Over the years it’s been clear to me that we live in a fictional world when it comes to economic matters. The mainstream has created this world that bears little relationship to reality and which serves the interests of a few at the expense of the majority. But the way in which this fiction is inculcated in the framing and language of our public debates leads the majority to think that the conduct of economic policy is somehow in their best interests, even if, at times, governments claim we have to swallow a bitter pill in order to get well again. The bitter pill always punishes the lower to middle-income groups, rarely the top-end-of-town. The fiction is so deeply ingrained that even progressive political campaigns are framed within it. I have railed against that all my career because I cannot align a belief that democratic choice requires accurate information with the reality that we make these choices in a fog of fiction. I have always considered the role of the progressive forces in politics, as a matter of priority, should be to be the agents of education, so that these democratic choices reflect our realities. I have never supported so-called ‘progressive’ parties that choose, for ‘political’ purposes, to lie to the electorates by adopting neoliberal framing and language as a way of minimising any difficulties that might arise, initially, from the dissonance that accompanies exposure to the truth, after years of believing in lies. It seems that the British Labour Party continues to promote a false narrative to support and otherwise stellar plan for national renewal. But, as history tells us, a plan built on false financial foundations, falters when circumstances change and the false foundations become the issue rather than the plan....Digging the grave you have been consigned to deeper. How dumb is that!
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Invoking neoliberal framing and language is a failing progressive strategy (British Labour)
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
4 comments:
“For his part, Paul Mason promoted his video with the usual ‘tax the rich to fund essential services’ myth.”
LOL Bernie does the same thing....
Bill Mitchell’s pure MMT teachings for British Labour
Comment on Bill Mitchell on ‘Invoking neoliberal framing and language is a failing progressive strategy (British Labour)’*
Bill Mitchell claims to be a Progressive. In this capacity he fights British Labour: “I have never supported so-called ‘progressive’ parties that choose, for ‘political’ purposes, to lie to the electorates by adopting neoliberal framing and language as a way of minimising any difficulties that might arise, initially, from the dissonance that accompanies exposure to the truth, after years of believing in lies.”
At some point, Bill Mitchell tells the world, he has realized that British Labour plays a con game: “Over the years it’s been clear to me that we live in a fictional world when it comes to economic matters. … Which tells you that he [Paul Mason] either doesn’t understand what MMT is about (ignorance) or deliberately deceives his audience (fraud).”
To make the matter short here, it is Bill Mitchell and his MMTers who are the fraudsters.#1, #2
Proper economic analysis shows beyond any doubt that the MMT policy of deficit-spending/money-creation is to the advantage of the Oligarchy and to the disadvantage of WeThePeople. The macroeconomic Profit Law entails Public Deficit = Private Profit and this entails that financial wealth is roughly equal to the public debt. In the fictional world of economics, the fictional Progressives are the real agenda pushers/useful idiots of the Oligarchy.
This should be pretty obvious, Bill Mitchell argues vehemently against budget-balancing and taxing the rich and tells Labour that they are stuck in neoliberal thinking.
• “This is the classic ‘soft’ mainstream macroeconomics that assumes the government is financially constrained and is thus not dissimilar to a household. It is ‘soft’ because, unlike the hard mainstream positions, it allows for deficits (‘funded’ by debt) to occur in a non-government downturn but proposes them to be offset by surpluses in an upturn, irrespective of the overall saving position of the non-government sector.”#3
• “The incomes of the rich are therefore essential to provide the capacity for the government to fund the provision of services to health care and welfare.”
• None of this framing or language is what I would call ‘progressive’.
Budget-balancing is bad but taxing the rich is of the devil: “It is false to claim that it is virtuous to ‘tax the rich’ in order to fund essential health and welfare services. This is one of the worst frames that the progressives now deploy.”
Obviously, the whole MMT thing is a shell game with the word progressive.#4
Political take-away for British Labour: MMT is bad science, MMT is bad policy, MMTers are bad people. Bill Mitchell’s MMT teachings for British Labour are a gaslighting exercise.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
* Billy Blog
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=43678
#1 For the full-spectrum refutation of MMT see cross-references MMT
http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/07/mmt-cross-references.html
#2 MMT Progressives: The knife in the back of WeThePeople
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/12/mmt-progressives-knife-in-back-of.html
#3 Exploding the Household Fallacy
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/11/exploding-household-fallacy.html
#4 See also Mr. Wray goes to Washington
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/11/mr-wray-goes-to-washington.html
“It is ‘soft’ because, unlike the hard mainstream positions, it allows for deficits (‘funded’ by debt) to occur in a non-government downturn but proposes them to be offset by surpluses in an upturn,”
This is just a classic dialectic synthesis of the two opposing theses under Platonism....
It’s the only result possible operating under a Platonistic methodology... no discrimination...
In figurative language the “hawk” synthesizes with the “owl” and the synthesized outcome is a “dove”...
The methodology doesn’t work when dealing with material systems... successful people don’t use it...
Bernie is a tease.
Post a Comment