William Mitchell - Modern Monetary TheoryI grew up in a society where collective will was at the forefront and it is true to say people looked out for each other. The state – at all levels – had various policy structures in place to provide levels of economic protection for the least advantaged members of society. Having grown up in a poor family, those structures were important in allowing me to stay at school and then go onto to university. It also allowed my friends on the housing commission estate (state housing) who had different skills (not academic) to get apprenticeships and build careers that gave them material security in that way. It wasn’t a perfect period – there was racism, misogyny, and xenophobia – but as mass education spread, my generation left a lot of that behind. I was thinking about that when I read the recent article by Robert Reich in the UK Guardian (December 29, 2026) – Americans are waking up. A grand reckoning awaits us – which carried a resonance of some of the things that I have seen emerge in Australia as well as this 4-decade or so neoliberal nightmare reaches some sort of denouement.
Is there hope for a post neoliberal world?
Bill Mitchell, Emeritus Professor, University of Newcastle, and co-founder of MMT
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