes.
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