Bill Mitchell – billy blog A progressive European superstate will never come to pass

The increasing uprising against Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) in the media is salutory because it means our ideas are now considered to be a threat to the mainstream economics (for example, Paul Krugman now buying into the carping) and to the heterodox tradition (for example, the British economists who self-identify with that tradition). The high profile debate around the Green New Deal has been associated with MMT and this has brought all sort of crazy attacks on MMT from those who think they are ‘green’ but haven’t traversed out of ‘Monetarist-type’ economics thinking. And then I note that apparently the Green New Deal is being expropriated by Europhiles to wedge those who consider Lexit and Brexit to be the only way to re-establish progressive society and politics. 

Apparently, the Europhiles are arguing that you cannot be both Lexit/Brexit and support the Green New Deal. Curious logic. And, of course, a desperate attempt by the Europhiles to grasp at anything to discredit both Brexit and MMT, given that there is a high proportion of MMTers who prefer Britain leave the EU and that the EU disappears in its current form. And so it goes. Wolfgang Streek recently published an interesting academic article that bears on this discussion. That is what this blog post is about....

Well, never is a long, long time. Who knows what will happen in the future, but it fairly certain it won't be anytime soon and even more sure that it won't be the outcome of the present arrangements that are supposedly designed to make it happen. More liberal utopianism that disregards realities involving traditional values and national patriotism, for example, and social, political and economic asymmetry. Moreover, since liberalism is about freedom, it follows that attempts to impose it on the unwilling is illiberal.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
A progressive European superstate will never come to pass
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia