Randy Wray — Odds and Sods: Some Good Reads For a Cold Winter Troll Friday

Potpourri.

Of particular interest: Joe Guinan, Modern money and the escape from austerity, at Renewal — A Journal of Social Democracy

Modern monetary theory destroys the intellectual basis for austerity but needs a more robust political economy.

Randy agrees.

Joe goes on to argue that MMT seems to have the theory, description of real world operations, and policy right, but needs some better political economy. I agree. Geoff Ingham has done some pretty spectacular work on that, but we need more.

I've suggested using John Kenneth Galbraith's The Good Society: The Humane Agenda (1996) as a template for a popular book on a progressive social, political and economic approach that is shown to be viable economically based on MMT principles.

The only real constraints are availability of real resources in the present and future, and environmental-ecological sustainability. The only operational constraint is inflation. If something doable, given the natural resources, the human resources and the state of knowledge and technology, it's affordable under the present monetary system.

Not to pursue opportunity and letting resources lie idle instead are inefficient (wasteful) and ineffective with respect to achieving the optimal. In other words, it is uneconomical from the standpoint of economics. It's also stupid socially and politically when a better life is available collectively for the US as a rich nation, the world's sole superpower, ad the global leader, and so-called the beacon of freedom. If only from the perspective of being competitive, it's the way to go.

Economonitor — Great Leap Forward
Odds and Sods: Some Good Reads For a Cold Winter Troll Friday

L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, University of Missouri at Kansas City