I’ve recently had an exchange on my Twitter account with a couple academic economists who believe MMT (Modern Money Theory) is the silver bullet answer to the growing instability of capitalist economy in the 21st century, it’s inability to generate sustained economic growth, and growing inequality (wealth, income, all forms) in the process of failure to provide sustained growth or stability (in employment, inflation, etc.). These economists too cleverly post their own views without acknowledging my points, so I’m here summarizing some of my views to date on MMT. (I reserve my final views pending my completion of my full analysis of the major advocates of MMT–Kelton, Wray, others). But for now, this is how I see it:
The 7 Propositions:
#MMT is a naive academic theory that thinks you can somehow get the capitalist Treasury & central bank (Fed) to abandon its primary mission to protect & preserve the capitalist banking system and somehow employ monetary policy to serve the country and economy as a whole.
#MMT Here’s more my view of MMT: a theory that stands ‘Keynesian Economics’ on its head & views monetary policy as solution to capitalist instability. But don’t confuse MMT or Keynesian economics with ‘Keynes’ Economics’. Keynes thought little of monetary solutions of any kind
#MMT: What’s the ‘achilles heel’ of MMT? the failure to understand the political system: neither Congress or parties will ever allow the Fed (or US Treasury) ever to become a bona fide national public bank that’s a prerequisite to implementing MMT. That is, it’s politically naive.
#MMT: In my discussions with academic MMTers I find that few have either read Keynes’ Ch. 12, 24 of his General Theory (or don’t understand it). In it, Keynes noted 2 ‘achilles heels’ of capitalist economy: inability to provide full employment + inherent drive toward inequality
#MMT Mainstream Keynesian Economics is a bastardized version of Keynes’ Economics. Keynesian reintroduces notions Keynes rejected. MMTers reject Keynesian but have more in common with it than they do with Keynes’ economics (most MMTers either haven’t read or don’t understand it)
#MMT is an offshoot variant of Keynesian economics, both of which are part of the school of post-Keynes econ analysis called Neoclassical Economics–which cherry picks select propositions of Keynes & merges them with pre-Keynes classical econ notions that Keynes himself rejected.
#MMT my prior 6 posts on MMT in no way suggests I believe that Keynes himself had all the answers. Neither does Minsky. Nor Marx. But I suspect the truth of 21st century capitalism lies somewhere in the intersection of the honest empirical work of all these three.
#MMT Now that I’ve turned the light on in the bathroom of Mainstream/MMT economics, let’s see what academic cockroaches will scurry out of the corners behind the bowl.
Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus
Jack Rasmus 
Reblogged this on muunyayo .
The concern expressed about wealth income inequality is shared by the preeminent English historian Eric Hobsbawn. He claimed that the primary function of the nation state is the redistribution of wealth and income to solve the grotesque disparity generated by capitalism:
“The real difficulty is how this wealth can be distributed. The only effective method that we know is redistribution by the state and public authorities. This is why I think the nation state is still indispensable. It’s economic functions are perhaps less than ever than before but it’s redistributive ones are more important than ever”.
“It seems clear that only a small part of the wealth generated has in fact been redistributed to the greater part of the population. The division of wealth is becoming dramatically less equal. When I said dramatically I mean that a very small number of persons often single individuals are becoming rich in a manner without precedent at least since the times of feudal society when the Archbishop of Salzburg personally owned 1/3 of the gross social product in the region in which he lived.”