France said on Tuesday it planned to "gradually" ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses, the farming of mink for fur and the breeding of dolphins and orcas in captivity.
Animals rights group PETA hailed the decision as "an historic victory".
So when Jason Hickell says that “MMT provides an opportunity for us to create a post-growth, post-capitalist economy” he is saying no more than it is possible now with our current monetary system.
So money is decidedly not the problem, nor even capitalism.
Political will is the problem.
Since May, when China's central leadership started referring to a "new development pattern," there has been much speculation about whether the country is embracing an entirely new economic model. In fact, the government is merely describing changes that have already happened.Yu Yongding is considered an authority on Chinese policy that is worth listening to.
This is Part 6 of my on-going examination of the concept of ‘duty to work’ and how it was associated with the related idea of a ‘right to work’. Neoliberalism has broken the nexus between the ‘right to work’ responsibilities that the state assumed in the social democratic period and the ‘duty to work’ responsibilities that are imposed on workers in return for income support. That break abandons the binding reciprocity that enriched our societies and has spawned a solid argument for a basic income. But the solution to the problem is to reinstate the link between opportunity to work and the societal benefits of work, especially as it enhances the material well-being of the least advantaged. In this part, I explore that theme.Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The earlier parts in this series are:
1. Tracing the roots of progressive views on the duty to work – Part 1 (August 4, 2020).
2. Tracing the roots of progressive views on the duty to work – Part 2 (August 11, 2020).
3. Tracing the roots of progressive views on the duty to work – Part 3 (August 20, 2020).
4. Tracing the roots of progressive views on the duty to work – Part 4 (September 1, 2020).
5. Tracing the roots of progressive views on the duty to work – Part 5 (September 8, 2020).
The latest Trade and Development report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the economic research agency to help ‘developing countries’, is a must read. Not only is it packed with data and statistics about trends and developments in global production, trade and investment, but this 2020 issue takes a very radical position on how to get the world economy out of what the IMF calls the ‘lockdown’ slump.From the Marxian perspective, the problem is falling profit rate. Michael Roberts observes that Keynes called this "the marginal efficiency of capital."
Indeed, on occasion even Keynes recognised that profitability (which he called the ‘marginal efficiency of capital’) was an important factor in causing slumps. As he said: “Unemployment, I must repeat, exists because employers have been deprived of profit. The loss of profit may be due to all sorts of causes. But, short of going over to Communism, there is no possible means of curing unemployment except by restoring to employers a proper margin of profit.” If the marginal efficiency of capital fell below the interest cost of borrowing capital, then capitalists would have a loss of ‘animal spirits’ and stop investing and instead hoard money. But this aspect of Keynesian theory is ignored by modern Keynesians (as it was by Keynes himself).The problem is the structure of capitalism based on the relationship of profit and firm investment and and the profit rate depends on the capital/labor share. This and the following posts explore this relationship.
In this post, I continue the draft of sections of my forthcoming book, “Marxian Economics: An Introduction.” This, like the previous four posts (here, here, here, and here), is written to serve as the basis for chapter 1, Marxian Economics Today. The text of this post should pretty much finish up the draft of the first chapter....
Last week, there were some rather significant shifts in the public discourse surrounding macroeconomic policy and challenges made to the orthodox economics taboos that have been used to prevent governments from acting in the best interest of the citizens. First, the Australian treasurer broke away from the government’s previous obsession with fiscal surplus pursuit to announce that for the foreseeable future it was only going to concentrate on jobs and growth. In his statement, he basically refuted all the mainstream macroeconomic claims about fiscal deficits – higher interest rates, lower private investment, lower growth, lower private sector confidence etc. There is really nothing left of the mainstream position now and any politician or economist that tries to resurrect the ‘debt and deficit’ narratives of the past will find it hard gaining the same politician traction that they were able to garner some years ago at the height of the neoliberal period. And, if that was not enough, a former Federal treasurer attacked the ‘high priests’ of the central bank, demanding they buy up government bonds and help the government run “Mountainous” deficits to achieve full employment. The flood gates opened just a bit more after those interventions along the way to jettisoning all the mainstream nonsense that should have been abandoned decades ago....Traction.
The "FinCen Files" story reveals: getting caught not only doesn’t stop the world's biggest banks from moving dirty money, it may encourage themSubstack (subscription may be required)
Whilst those of us with a better understanding of how money works shout at the TV with incredulity that the same falsities are being repeated endlessly, many of those same journalists and presenters fail to make the very real connections between government spending, the state of the economy and the lives of its citizens.Ignorance and disinformation involve real costs imposed on people and society, including loss of opportunity.
Whilst the implication of unaffordability and a future tax burden prevails as a reason to curtail spending eventually, the real price has been and remains a human one; economic instability and uncertainty for people and the prospect of more damage to the environment. We can’t afford to improve people’s lives or even save the planet! Apparently.…
In summary, if we accept the premise that the government can wait for after a recession to worry about its finances, then we can say that it does not face a financial constraint. Given that the former appears to be a consensus view, the non-existence of financial constraints is not particularly radical.Bond Economics
The solution to a problem that is sociological and political does not lie in abstract discussions of methodology or trying to identify philosophical mistakes. It lies in being open-minded to insights from outside economics , in constructing theories that use appropriate formal methods not theories that are constructed to show off command of formal methods whether appropriate or not. It means defining the domain of theoretical propositions and accepting the verdict of empirical data relevant to that domain. In other words the answer to people doing it wrong is not to despair and retreat into philosophy; the answer is to do it right. No-one should claim that is easy.The problem with conventional economics is assuming that economics is naturalistic like natural science rather than historical, in that participants are socially embedded in contexts that are dynamic. The degree of complexity increases from physical systems, to biological systems, to social systems. Hence, different methodology — developing suitable methods for inquiry — is called for.
A handful of producers in China build almost all of the world’s containers.Interesting article about the shipping industry.
All this makes us think that in an advanced society such as ours it is no longer an illusion to defend the veracity of this statement: the only way to achieve permanent full employment is to prohibit involuntary unemployment, and therefore it is necessary to implement a program that guarantees that everyone who wants and can work has access to a decent job....
Such measures would not be impossible within the European Union and the euro if the European Union were to change its treaties. Above all, it would be necessary for the 3% public deficit limit set by the Stability and Growth Pact to be removed. If this were to happen and the European Union were to recognise that the correct level of public deficit is that which guarantees full employment without inflation thanks to job guarantees based on employment buffer stocks, the problem of mass unemployment in Spain could be solved within the European Union. However, there is no indication that the European Union will reform its treaties in this direction. Consequently, within the European Union and the single currency zone there will be no end to mass unemployment.Brave New Europe
Hangzhou-based Ant Group will list the dual IPO amid early investor interest and is will be based on a valuation of roughly $250bn, according to Reuters....Sputnik International
