In Mitchell and Connors’ Figure 3, Step 2 is not “?????”. Appropriate actions must be present! So perhaps there is hope for this MMT research program in political economy; the MMTers are linking metaphor to policy much more directly than Democrats do, which MMT enables them to do. (More hope than simply waiting for all the fresh- and saltwater economists to die off, which is sometimes the only way that a paradigm shift can occur.) We might also take hope from straws in the wind like Warren Mosler publishing in U.S. News, the success of #mintthecoin, and even Obama’s taking The Coin more seriously than people thought at the time. After all, you lose until you win.
So, I can see this research program getting decent traction in our famously free press, but will that translate into traction with policy makers? Time will tell, but the eternal question — Are the elites stupid or evil? — will surely have as great an effect on the outcome as proper framing. And then there’s the public, and their notion of public purpose….
NOTE *** Apparently, in Australia, it’s still possible to use the word progressive without irony. I envy them.Naked Capitalism
Modern Monetary Theory Meets George Lakoff
Lambert Strether | Corrente
