Thursday, August 17, 2017

Patricia Pino — The fringe event that promises to empower Labour’s Progressives against neoliberalism

Professor Bill Mitchell – a major proponent of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) – will attend a Labour Conference fringe event this September, it’s a rare opportunity progressives must seize.…
Through the mass misinformation that is the neoliberal doctrine, the elites created a set of economic rules which presents them and only them as the indispensable saviours of society, and thus the only entity that must directly benefit from economic policy. They then dressed this fantasy as common sense, aided by their media sycophants whose very positions depend on the continued support from the wealthy classes. Dissent against this destructive order is presented as madness. Obedience is absolute: the poor think they must protect their masters, even at the expense of their own wellbeing.
In fact, every ill of society, every injustice, every incident of exploitation and systematic cruelty, finds its justification in some false economic dogma that goes unquestioned. And that is why the fight for social change goes hand in hand with economic reform....
If this movement belongs primarily to the young, then it is time for them to take the lead. Until millennials arm themselves with strong economic arguments, they will be defenceless when the establishment blames their money troubles on indulgence, their growing personal debt on irresponsibility and their joblessness on laziness. Until millennials can explain why these societal issues are a direct result of economic policy, the establishment will continue to promote them as individuals’ problems. The difficulties presented by a population that has endured 40 years of neoliberal indoctrination cannot be underestimated....
Help the organisers: visit the Crowdfunding page for this event. 
The Pileus
The fringe event that promises to empower Labour’s Progressives against neoliberalism
Patricia Pino

also by Patricia Pino:
Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss MMT at length with Professor Bill Mitchell himself. My objective was to find a way to explain its fundamentals in a way which could be easily understood by anyone, without the requirement of an academic background. He was kind enough to help me in this task.
To understand MMT, it is best to start by comparing it to Neoliberalism.…
It should now be evident why the neoliberal model presents a destructive path. Immediate environmental and human concerns (namely climate change and destitution) are relegated to issues of secondary importance. But to replace this model with that proposed by MMT a number of challenges remain.…
The following are a few basic principles of MMT which must be understood in order to challenge the neoliberal myths:
Labour’s economic alternative to neoliberalism

24 comments:

AXEC / E.K-H said...

MMT is NOT an alternative to neoliberalism
Comment on Patricia Pino on ‘Labour’s economic alternative to neoliberalism’

MMT is right in pointing out that orthodox economics is false. This, though, is only part of the story. Fact is that the whole of economics, i.e. the four main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and ALL got the pivotal economic concept profit wrong. MMT as a Keynesian offshoot is NO exception.

Economics does not satisfy the criteria of science ― material and formal consistency ― and because of this NONE of the economic platforms from the outer left wing to the outer right wing has sound scientific foundations. All of economics is storytelling and a scientific fraud. MMT is NO exception.

Let us have a look at the main arguments.#1

• “All government spending is our income, a government surplus is our deficit (debt) and a government deficit is our surplus (savings). Government spending isn’t just necessary to run our public services it also helps us to increase our wealth.”

This is false. The counterpart of a government deficit is the profit of the business sector or the saving of the household sector or a combination of the two. In the main, it is profit, therefore it is misleading to say that a government deficit ‘helps us to increase our wealth’. “Our wealth” is NOT the wealth of the 99-percenters but of the 1-percenters.

What has been called an absurdly unequal distribution of income and wealth is the DIRECT result of public AND private deficit spending and the exponential increase of public AND private debt.

• “What neoliberals call government debt is in fact savings to the private sector. This is composed of bonds and guilts which are purchased by the population at large…. The reason they are so popular is because they are seen as the safest form of investment.”

This, of course, is true, except for the fact that government securities are not bought and held by ‘the population at large’ but by the 1-percenters. With the promotion of deficit spending, MMT sees to it that the business sector not only enjoys profit but also a risk-free asset and a long term flow of interest. This flow comes in subsequent periods from the taxation of the household sector and is secured by the taxing power of government.

Patricia Pino sums up: “Macroeconomics is a complex subject.” This is true and what the general public needs to know is that economists do not understand it.#2 Economists do not even understand profit which is the pivotal concept of their subject matter. Economics is a failed science and MMT is part of it.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 For the comprehensive overview and the point-by-point refutation of MMT see cross-references
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/07/mmt-cross-references.html

#2 First Lecture in New Economic Thinking
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/05/first-lecture-in-new-economic-thinking.html

Kaivey said...

Bill doesn't use the term, but he is most certainly a socialist. I read somewhere, maybe here, or it have been a Bill Mitchell video even, but when some MMTers spoke to the Australian Labour Party about MMT the politicians then asked where has it been tried? And when the MMTers said nowhere yet, and then the politicians lost interest. They're scared to take the risk. Hopefully Bill will have more success with the British Labour Party.

Ralph Musgrave said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ralph Musgrave said...

I agree with Kaivey; I don't see Bill's trip to the Labour conference being time well spent, though good luck to him. Politicians want sexy soundbites that win the next election, or ideas that support those sexy soundbites. MMT is too abstruse to fulfil that role.

Calgacus said...

Kaivey: And when the MMTers said nowhere yet, and then the politicians lost interest.

If they said that, then they only have themselves to blame. The correct answer is "Everywhere", not nowhere.

************************

Egmont, of course MMTers & functional financiers understand you points, and treat them at length, and explain how the alternative you may be proposing - no deficit spending? - is worse. Sorry to put words in your mouth, but that seems to be your position. In Lerner's words, balanced budgeteering in a recession is like avoiding a light rain by jumping into a lake - in the chapter on the National Debt in his Economics of Employment, a wonderful aid to clear thinking on this.
Not being crazed by numerological obsessions about surpluses or balanced budgets is not the same as promoting deficits.
MMT wants to spend tightfistedly, but will not avoid spending when it is criminally insane not to spend- that is when one single person is unemployed. Economies run on MMT principles have and will tend to accumulate less debt, run smaller deficits compared to GDP. Good MMT deficits tend to be smaller than bad austerity deficits. The New Deal USA vs early 30s goldbug France is an excellent simultaneous display of this.

MMT sees to it that the business sector not only enjoys profit but also a risk-free asset and a long term flow of interest.

Most favor ZIRP, with zero flow of interest to the business sector. The only "risk-free asset" is cash money then. Why should businesses not be allowed to hold cash?

Without deficit spending, there is no money = "risk-free asset". So what is being said, that money should be abolished? That is sort of the ultraneoclassical position - "money is superduperneutral and meaningless and doesn't exist because my pet theory says so; la, la, la I am not listening to anything else."

Things like well-meaning blogposts should not be used as statements of a theory, they cannot be used to criticize it seriously. It is enough work rendering intelligible and consistent most academic works!

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Calgacus

You say: “…, of course MMTers & functional financiers understand you points, and treat them at length, and explain how the alternative you may be proposing ― no deficit spending? ― is worse. Sorry to put words in your mouth, but that seems to be your position.”

Time to get above the usual kindergarten blah-blah. My argument is NOT about a specific economic policy but that economic policy has NO sound scientific foundations. In other words, economic theory is scientific rubbish ― including MMT. The result is that economists in their bottomless stupidity ruin the economy.#1

So, my position is the same as Napoleon’s: “Late in life, moreover, he claimed that he had always believed that if an empire were made of granite the ideas of economists, if listened to, would suffice to reduce it to dust.” (Viner)

Note that I am not crazy about the deficit or any other MMT policy issue. The point at issue is that MMT policy proposals have NO sound scientific foundations. MMT is materially and formally inconsistent and just as ill-founded as neoliberalism. Therefore, it is NO alternative to neoliberalism. Scientifically, it is the same crap in a different political package.

I have refuted the theoretical foundations of MMT point-by-point on this blog.#2 The bottom line is this, MMT lacks the true theory and this is lethal: “In order to tell the politicians and practitioners something about causes and best means, the economist needs the true theory or else he has not much more to offer than educated common sense or his personal opinion.” (Stigum)

So, whatever MMTers are claiming to do and whatever they think of themselves they are doing does NOT matter. Because the theoretical foundations of MMT are defective and MMTers are in the state of self-delusion, what MMT economic policy OBJECTIVELY amounts to is a wellness program for the 1-percenters.#3

It seems that MMT fell victim to the Law of Unintended Consequences: “The concept of unintended consequences is one of the building blocks of economics. Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand,’ the most famous metaphor in social science, is an example of a positive unintended consequence. Smith maintained that each individual, seeking only his own gain, ‘is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention,’ that end being the public interest.”

MMT is the inverse case: it seeks to promote public interest but ends up with promoting private interest.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Mass unemployment: The joint failure of orthodox and heterodox economics
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/01/mass-unemployment-joint-failure-of.html

#2 See cross-references MMT
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/07/mmt-cross-references.html

#3 See also ‘Keynesianism as ultimate profit machine’
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/07/keynesianism-as-ultimate-profit-machine.html

#4 The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/UnintendedConsequences.html

Ralph Musgrave said...

I have very little time for Eggcup Kakaoke-Handkit’s nonsense. But I’ll do him a favour and demolish one of his phrases:

“The counterpart of a government deficit is the profit of the business sector or the saving of the household sector or a combination of the two.”

The mistake there is the popular assumption that a business’s profit (or the profit of the entire business sector) is equal to the increase in it’s stock of cash. That’s nonsense. A business or the business sector can increase its stock of cash during the year, but still make a loss (e.g. because its stock of assets lose a lot of value because of depreciation or obsolescence, or because lots of its debtors turn out to be no-hopers, which was what happened to banks when they realized the NINJA mortgagors they’d lent to were no hopers.)


AXEC / E.K-H said...

Ralph Musgrave

Ralph Musgrave cannot resist the temptation to expose himself again as a brainless blatherer. He argues “… I’ll do him a favour and demolish one of his phrases: ‘The counterpart of a government deficit is the profit of the business sector or the saving of the household sector or a combination of the two.’ The mistake there is the popular assumption that a business’s profit (or the profit of the entire business sector) is equal to the increase in it’s stock of cash. That’s nonsense. A business or the business sector can increase its stock of cash during the year, but still make a loss (e.g. because its stock of assets lose a lot of value because of depreciation or obsolescence, or because lots of its debtors turn out to be no-hopers, which was what happened to banks when they realized the NINJA mortgagors they’d lent to were no hopers.)”

WOW, that is rather big news. If Ralph Musgrave were a little smarter than a fruit fly he would have taken a closer look at the full set of macro axioms.#1 The definition of TOTAL profit says that it is the sum of MONETARY profit/loss Qm and NONMONETARY profit/loss Qn. The latter is not an issue in the present context because MMTers do not even understand the concept of monetary profit.

Nonmonetary profit has been dealt with at length elsewhere.#2

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Wikimedia, New axiomatic foundations
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AXEC88.png

#2 See cross-references Profit
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/03/profit-cross-references.html

Calgacus said...

EKH:I have refuted the theoretical foundations of MMT point-by-point on this blog.

No, you haven't. There is a minimal level of understanding of a theory that is necessary refute it. A point-by-point refutation has to be that of the theoretician's points, not things selected by the "refuter". One doesn't have to agree with a theory to understand it: somebody can understand astrology say, without believing it. There are people who get taught MMT at UMKC & elsewhere. A good test of understanding is being able to pass an academic test on a subject after formal instruction. Another method of learning, and famously the best or only way to learn some subjects is to "teach" "students" the subject. :-)

There are many people who have claimed similar refutations: say Joseph Huber. But they fail for the same reason - they make straw men of peripheral asides or slogans, which they might call the theoretical foundations and do not address the core of the theory according to the theoreticians at all. That is because they haven't done the necessary work that students who take and pass tests do.

MMT is the inverse case: it seeks to promote public interest but ends up with promoting private interest.
You seem to be saying that deficits are bad, because the money can wind up in the hands of the rich. This is not news & one does not need anybody's "true theory" beyond educated common sense. This is not a valid criticism of deficit spending.

Here is some kindergarten blah-blah that expresses the idea

" . . . money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands...."

And Here's How It All Happened by Will Rogers on page 18. See also Will Rogers on “trickle up” economics

As I said, MMT economists have noted similar things to what you & Will Rogers do, I can provide references. So you really should stop suggesting that MMT policies promote consequences that MMTers are unaware of. The point is - are the unintended consequences promoted less by any other policy? Is any other policy less of a "wellness program for the 1-percenters"? MMTers & functional financiers have thought through these things more carefully than any of their critics, I would say. So your criticisms seem to be merely repeating some long-ago-refuted "refutations". Again I recommend Lerner's book. I can send anyone interested a pdf.

MRW said...

E.K-H

My argument is NOT about a specific economic policy but that economic policy has NO sound scientific foundations. In other words, economic theory is scientific rubbish ― including MMT.

Why do you keep insisting that MMT is supposed to be based on “sound scientific foundations.” What the hell for, Egmont?

That’s the whole point of the simplicity of MMT for the average poke. it’s not supposed to be scientific. It’s supposed to make as much sense as QuickBooks.

It’s been clear from Day One that it’s based on accounting and accounting rules, and the US congressional reality that our country creates its own currency, which since 1971 (internationally) has been a sovereign non-convertible currency with a floating exchange rate. That’s not a scientific fact, Egmont, that’s an accounting reality. You don’t need to spend months counting your short-and-curlies to know this.

(In 1934 in this country, we went from gold fiat domestically to a federal government fiat domestically that the United States could control legally. The US federal government didn’t control gold mines or own them; in fact, every new mine that opened increased the supply of gold and therefore reduced the value of the dollar. And some jerk-off owned the mine.)

MRW said...

Calgacus,

Again I recommend Lerner's book. I can send anyone interested a pdf.

OK. What do I do?

MRW said...

Calgacus,

I have ”FUNCTIONAL FINANCE AND THE FEDERAL DEBT”, but not ”Economics of Employment”.

MRW said...

OK. I'm off to bed. Will be back when I wake up.

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Calgacus

(i) You say: “There is a minimal level of understanding of a theory that is necessary refute it. A point-by-point refutation has to be that of the theoretician’s points, not things selected by the ‘refuter’.”

I have NOT selected anything, I have refuted all 16 posts that have been presented by Peter Copper on this blog as the key propositions of MMT.#1

Take notice that MMT is refuted on ALL counts.

(ii) You say: “You seem to be saying that deficits are bad, because the money can wind up in the hands of the rich. This is not news & one does not need anybody’s ‘true theory’ beyond educated common sense. This is not a valid criticism of deficit spending.”

I have NOWHERE said that deficit spending is “bad”. I have PROVED that the Keynesian/Post Keynesian/MMT profit/employment/money theory is false.#2, #3

(iii) Do not argue against what I SEEM to be saying but what I AM saying which is easy to check by everybody thanks to an abundance of smart search tools.#4

(iv) Your reference to the trickle-up meme is misplaced. What I have clearly stated is that public deficit spending is, since Keynes, a veritable profit machine.#5 Public and private deficit spending over the last decades explains the extremely biased income distribution which MMTers certainly do not endorse.#6 That there is a logical contradiction should be plain.

(v) The policy proposals of MMT are based on a provably false profit/employment/money theory and they are propagated with misleading arguments. Assertions like “Government spending isn’t just necessary to run our public services it also helps us to increase our wealth” are factually false with regard to “us” and “ours”. Same with Lerner’s directly contradicting assertion: “We owe the debt to ourselves”.

(vi) MMTers are incompetent scientists. Their policy proposals have NO sound scientific foundations. MMT is soap box economics just like neoliberalism. BOTH approaches are materially and formally inconsistent and their proper place is the waste basket of proto-scientific rubbish.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 See cross-references MMT
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/07/mmt-cross-references.html

#2 Unemployment is high because economics is false: period, full stop, end of story
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/11/unemployment-is-high-because-economics.html

#3 Putting economic policy on scientific foundations
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/08/putting-economic-policy-on-scientific.html

#4 Just enter ‘employment equation’ or ‘Phillips curve’ in the search field of the AXEC blog
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/

#5 Keynesianism as ultimate profit machine
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/07/keynesianism-as-ultimate-profit-machine.html

#6 Profit and the decline of labor’s nominal share
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/08/profit-and-decline-of-labors-nominal.html

AXEC / E.K-H said...

MRW

You are asking: “Why do you keep insisting that MMT is supposed to be based on ‘sound scientific foundations.’ What the hell for, Egmont?”

Since Adam Smith/Karl Marx economics is explicitly defined as science. The general public is year after year reminded to this fact with the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”. And every economist learns in Econ 101: “Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” (Robbins)

Clearly, economics is since 200+ years a self-declared science. Now, science is well-defined since 2000+ years by material and formal consistency: “Research is in fact a continuous discussion of the consistency of theories: formal consistency insofar as the discussion relates to the logical cohesion of what is asserted in joint theories; material consistency insofar as the agreement of observations with theories is concerned.” (Klant)

Fact is: economics is a failed science because economists are scientifically incompetent. Fact is that since Adam Smith, economic policy guidance never had sound scientific foundations. Both, orthodox and heterodox economists sell proto-scientific rubbish in the bluff package of science.

You argue: “It’s been clear from Day One that it’s based on accounting and accounting rules, and the US congressional reality that our country creates its own currency, which since 1971 (internationally) has been a sovereign non-convertible currency with a floating exchange rate. That’s not a scientific fact, Egmont, that’s an accounting reality.”

Unfortunately, economists did not even get the elementary mathematics of accounting right in the past 200+ years.#1 What you call accounting reality is one of the worst scientific blunders of all times.

Because economists, including MMTers, continually violate scientific standards they have to be expelled from the sciences. Their proper role is that of clowns in the political circus.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

# For details see cross-references Accounting
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/12/accounting-cross-references.html

MRW said...

Davidson's Appendix is fascinating history.

MRW said...

E.K-H, here's a shorter explanation of the ergodic axiom Davidson decries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAbnuwsid4Q (7 min)

AXEC / E.K-H said...

MRW

Thank you for the links.

Of course, I agree with Paul Davidson and you that Samuelson’s ergodic axiom is proto-scientific rubbish like all of Samuelson’s.#1 The point is, though, that Keynes, Davidson, Post Keynesianism, and MMT, too, is proto-scientific rubbish. And this has NOTHING to do with ergodicity/nonergodicity, which, to begin with, does not at all apply to economics, but with the profit issue, which, indeed, is the foundational concept of all of economics. Fact is that Keynes, Samuelson, Davidson, Kelton, Mitchell, Wray, and all the rest of the MMT crowd got profit wrong.

The formal core of the General Theory is given with: “Income = value of output = consumption + investment. Saving = income - consumption. Therefore saving = investment.” (p. 63)

This two-liner is conceptually and logically defective because Keynes did not come to grips with profit: “His Collected Writings show that he wrestled to solve the Profit Puzzle up till the semi-final versions of his GT but in the end he gave up and discarded the draft chapter dealing with it.” (Tómasson et al.)

Because profit is ill-defined the whole theoretical superstructure of Keynesianism is false. Let this sink in: Keynes had NO idea of the fundamental concepts of economics, that is, of profit and income. Neither have After-Keynesians.

Keynes’s lethal blunder is in the premise Income = value of output. The same blunder reappears in the most used economics textbook: “GDP, or gross domestic product, can be measured in two different ways: (1) as the flow of final products, or (2) as the total costs or earnings of inputs producing output. Because profit is a residual, both approaches will yield exactly the same total GDP.” (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 1998, p. 392)

Some generations of dull economics students later, the same lethal blunder reappears in MMT: “We have seen that total spending equals total income.”#2

For the rectification of this 200+ years old proto-scientific embarrassment see ‘Macro for dummies’.#3

When Samuelson’s Walrasian microfoundations and Keynes’s false macrofoundations are flushed down the drain and replaced by the correct macrofoundations one gets the Profit Law, the Law of Supply and Demand, and other essential economic relationships.#4 These relationships are SYSTEMIC and because of this Davidson’s ridiculous ergodicity/nonergodicity pseudo-issue vaporizes with a minuscule puff just like Samuelson’s cargo cultic synthesis previously.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 For the detailed arguments just enter ‘Samuelson’ or ‘Davidson’ or ‘ergodicity’ in the search field (Ctrl F) of the AXEC blog
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/

#2 Peter Cooper ‘Short & Simple 16 – The Expenditure Multiplier and Income Determination’
http://heteconomist.com/short-simple-16-the-expenditure-multiplier-and-income-determination/

#3 http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/07/macro-for-dummies.html
For the full-spectrum refutation of MMT see cross-references
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/07/mmt-cross-references.html

#4 The Three Fatal Mistakes of Yesterday Economics: Profit, I=S, Employment
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2489792

Dean said...

It's interesting to see all these debates over the subject of the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities. What would be a great exploration and study is to determine if the slow (or fast) increase over the years of conversion of more resources into commodities is not a by-product of the axiom that business profits = householder dissavings - in other words, if it is not possible for every entity to be in surplus all at the same time, then underneath all the politics which is supposedly aimed at trying to rectify something that can't actually be rectified, then the only other avenue is to find more resources to treat as commodities?

Tom Hickey said...

@ ANC Driver

There can be a surplus along with solvency in a barter economy, but the barter economy is an idealization and there is no evidence that one ever existed. All modern economies are monetary production economies and according to the rules of accounting all sectors cannot be in surplus (deficit) simultaneously.

Therefore, the solvency (sustainability) issue can only be solved if one sector has no solvency constraint and that sector is a government that is a currency sovereign. This is a fundamental MMT point, and it also shows why market fundamentalism involves an internal contradiction that leads to boom-bust cycles.

The only way to address this internal contradiction of pure capitalism is by introducing some socialism into the system by allowing the government to offset the balance of the nongovernment sector.

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Tom Hickey

The Profit Law for the pure consumption economy in the most elementary form says Qm=-Sm or monetary profit for the economy as a whole is the mirror image of dissaving and has nothing to do with greed or monopoly power or innovation or productivity or risk. In other words, in the pure consumption economy profit depends in the most elementary case on the growth of the household sector’s debt.

Now, only if overall profit is greater than zero the business sector maintains or increases employment. This is the minimum condition. If overall profit turns into loss firms go bust and employment decreases. If the losses continue the economy eventually breaks down.

From the fact that profit is the mirror image of growing household sector’s debt follows logically that overall profit turns into overall loss as soon as the household sector starts to pay back the accumulated debt. The economy eventually breaks down because of immanent logical necessity (no crisis and no criminals and no banksters and no exploding real estate or stock market bubble and no revolution is needed) as soon as private and/or public households start to redeem their debt in the aggregate.#1

The Profit Law for the investment economy says Qm≡I-Sm or monetary profit for the economy as a whole is given by the difference between business sector’s investment I and household sector’s monetary saving/dissaving Sm. Let Sm for simplicity here be zero then profit depends directly on the GROWTH of the capital stock.#2

This worked fine since the Industrial Revolution but it cannot work in all eternity. The snag is this: if growth weakens or is stopped, overall profit turns into overall loss and the whole economy breaks down.

The challenge as it follows from the correct profit theory is this: how can the growth path be flattened without causing a full-scale economic breakdown?

Because Walrasians, Keynesians+MMTers, Marxians, and Austrians have NO idea until this day what profit is they do not even see that the actual life-and-death question of economics is how to engineer a soft landing on a reasonably high and sustainable plateau of production and employment.

You say: “The only way to address this internal contradiction of pure capitalism is by introducing some socialism into the system by allowing the government to offset the balance of the nongovernment sector.”

This is inaccurate and misleading. What a government sector deficit actually does is to increase overall profit because it holds Qm≡(I-Sm)+(G-T) or, if I is falling and Sm is rising then the government deficit offsets the negative effect on profit. To sell the MMT profit push program as socialism is indeed a milestone in new political marketing. Hitherto, it has not been the primary goal of socialism to secure the profits of the one-percenters, at least not officially.

The real issue ― to end unsustainable growth without breakdown of the economy ― cannot be solved by permanent government deficit spending. This is technically no problem, as MMT correctly points out, but it simply does not work. In order to see this, though, one has to consistently switch from profit- to employment theory.#3 Unfortunately, MMT employment theory, too, is false.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Mathematical Proof of the Breakdown of Capitalism
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2375578

#2 Squaring the Investment Cycle
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1911796

#3 Macrofounded labor market theory
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/07/macrofounded-labor-market-theory.html

Tom Hickey said...

You say: “The only way to address this internal contradiction of pure capitalism is by introducing some socialism into the system by allowing the government to offset the balance of the nongovernment sector.”

This is inaccurate and misleading. What a government sector deficit actually does is to increase overall profit because it holds Qm≡(I-Sm)+(G-T) or, if I is falling and Sm is rising then the government deficit offsets the negative effect on profit. To sell the MMT profit push program as socialism is indeed a milestone in new political marketing. Hitherto, it has not been the primary goal of socialism to secure the profits of the one-percenters, at least not officially.


Right. Kalecki-Levy profit equation. This is the price that MMT economists are willing to pay to fund full employment with a JG. along with progressive social welfare.

Many of us have pointed out that his implies acting higher profits and more economic asymmetry that translates into social and political asymmetry. To address this condition, economic rent and negative externality also have to be reduced or eliminated either before extraction or taxed away after extraction to discourage rent-seeking behavior.

Otherwise the system has to be reconfigured. The MMT economists apparently don't wish to go there.

Dean said...

"There can be a surplus along with solvency in a barter economy, but the barter economy is an idealization and there is no evidence that one ever existed."

A barter economy would have required a government anyway to protect and enforce property and means of production..so yes, there is no evidence one existed, nor is it logically plausible that one existed

The problem with all analysis is that no one is able to imagine in their minds another way to hold resources other than as commodities (which necessitates trade), or worse, if they can imagine it, it only comes in the form of something like communism.

Capitalism is a skill-set, a talent, an art, a calling in life - an ability to bargain and exploit and compete - it's a game, and only a smallish percentage of the population are good at it. Socialism forces everyone into this game whether they want to play it or not.

A properly functioning society would consist of all the 'ism's' where individuals and families would have the choice which one. I personally would pick feudalism where my landlord is the whole community. I do not want what capitalism, socialism, or communism has to offer - I don't want wealth or welfare nor dictatorship. I would serve my community better by not swapping my labours for money, but that's just me. I may not offer anything by way of GDP, but my choice not to compete and treat resources as commodities would serve the community be lessening the burdens I place on it. Others are better at competition and capitalism and these people via their competitiveness create and invent technologies.

Unfortunately, socialism stifles both the competitors and the non-competitors by forcing all of us to first fight over resources, and then forcing us to share the winnings. Socialism assumes we all want to own a nice little house and have savings and because of this assumption forces into the labour market, without allowing us to pursue what we are really here for.

I supposed I'd better get off my soapbox..lol

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Tom Hickey

I say that MMT got profit theory false (just like Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, and Pluralism) and that the correct Profit Law reads Qm≡I-Sm, and that, for this reason, MMT policy guidance has no sound scientific foundations.

So, MMT is political agenda pushing masquerading as science (just like Neoliberalism, Marxianism, Austrianism, and all the rest). Note, I do NOT discuss MMT policy proposals, I prove that they lack an underlying true theory (just like all the alternatives).

You say: “Right. Kalecki-Levy profit equation. This is the price that MMT economists are willing to pay to fund full employment with a JG. along with progressive social welfare.”

This makes the impression that MMT knows all this profit stuff already, has discussed it at great depth and length and has factored it in.

This is NOT the case. As I have proven, Kalecki’s and Levy’s profit equations are false.#1, #2, #3

The whole Keynesian, and Post Keynesian, and MMT crowd got it wrong. Only one economist got the elementary mathematics of national accounting right: Allais.#4

There is NO greater embarrassment in the history of modern science than economics, and MMT is part of it.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 What is Wrong with Heterodox Economics? Kalecki’s Profit Theory as an Example
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1845803
and cross-references
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/02/kalecki-cross-references.html

#2 Heterodoxy, too, is scientific junk
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/09/heterodoxy-too-is-scientific-junk_85.html

#3 Rethinking deficit spending
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/12/rethinking-deficit-spending.html

#4 How Keynes got macro wrong and Allais got it right
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/09/how-keynes-got-macro-wrong-and-allais.html