The primary four legs of the MMT chair are Knapp’s state theory of money, Lerner’s functional finance, Godley’s sectoral balances and Minsky’s Employer of Last Resort....
I find it interesting that none of the articles about MMT [listed in Cullen's post] have mentioned these core pieces as the sum of MMT....
This just goes to show that the public is still far from understanding these ideas and what MMT actually is. But hey, it’s nice to see the exposure. The world desperately needs to better understand these operational realities and while I don’t buy into MMT 100% I know that the world will be a much better place if people understand the basics of MMT’s operational realities.Read it at Pragmatic Capitalism
What Separates Mmt From Good Old Keynesian Economics?
by Cullen Roche
Concur. I got the impression that none of the people writing about MMT in yesterday's flurry had really come to grips with MMT and only have a superficial notion of what constitutes it.
However, I don't believe Cullen's list above is exhaustive, although these are major MMT positions.
MMT does not import the JG as proposed by Minsky, but significantly expands upon the idea in an original way. The MMT JG is not the Minsky JG. In addition, MMT builds on Minsky's analysis in other matters, such as financial instability.
MMT is also built on the credit theory of money as articulated by Innes, for example, along with Knapp's Chartalism. Wray has stated that MMT economists are in essential agreement with Graeber's historical analysis.
MMT also builds on Warren Mosler's soft currency economics, combining the verticalness of state money with the horizontalist operational description of credit money articulated within Post Keynesianism
Most significantly, Warren Mosler has asserted that his fundamental insight is that government is the currency monopolist.
Very well done Tom!
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