we define unemployment as people who are ready and willing to work for wages unemployed people are not unemployed in the sense that they're doing nothing often they're doing lots and they're working a lot too trying to survive they're unemployed because they're not working for wages and previous kinds of human societies did not experience unemployment.
it's monetary systems that have unemployment our monetary system from inception was created by the authorities and the purpose of that was to move resources to the authorities for their use to fulfill the public purpose.
it's crazy to use your monetary system to create unemployed resources that you then don't put to work most of your listeners if they're not economists will say well boy that makes sense to me right.
but if we've studied economics it won't because economics teaches every student that unemployment is desired unemployment is not a policy mistake.
it's a policy tool it's the tool we use to fight inflation so that what normal people would see is a problem economists see as a solution it's pretty crazy but this is what economics teaches.
#110 L. Randall Wray: Are We Living In An MMT World?
Aug 11, 2021
In anticipation of his upcoming keynote speech at the 2nd International European MMT conference, Patricia & Christian talk to primary MMT academic Professor L. Randall Wray about MMT in the current context, and apply its insights to Europe.
we define unemployment as people who are ready and willing to work for wages unemployed people are not unemployed in the sense that they're doing nothing often they're doing lots and they're working a lot too trying to survive they're unemployed because they're not working for wages and previous kinds of human societies did not experience unemployment it's monetary systems that have unemployment our monetary system from inception was created by the authorities and the purpose of that was to move resources to the authorities for their use to fulfill the public purpose it's crazy to use your monetary system to create unemployed resources that you then don't put to work most of your listeners if they're not economists will say well boy that makes sense to me right but if we've studied economics it won't because economics teaches every student that unemployment is desired unemployment is not a policy mistake it's a policy tool it's the tool we use to fight inflation so that what normal people would see is a problem economists see as a solution it's pretty crazy but this is what economics teaches this is the mmt podcast with patricia pino and christian riley hi i'm christian reilly and welcome to the modern monetary theory podcast you can find us on twitter at mmtpodcast and you could support the show by going to patreon.com mmt podcast if this is your first time hearing about mmt you might want to listen to our first three episodes for an introduction which i've linked to in the show notes along with some other things that relate to this particular episode and as ever i've linked to where you can support this podcast financially via patreon.com mmt podcast support starts at a dollar a month or a pound a month or whatever the equivalent is wherever you live and no matter what level of support you give you get early access to all of our episodes and patron only episodes where you can ask me and patricia mmt questions we're 100 listener funded your financial support really helps keep the show going and your support in other ways whether it's by recommending us to other people or just by listening and spreading the word about this stuff really helps too a big thank you to all of our supporters so far and thanks as ever for the time you put into understanding mmt let's dive in welcome one and all to the mmt podcast i'm christian riley and i'm patricia pino and we're honored to be joined today by primary mmt academic and author of understanding modern money professor l randall ray hi randy hi randy we wanted to preemptively congratulate you on being presented with the 2022 veblen commons award in recognition of outstanding scholarly contributions to the field of evolutionary institutional economics so congratulations yeah thanks but starting with the here and now um bloomberg recently published a piece entitled are we living in an mmt world not yet which you and other core mmc scholars contributed to and the piece is quite fair to mmt i think they missed something key to mmt that could lead to confusion the piece contains this passage quote mmt's take on taxes boils down to the notion that governments don't need to raise revenue to pay for their spending though mmt allows that tax may be useful for other purposes such as cooling down demand redistributing income or discouraging and undesirable behaviors now i would just say they've skipped over the primary purpose of taxes according to mmt which is the charter's view of money and the whole sequence in which spending and taxi occurs for currency issuing governments could you fill in that blank yeah well you know i think everyone takes for granted that we live in these monetized economies and you know they don't really think that deeply about how did we get here why is it that we take in america these uh [Music] green pieces of paper and are willing to work hard to get those and the store is happy to accept them in payment so most people don't you know wonder why that is and um so what mmt is emphasized is that from inception um there has to be a reason why you would do it it's not simply many people say oh well it's trust i trust i can pass this off to somebody else but you know that's a logical uh regress uh you know and yeah it never ends um and what and if it's only based on trust wow what would happen if people stopped trusting the whole system would collapse and we say that you know that's nonsense the the thing that underlies our monetary system has to be something much more significant than a delusional trust that paper has a value and so we argue that from the the very beginning when authorities and it always was authorities choose a money of account they impose obligations denominated in that money of account that are payable in their own liabilities uh man we call those things um uh money currency um and so you know we don't suffer from this infinite regress problem of how did the whole thing get started because we know both logically and historically that when a new nation is formed one of the very first things they do is choose a money of account they impose obligations in that money of account and they issue their own obligations in that money of account and that is really what drives the currency from inception but let me just say in their defense we are so happy that bloomberg and others are now focusing on the important issues which are that too much spending can cause inflation that taxes can be used to reduce spending to release resources that could be used in the public interest that we can use taxes to reduce inequality so we're really glad that people are focusing on that rather than on taxes pay for stuff yeah it's much better it's it's definitely a step in the right direction the other thing that gets missed if you don't have that charterless framework is the sequence the tax liabilities come first allowing the government to spend money into existence and have that money be worth something the bloomberg article the bit they used from you was you talk about how the government's pandemic response would have played out if we were in an mmt world could you talk about that yeah um so let me credit warren mosler you know who always said that taxes create unemployment and that is their purpose so that's what taxes do not just of labor but what taxes do is they release resources that you can then mobilize and that's what government uses taxes for and that's especially important when you're undertaking a big new initiative the green new deal would be an example a pandemic response would be another example you may need to release resources in order to tackle the problems that you face and taxes are a way to do that um so if um we completely understood this uh we would realize that um you know the the issue of the we already spent about five trillion and the pay for uh arguments really were on the back burner for that but now we're trying to spend another four trillion um and uh suddenly everyone's worried about the pay for again if they really understood mmt from the very beginning they would know that's the wrong question what's important is whether we can mobilize the resources that we need to do the kinds of things that biden is proposing i think that that's what a real understanding of mmt would do as bloomberg and and other people have um pointed out in the first rounds mmt was referenced but it was referenced as uh this new way of spending that is similar to milton friedman's helicopter money drops we can drop money into the economy although normally we would not want to do that the pandemic is so severe uh we're gonna go ahead and do it as an emergency measure now that the emergency is sort of past us uh fingers crossed i don't think it is but the thinking is that it's somewhat behind us uh you know now we have to be more prudent we can't do silly things like helicopter money again now we got to pay for the spending janet yellen the treasury secretary said something exactly like that now we have to worry about opening the fiscal space by raising taxes that'll give us more fiscal space to do the kinds of things biden wants so i think that this is a problem going forward you were talking about how people sort of don't think about what um where money you know they assume money sort of you know they take it for granted that it always existed.
and they don't really think about when that might have happened and um and i know that you have a talk or two related to the origins of money and how that is very heavily connected to the origins of debt itself can you say a little bit about that so people have learned this story and my my older daughter when she was six years old came home and told me the story about rob's crusoe on friday and how they were bartering until one of them got the brilliant idea of you of using uh seashells as medium of exchange and that is where our money comes from so everyone learns this story i guess now in first grade and the majority of economists uh accept this story not that it is literally true but they accept the story as the way they frame their thinking about money and the monetary system and the role of the government in the monetary system and i i think that it's a dangerous view it's a wrong historically it's a wrong view as david graber the late great david graber argued in his um monumental book dead the first 5 000 years uh there is no evidence uh for barter-based economies outside of pretty trivial prisoner of war camps and so on uh no society's ever organized their economies that way um so it's historically wrong but it also gives us a wrong view of what this system that we call capitalism that we live in is all about it it focuses on these individual exchanges as if and we call it you know an exchange economy we call it a market economy and all of these things and i say it's dangerous because this is not what capitalism is all about it's uh it's not an economic system in which you know friday and and crusoe meet as equals and they're each trying to maximize their own individual utility uh through trade and that that the market is this wonderful invention that gives us all the freedom to engage in mutually beneficial trade but that's not what capitalism is all about and so we we don't understand the system and then we also from this story we developed this view that the government is sort of an illegitimate interloper into this nicely functioning system right the government interve we use this terminology in economics all the time government intervenes the government intervenes into the economy maybe to do good things but it's an intervention and so we start to see the government in this kind of a light and the government is you know spending our money the government is taxing us taking our money away from us and then doing some things we like but lots of things we don't like and all of this is just wrong it's fundamentally wrong historically and uh as an understanding of the way our economy works so our argument is from inception the monetary system did come from the authorities now those were not democratic uh elected governments in the old days today that's what we strive for to have democracies in which um uh you know we choose our government and our government is supposed to serve us um that's the ideal that's what we we aim to do but we can't even conceive of a monetary system without a government we can't even conceive of a capitalist economy without the government playing a huge role in the economy both in in providing our the basis of our monetary system but also in um uh creating what we call markets which are complex institutions uh creating these things and regulating them in our interest so i think that that barter story shapes the way that you view the economy and the proper role of the government and the alternative gives you a very different view that i think is much more uh accurate but also more useful i asked because uh we had a we had a question last week about uh the the kind of viability of a society without money and we were discussing this and um do you think that the the the money creation or the advent of money came together with the you know as a societies became larger or were they completely an arbitrary imposition on existing societies that otherwise work very differently i think that money came along with the rise of class societies and i with uh john henry uh also the late great uh john henry who also recently died um uh stephanie uh bell stephanie kelton and i and alla semanova all wrote with john henry uh on this connection between the rise of class society and um the uh development of uh money and then gradually the development of a monetary system where the the monetary part of the economy absolutely dominates uh and you know that's what we call capitalism capitalism is very unusual for human for human societies it's a very unusual kind of society where the the majority of the production process is all tied up with money so this is why marx keynes and veblen the three founders of the three main heterodox schools of thought all came to the same conclusion what we live in they called a monetary production economy where most of the productive process is tied up with money as mark said you start with money in order to make more money so it's a profit seeking enterprise now can we imagine a society without money very easily because 99 of the time the humans were on earth that's what they lived in societies with no money so we generally call this tribal society uh there there's varieties of tribal societies they're they're not all identical uh but they did not have money and that is the kind of society humans lived in and the difference just to to make the distinction in those societies the production is to satisfy the needs and wants directly it's not to make money so that's the big difference between uh our kind of society that is thoroughly monetized and it's a tribal society that has no money so telling the mmt money story as warren uh calls it and i like it very much um it's telling it in a in a functional way the the government issues tax liabilities uh which creates sellers of goods and services it basically makes the whole population unemployed in the first instance which is some kind of hard for people to get their head around until you dig a little bit deeper with them that that's what we mean when we say the tax created the unemployment so everybody's unemployed in the first instance and then the government can then spend that money into existence to hire people and buy things to provision the public purpose hopefully a public purpose has been decided along democratic lines but then there's this um gap where the government has hired everybody it needs to hire but there's still not enough spending power left behind in the economy even though it's running a deficit to give everybody that wants a job a job and and that's where the job guarantee comes in that's a big difference between living in an mmt world and not living in an mmt world i'd say you know with the with the job guarantee in place like you said in the bloomberg article makes a lot more sense than paying airlines three hundred thousand dollars per job could you say a little bit more about that yeah so you know we we uh define unemployment as people who are ready and willing to work for wages right that is to earn money uh wages that is what unemployment means the unemployed people are not unemployed in the sense that they're doing nothing right uh often they're doing lots and they're working a lot too trying to survive um you know some people might be collecting uh you know the the bottles that are left by the side of the road working as hard as anybody but they're unemployed because they're not working for wages and previous kinds of human societies did not experience unemployment uh it is calculated that uh native americans might have might have you know worked in the sense of producing uh the things they needed 10 to 20 hours a week and the rest of the the time was uh relaxing and socializing um but nobody was unemployed okay every everybody performed uh their socially determined functions uh it's just it's monetary systems that have unemployment the way that we define it you can't imagine unemployment without having a monetary system and as warren says uh our monetary system from inception was created by the authorities and the purpose of that was to move resources to the authorities for their use not again as we both said we live in democratic societies so these should be to fulfill the public purpose in the old days that wasn't true it was to fulfill the the wants and desires of those who were the authorities but it's crazy to use your monetary system to create unemployed resources that you then don't put to work because there's uh no sense in releasing resources if you're not going to use them so we see unemployment as always a policy failure it must be by definition a policy failure because there's no reason to remove those resources from other uses if the authorities are not going to use them i think most of your listeners if they're not economists will say well boy that makes sense to me right but if we've studied economics it won't because economics teaches every student that unemployment is desired unemployment is not a policy mistake it's a policy tool it's the tool we use to fight inflation okay so this is what economists have managed to do they managed to twist the thinking around so that what normal people would see as a problem economists see as a solution the unemployment is desired because it keeps prices in check it's pretty crazy.
i mean it's almost psychopathic but this is what economics teaches because we wanted to set the scene for the european mmt conference at which you're a keynote speaker in september i thought we could talk about mmt as it relates to the euro now you've argued since before the birth of the euro that the design of the european monetary union is fatally flawed could you lay out that criticism for us um yes so way back in the very beginning um i mean several things that sort of came together and uh several individuals who were very important in um helping uh to flesh all this out charles goodheart uh who's british wrote a piece arguing that the european experiment was unprecedented because it was going to de-link the currency from the nation and he said as far when you look around the world today and as far as you go back in time this has only been rarely done and it was always done by very very small political units maybe principality in italy or something like that that would use the italian currency rather than have their own what almost always happens is when a new nation is started it creates its own currency of course that's exactly what america did when we split off we dropped the british pound and we didn't even want to call our currency the pound we wanted to show how independent we were so we called it the dollar and this is always the case uh almost without exception new nations always have their own currency and he said it can't be a coincidence i think the first draft of the paper was 1996. so you know yes that would that set us thinking and then when godly who as early as 1992 had reached the same conclusion he said that if you give up your currency you reduce your status to one of a colony so if you give up your currency and adopt someone else's you become a colony the third piece was that um stephanie who was a grad student at the time said um you know we're thinking so the member states of the eurozone are going to be something like u.s states because you're all going to adopt the euro just like every state in the united states adopted the dollar i wonder what the debt ratios of u.s states are like relative to their own gdp so we looked and the highest one was a debt ratio of 17 percent and of course in europe you had italy with a debt ratio of 100 and the mastery criteria allowed 60. we said hold it that's three times higher than the most indebted u.s state this has got to lead to a disaster the credit rating agencies will not allow u.s states to budget deficits that is to project that they will end up with a deficit at the end of the year and they won't allow their debt ratios to go higher than 17 percent how will credit ratings agencies allow in italy to exist they're going to downgrade them there's going to be a run against italian debt uh they're gonna run to the safest country which of course uh became germany now that that wasn't absolutely clear at that time because germany was always called the sick man of europe uh in the very beginning germany uh was not one of the countries you would have thought would be the high rated but eventually that's what happened of course so anyway i mean you put those three pieces together and your predictions for the euro would be that uh this is going to lead to a crisis and it did lead to a crisis and i i guess the fourth piece is warren very early said that um the crisis will start as a financial crisis and because the individual nations are responsible for their own banks they will have to bail them out and that will create a sovereign debt crisis so it will start as a private financial system crisis that will become a sovereign debt crisis as governments try to bail out their own banks and spend a lot of money trying to bail them out which of course is exactly what happened ireland was the best example a country that had no government debt to speak of and they had to they tried to bail out the banking system and it morphed into a sovereign debt crisis so i though i think all four of those things uh came true and uh that really was the problem of the um the euro design it's a design flaw now they you could have easily i don't mean politically i mean uh economically you you could have easily designed the system so it would not uh have failed so it would have been robust and all you had to do is look at the united states as an example because we have a monetary union with the dollar and every individual state adopts a dollar but we have um a u.s treasury that spends about uh 25 percent or so of gdp and it spends it in in a way that redistributes uh demand on a somewhat progressive basis in other words spends more in the poorest states um whereas the european union had a a budget of about one percent of gdp and it wasn't net spending because it was contributed by members so you know it's 25 times too small so you just do the math and you know that this can't possibly work even in the u.s the states have become bankrupt and faced with resistance from the fed was that the case of detroit yes yes so detroit you say well they were pretty poor place so it's i like to use orange county because it's one of the richest areas in the united states and it did default it did go down so yes state and local governments can go down and then the the federal government could of course bail them out and you could also use your central bank so people have discussed doing this too the the point is that the um the sovereign center the central government can prevent it now hours chooses usually not to do that it allows orange county to fail and that's not i wouldn't say that you know there's not a good justification for that so they see this as a way to discipline so they will allow failure but we still have a social safety net that will help protect uh the the people who lose so when orange county fails what happens is uh teachers and firefighters and the police uh lose jobs uh and that then affects you know demand more generally and unemployment goes up and all that so if you have a good social safety net you can protect uh the people who lose their jobs and so on um and you can provide more funding try to keep the schools open and all of that policy can can definitely do that to protect um from the worst possible fallout now whether or not you should allow a county default on is dead you know is worth discussing so as you mentioned there that you can have a a national federal social safety net and that kind of circles back to the mmt job guarantee so you know when we want to simplify that hopefully not over simplify mmt for policy activists here in say the uk we'll say mmt is a lens that allows you to see how the money system works and we can get into that but long story short there's only one policy prescription in mmt which is the job guarantee which we've talked about or the transition job as warren likes to call it or employer of last resort and then we could work back from there to tell you why we think that's important and necessary and just better than the way we deal with inflation right now but right now we use unemployed buffer stocks by inflation we think using an employed buffer stock is better on a point of logic but crucially we could boil it down to this idea that if we implement the job guarantee we know that the government the issue of the currency will be injecting spending power into the economy precisely where it's needed to sustain truthful employment and then the lens part of mmt shows us how the government can always afford the job guarantee in terms of currency but a policy activist in a eurozone country can't say that about their own government um you know how should activists and and people concerned with with policy in eurozone countries apply mmt to their thinking about policy space and a way forward well i i think they they definitely should demand a job guarantee it has to be funded from the center though yeah it would go a long way toward resolving many of the problems in the euro area probably it should be a single wage just like we advocate for the united states it should be generous it should provide benefits a benefit package and it should establish good working conditions you know the number of hours per day the vacations uh break time all that stuff if you provide all of that in your job guarantee program that becomes the minimum standard all over europe and um people can vote with their feet so private employers have to match the whatever those minimum standards are so that helps to equalize up so the the uh poorer nations where wages are lower where working conditions are worse will be brought up to the higher standards that the program sets so you're trying to integrate europe.
and you're trying to raise the living standards in the poorest nations the job guarantee helps to do that by paying the higher wages you're also increasing the demand in the lower income nations so you're you're bringing up demand in those areas too we make all these arguments for the united states you know the same thing would happen in appalachia in america some people say oh well we should keep the wage lower in appalachia i say no that that doesn't make sense let's raise the wages let's increase demand in those areas raise the living standards all over the united states you know we're all american and in europe they're all european they all ought to enjoy the same good things and this is a way to do that so i think the job guarantee actually helps the integration uh it helps reduce uh inequality across nations and it helps to increase demand uh in the um uh the parts of europe that are being left behind so for all those reasons the job guarantee is a way to do it though but individual nations as you're saying cannot do this it has to be funded from the center if i heard right um you said that you would apply a single level of wage throughout europe so that would effectively homogenize the economy of europe and level things up yeah that makes sense because i was wondering you know how you know how what wage level you might set in germany compared to wage level in italy in greece but this with the cost of living is lower and you know what arguments that might lead to but actually if you just said one single wage that simplifies everything that's the way i would do it not all supporters of the job guarantee agree with this i know that in the united states we have advocates for having several different wage levels uh i'm not dismissing the arguments that they're making you know so they say well hold a second we're pushing for um we were pushing for 15 an hour in the united states plus benefits in the u.s you know we don't have health care so the benefits would be a very significant boost to the living standard for americans in europe if you already had good healthcare benefits then maybe the the the boost to the benefit wouldn't be that great and and maybe you would want a wage above 15 an hour i'm not saying that that would be the right number for europe but one of the goals is you know to create a well-functioning labor market and to stabilize the value of the currency uh you know the these were always part of the buffer stock argument of using the job guarantee program and the way you do that is you is by setting the base wage that base wage establishes the value of the dollar or the value of the euro uh that is our argument but some people say but hold it you've got college graduates who can't find a job and if they only receive 15 an hour they couldn't even pay their student loan debt which could well be true in the united states but you know our answer is that first uh we're trying to catch people that that are you know falling down we're setting a floor okay and um 15 an hour is a huge improvement over our floor now which is zero and we're not trying to retain people in this program they're available to be hired out and so who's going to be the first hired out well likely those college graduates they're going to be hired away when the economy improves third college graduates should not be in this program okay so if we're operating our economy with so much slack that college graduates can't get jobs the answer is you know to speed the economy up it's not to raise the wage in the job guarantee program is to operate the economy at a a higher growth rate so that jobs are being created for college graduates um and then third of course people should not have to go into debt to go to college yeah that was my number one actually what we need to do is you know eliminate all the student debt we need student debt relief and then to find a different way to finance college education people should not be going into debt to do something that is in the public interest which is get an education you know we we already won that battle for uh grades up to grade 12 in the united states was basically 18 years old oh and we won that a very long time ago so you can you can get free schooling to age 18. i don't remember when that finally became the standard for the u.s but all of my lifetime that's been the standard um and then we've never raised it which made no sense whatsoever we want people to go to college let me just give you an example so we have a huge problem with the the medical delivery system we don't have nearly enough doctors especially general practitioners and the pandemic has made this much worse because a lot of doctors have re retired because of the pandemic they were overworked and didn't like the way things were going and so on so we have an acute shortage of medical delivery people and one of the reasons why we have shortages so other than the retirement is it's too expensive people can't get a medical education because it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that they then have to try to work off the next 20 or 30 years when they practice medicine and the obvious solution is free medical education right that's the public interest so the answer is uh you know college education needs to be free it's funny because i i often hear mainstream economies speak about a problem of over-education in the economy and you see you seem to be saying there's no such problem is is the opposite we're not utilizing the people who are educated we have a lot of miseducation so i'm not trying to minimize that problem um you know we have severe shortages in some areas severe shortages and those are typically filled by immigrants foreigners who come to the united states get college education and go into those fields we need to start at a much younger age you know age three years old trying to prepare students for the kinds of jobs that we are creating so there there is a bit of a mismatch and we probably have far too many students uh going into business school and not being well prepared for the kinds of jobs that we that we are creating so there is a bit of that but the notion you're gonna have people are too too educated just uh it doesn't make any sense to me going into some of the more technical aspects of mmt uh for anybody new to this mmt is a branch of post-keynesian thought which is a development of what keynes actually thought and randy you've made the observation elsewhere that keynes talks about money in different ways at different points in his writing he writes about it differently in the treaties on money as compared to the general theory could you talk about those differences?
Wray:
in the general theory there are three uh chapters that are the most important ones that deal with uh money uh chapters 13 and 15 and then chapter 17. and uh so this is a bit wonky our audience will love that only students who have had you know intermediate level macro at the undergrad level will be familiar with what's called the islm model so this was the way that keynesian economics was taught almost everywhere in the post-war period the model was actually developed by hicks who was a contemporary of um keynes and sort of an opponent and that modeled more or less faithfully reproduces the view of money that keynes had in chapters 13 and 15. and so to just be extremely brief it is sort of a fixed money supply and a downward sloping money demand curve and that's what you use to drive the lm curve behind that is sort of the assumption that the government controls the money supply then you have a money supply money demand determines the interest rate so there's a fixed money supply there's a single interest rate and there's a demand for money that is a function of income and interest rates it's a very very simple model and that has always been taught as being the the keynes model chapter 17 is completely different chapter 17 is a liquidity preference theory of asset pricing so that's even more wonky than the other one and chapter 17 is a very difficult chapter almost nobody reads it uh the the few mainstream economists who've tried to read it like paul krugman said i can't make any sense of it they don't know what it what it's all about it's a generalization of the theory of interest rate remember that his his book is called the general theory so it is the theory of interest rates of the general theory okay so it really is the chapter that we need to focus on if we want to know what keynes was thinking about money in and interest rates but unfortunately it's almost virtually ignored except by the people who are often called the fundamentalist keynesians and fundamentalists sounds bad.
uh but [Music] it it wasn't wasn't meant that way these are um people like paul davidson uh hyman minsky and uh jan kriegel you know all of these were developers of the post-keynesian approach so post-keynesians are more familiar with this in general and uh realized that you know this was a an important part of the general theory the important point is the money supply is not taken to be fixed okay it's in our the terminology we use endogenous and the the second point is there's no such thing as the interest rate kane said there is an implicit interest rate on anything you can hold through time he said there's a wheat weight rate of interest there's a steel rate of interest okay and there is a money rate of interest anything you could hold through time as an asset has an interest rate tied up with it so it's a generalization of the theory of interest rates and it's interesting that keynes developed this view based on earlier work uh he and srafa had done first when they were speculating in commodities keynes famously uh had bet on i think it was wheat futures and uh ended up having to take and store wheat at the university of cambridge they made fortunes in commodities.
and then they made fortunes in exchange rate futures so they used this theory to speculate in commodities and exchange rates and i think another famous one was when cain said he had broken the portuguese currency so he okay someone has calculated that keynes at one time was as rich as warren buffett he was very successful he also lost a lot of money too you know he made money and he lost money but he left cambridge uh king's college a very big endowment managing their funds in the general theory there's a footnote where he says uh the the monetary details are going to fall into the background he was trying to simplify the exposition except in that chapter 17. and uh the reason why he could do that is because he had already dealt with all the monetary details in the treaties on money which is a two-volume book it was you know sort of his life's work in 1930 he published it in 1930 and uh as it went to the press he wrote to his friends he said i'm already dissatisfied with it okay you spent all this time two volumes goes to the press he says i'm starting to write a new book and that became the general theory because he had made a huge mistake in the treaties on money which is that he had no theory of the determination of output and employment as a whole he took those as given which is what all the mainstream economists what we now call the neoclassical school had done he did what everyone else did he just assumed the economy would be at full employment you'd be producing as much as you could using all of your resources so the treaties assumes full employment he realized that was a mistake okay so the new book was going to explain the determination of employment and output as a whole that's what the general theory is it's a theory that explains what determines output and it need not be full employment so that was the revolution of his thought that's what the general theory is all about he was resolving that error from the treaties on money but he didn't mean to change any of his monetary theory his theory of money and interest rates okay and he had laid out you know how money works how banks work he had written a bit about the origins of money the history of money uh based on um work he had done in the uh in the teens between 1914 and 1919.
he uh he knew knapp's work keynes was a chartalist in the treaties on money so he wasn't trying to change any of that what he was trying to do was to explain the the determination of output and employment as a whole and he was continually urged by the young economists who were working with him called the the circus the cambridge circus continually urged to make it simpler okay they said no one's gonna understand what we're talking about make it simpler make it simpler use supply and demand because economists understand supply and demand and uh and there are three three different areas in the general theory where he does that he simplifies he reduces this to supply and demand and all three of those lead to huge problems such as uh reducing his money theory to an lm curve okay so all all three cases where he did what his students told him to do simplify it make it supply and demand lead to uh conceptual errors and lead to controversy because he gets attacked by people like srafa who know uh you know what the problems are of reducing things to supply and demand.
um to your knowledge to what extent was kinds aware of marx's works and influenced his work at all or was he nothing to do with him?
Wray:
well obviously you know there were political biases. yeah okay you know
okay kane said when the revolution comes you know i'll be on the side of the bourgeoisie okay so there are huge political differences people have um explored this and students who took notes in keynes's classes those notes have then been incorporated into uh into books you know what keynes was actually teaching in the classes there's there's not much doubt that uh keynes understood but strongly disliked uh marks and that the framework at least for the original drafts of the general theory were all in a in the same frame as uh marx's that is i and i already said this the monetary theory of production you start with money to produce things to sell for more money that was the frame and uh the the early drafts of the the general theory are much more clear on this that that is the way he set out to do it monetary theory production that pretty much all got deleted uh you can see the early drafts in his collected works uh so you can see the similarities but uh the final product uh you don't see much except there are the statements you know the the entrepreneur has no other interest than to end up with more money okay to make profit so that that still exists but it's not so obvious.
but other people have uh you know done the comparisons uh there's a nice uh article that i use often in classes that.
you can map the general theory exposition to marx's department's exposition essentially one-to-one.
okay so the the the end result the theory of effective demand has an almost exact counterpart in marx.
is it a bit ironic that at the moment the when we talk about you know um economists of a certain political ban we always refer to the kensingtons as the leftists when obviously that was not kaisen's intention?
Wray: well keynes in many ways was progressive and uh the policy recommendations at the end of the general theory chapter 24 policy recommendations.
i think anyone who reads those would see those as very progressive so he wants to greatly reduce inequality he doesn't want an equal distribution he says there is some justification for inequality people who work harder and who take risks should get a higher return but he says the the amount of inequality we actually have the the capitalism produces on its own so it wasn't a coincidence he saw this as a tendency the amount of inequality that it produces is actually detrimental for everybody even for the capitalists uh because uh it keeps demand so low that you have to be inordinately lucky to make it if if inequality is really high so he he wanted less inequality he wanted full employment and he wanted to euthanize the rontier class now euthanasia is a pretty radical policy prescription for people who live on interest income now of course he didn't mean kill him but he is purposely using a radical term euthanized them he wanted to euthanize them through what we would now call zero interest rate policies zerp keynes wants zerp permanently so monetary policy always should aim for a zero overnight interest rate that was keynes's policy he used another um a radical term he wanted to socialize investment okay well socialism again another radical term it's not completely clear what he meant by socializing investment in the general theory it's vague if you read through other things he wrote like especially um the uh little pamphlet the end of laissez-faire it seems more like government and uh corporate control over the investment decision probably something more like galbraith senior.
the new industrial states sort of arguments with government planning and government support you you have the the kind of early post-war planned economy with high aggregate demand and high investment that seems to be probably what he wanted the last time we spoke you told us that warren mosler's observation that bond sales are a reserve drain was the thing that you'd never heard until he'd said it that way and that that started this line of inquiry for you that grew into what we now call mmt so and the idea behind that statement if i'm right is that whether the central bank or the treasury sells government bonds it's draining reserves system-wide and when reserves have been drained to a certain point there's a system-wide shortage and it causes banks to need to lend reserves to each other that creates an interest rate on bank reserves so the big insight is that government bond sales are a monetary policy operation no matter which branch of government does it so does that sound about right so far yes so i was a deficit dub for sure i didn't worry about government debt i figured that the demand for government bonds was virtually without limit but when warren said that you know suddenly you realize that you shouldn't think of debt as borrowing at all okay so i i wasn't worried we would you know run out of the ability to borrow by issuing bonds but when he said that it's just a reserve drain and then i thought back to my money and banking class stephanie and i both had this professor john randlett so we had gone through all this and i knew the the what we call t accounts the accounting for it so i knew he was right and that just instantly changes your view of what the bonds are doing then all they're doing is draining reserves it's not a borrowing operation the reserves have to be put into the banks first and if that's true you're not borrowing okay because the reserves are not a borrowing operation it is the central bank that is either buying up assets from banks or lending to banks that leads to the creation of the reserves there's no borrowing operation there at all and so once you realize that then you know you're taking the blinders off and you see governments don't borrow i i had always thought the government could you know print money and pay for things and i wasn't worried about that either but the the i did think that they were borrowing and he made it very clear that's not true so then then you just see the bonds in a completely different light and then of course you can instead just pay interest on reserves so putting aside the effect of quantitative easing for a moment um i've been working with the idea that central banks outside of a policy like quantitative easing hit their interest rate target by adding or draining reserves through open market operations but i've also heard you talk about a thing called the announcement effect and if i've understood that correctly the idea there is that the federal open market committee's own announcements of their target interest rate in and of themselves serve to achieve that rate nobody wants to fight the fed i believe the saying goes and and so if i've got that right presumably bond sales still do drain reserves but if the government aren't buying and selling bonds to affect interest rates and they're not doing it to raise revenues as we've established where does that leave us well see some of this is because of these peculiar operating procedures we had in the united states up until 1994. in the united states the fed did not announce its target interest rate so we didn't know what it was the fed would meet behind closed doors at the end of the meeting they would allow one reporter to to phone them the reporters are next door in another room but they're not allowed in the meeting they got one phone call and uh the fed would read a little statement that would say in view of the conditions blah blah blah blah of the economy we've decided to slightly increase pressure and that was it okay and so then the markets had to try to figure out oh okay what is the new overnight interest rate target increased pressure that sounds like they're going to raise it what is it we don't know and so it would take a little while for the market to figure out what it was and the the fed might have to push the market a little bit you know maybe the market i thought it was going to go higher than what the fed wanted so they're going to put some reserves in or it didn't go high enough the fed takes some reserves out so the fed did engage in open market operations to nudge the rate to the secret rate they wouldn't tell the market what they were aiming for that all changed in 1994 and that's a very interesting story why it changed uh but anyway so after that fed okay we're going to be transparent now we're going to tell you what the the target is and once you do that it's going to go there immediately because you know the fed is going to put it there so no one is going to lend below that and no one's going to pay more than that so the market rate is going to move to it immediately so they don't have to do anything anymore so it was this strange thing that the fed wouldn't tell them what the target was that that that then forced the fed to actually do things now it doesn't have to do anything at all but it still does open market operations sure uh it will do those um in coordination with the um the treasury because the treasury impacts uh bank reserves either tax receipts or treasury spending will impact bank reserves and the fed has to accommodate those i think warren calls it offsetting operating factors right yep okay got it you've mentioned elsewhere that you think the canadian central bank has probably the most efficient approach to targeting their interest rate could you talk about that yeah so they um banks are um encouraged to try to end each day with zero probably everything has changed with qe i know nothing about canadian qe okay so uh all the countries that adopted qe have put massive excess reserves into their banking system okay uh so now you're you never have to worry about banks being short reserves because they've got trillions of extra so the fed never has to put reserves in in advance of some big you know april 15 as tax day in the united states you don't have to put reserves into the banks in advance of that because they have so many extra there won't be any impact so anyway the canadian system was aim for zero if you end up short that's perfectly fine because the central bank allows an overdraft and charges you interest if you end up with a positive amount that's perfectly fine the central bank pays interest on reserves canada was already doing that i'm pretty sure when i was writing understanding modern money so that's like 19 1997 canada had already moved to that system by contrast in the united states the fed paid zero interest on reserves so you couldn't um leave extra reserves in the system because the interest rate would drop to zero in other words unless your target was zero which it never was back then you would be pushing the market rate way below your target all the way to zero in canada it couldn't fall to zero because it would only fall to whatever the central bank paid we we also changed so after the global financial crisis the fed got permission from congress to pay interest on reserves so we've moved to or toward a canadian system but we've had qe ever since so our banks have massive excess reserves since the global financial crisis and um you know there's lots of discussion about how do you get out of that will we ever get out of it will we ever go back to normal where banks only hold the reserves that they're required to have and your answer to that question is is it even important we want a permanent zero interest rate policy just like keynes did right i would prefer that we took interest rate setting out of the hands of the central bank and um and said it by congress and yes uh zero or very very low and don't use that as a policy tool no that would be my preference and in that case you could be paying zero or very very low then the next question is do you want to still issue government bonds the interest rate on the shortest term bonds is going to be very close to whatever that interest rate target is so 30-day bonds are going to be very similar and then you start to wonder doesn't make any sense to issue bonds if all the bonds are is an alternative to reserves why not just get rid of the bonds and that's what you know bill mitchell and warren moser have been advocating let's just stop issuing the bonds all together and do you think that uh on that bond issuance um is there a place for that say you know in times of war i know that they have bonds have been instrumental is there a chance that bonds may become again instrumental in in the case of a climate emergency a green new deal or any other sort of immediate need for savings so yeah it's it's part of patriotic saving so it's your patriotic duty to not consume and here we will give you a reward we will sell you a bond and we we will pay you this interest rate so yeah i think that it can serve an important important place in trying to release resources it's preferable to taxes people don't like taxes of course but but also the point is taxes remove the income permanently so it's gone what bonds do is it shifts the income to later and that's probably what you want to do if we're undertaking all of this investment in building a sustainable i mean environmentally socially sustainable economy maybe it's going to take us 10 years to do that you know that's sort of the the time frame people are looking at to green the economy so let's say it takes 10 years of massive investments to do this we only want to reduce resource use for consumption and private investment for 10 years after that we're going to have greater capacity and it's going to be sustainable capacity we want to release the spending so that's the good thing about the bonds people only postpone their consumption they don't have to permanently reduce it so that that's why you want to use bonds i also think even aside from fighting the the multiple pandemics there is a positive role for bonds to play i would keep savings bonds uh as an option so i wouldn't eliminate all bond sales i but i would say that you know only households and maybe not for profits would be allowed to buy savings bonds congress would set the interest rate set the terms maybe put income limits people with income greater than 70 000 wouldn't be able to buy these just as a way to promote safe private saving among low to middle income people you know for college for uh buying a house later and so on to give them a safe alternative to private uh financial institution offerings so you recently co-authored a policy note with edward lane entitled why president biden should eliminate corporate taxes to build back better now this in my experience has been a very tricky point to get across to progressive people even when they understand mmt could you just lay out the idea behind this policy note yes so as an undergraduate as i said i studied money and banking with john randlett and i studied uh public finance uh with um wilma krebs and um she used musgrave and musgrave uh a husband and wife team who wrote the most famous public finance book and a lot of it is you know very mainstream economics with the neoclassical micro theory but a lot of it also is keynesian they had chapters in there that uh went through the corporate uh attacks and i i read all this in the late 70s but it's always been in the back of my mind uh you know that the the corporate tax has a lot of problems and then hyman minsky my professor dissertation advisor had a section in his book and i remember in class also talking about the problems of the corporate income tax and then finally beardsley rummel who we've used mmt he went around the country after world war ii saying taxes are no longer needed for revenue purposes the war has taught the government and the people that we don't need taxes to pay for stuff he also had a long section on how bad the corporate tax was it was his main example of a very bad tax okay and all of them pointed out that uh in terms of tax incidents which means that you know we we put the tax on corporate profits but who really pays it may not be the corporation because corporations can pass it we say pass it forward that is they can raise the price to consumers to cover the tax they can pass it backward that is they pay lower wages to workers to make up for the tax or they can pass it to the shareholders which means that they pay less dividends to the shareholders okay if they pass it forward it's inflationary and probably not progressive because you're hitting consumers if they pass it backward it is hitting workers not progressive if they pass it to shareholders good that that's progressive okay because shareholders tend to be higher income but then you look at who the shareholders are only about a quarter of shareholders are american individuals 75 percent are not if i remember 40 of foreigners and the rest are institutions which includes your pension funds and so on so only 25 are potentially uh you know it would be a potentially progressive tax and uh economists debate all the time about how much of the shifting occurs the estimates are wide so i will admit that my my belief is that uh it's probably mostly workers and consumers that pay the tax because our corporations have both power in pricing and power in wage setting especially after ronald reagan and the destruction of labor unions so i don't think it's a progressive tax then there are other potential problems such as offshoring moving your headquarters which might mean you only have a mailbox in ireland now biden is trying to deal with that i think that's a good thing if you're going to have a corporate tax it's got to be international otherwise you're just encouraging corporations to play games to avoid and evade avoid as legal evade is illegal they do both to avoid and evade the corporate profits tax so it creates problems like that too and so you know we we wrote it up and i i know progressives hate it because two reasons if you look at corporate tax revenue as a percent of federal income and federal revenue sorry we call it income and also states uh it has plummeted for two reasons one the tax rate has declined but also it's the evasion and avoidance so it's plummeted potentially it could raise a lot of revenue if you can enforce it and raise the rate so they see it as a way to get a lot of revenue to pay for all the good things they want and of course we know that's nonsense but they really truly believe that and the other reason is because and the response will be but you know corporations are evil so we ought to attack some and my response to that is no if they're evil we ought to shut them down you don't tax evil you stop it uh and i think corporations do engage in a lot of evil behavior and we have a solution to that corporations have to get charters the chartering process because from the very beginning the idea behind corporations is they have to serve the public interest and if they're not they should not exist we should take away the corporate charters i think that's a much better solution uh to dealing with bad behavior corporations you take away the charters and you say sorry you are no longer allowed to be a corporation that's publicly owned now we have problems with the private owned ones too so we got to deal with a lot of uh bad behavior by firms uh but i i think that arguing taxing taxing them because they're evil uh is just not the the right way if we want to go after the shareholders and i think that is what we should do uh we should be imputing uh all of the um profits to the owners of the corporations not for profits own corporations they're already exempt so we we don't need to to tax the holders that are not individuals but we would impute the the profits to the owners the individual owners of stocks and tax them as normal income i think that's the right way to get at the shareholders okay well i think that's a great place to leave it we've been speaking with professor l randall ray author of many key mmt texts most importantly understanding modern money and professor ray will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming 2021 european mmt conference and you can find links to professor rey's work and to information about the conference in the show notes for this episode but for now thank you so much we're so honored and it was great thank you so much for joining us today on the mmt podcast professor l randall ray thank you [Music] that was the mmt podcast with patricia pino and christian riley don't forget you can support the show through patreon starting at a dollar a month and get access to patron only episodes you can do that by going to patreon.com mmt podcast you can also find me on twitter at mmt podcast and you can find patricia on twitter at patricianpino and you can email us at mmtpodcast outlook.com thanks for listening and we hope to hear from you [Music] you .
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失業とは、賃金のために働く準備ができていて喜んで働く人々を定義します。失業者は、何もしていないという意味で失業していないという意味です。彼らは賃金のために働いておらず、以前の種類の人間社会は失業を経験していませんでしたそれは失業を持っている通貨システムです私たちの通貨システムは最初から当局によって作成されました公共の目的失業中のリソースを作成するために通貨システムを使用するのはおかしいです。失業中のリソースは、エコノミストでない場合はほとんどのリスナーを働かせません。それはしません経済学はすべての学生に失業が望まれることを教えているので、失業は政策の間違いではなく、政策ツールであり、インフレと戦うために私たちが使用するツールです。経済学はこれがパトリシアピノとクリスチャンライリーのmmtポッドキャストであることを教えていますこんにちは私はクリスチャンライリーですそして現代貨幣理論ポッドキャストへようこそあなたはmmtpodcastでツイッターで私たちを見つけることができますそしてあなたはpatreon.commmtポッドキャストに行くことによってショーをサポートすることができますmmtについて聞いたのはこれが初めてです。最初の3つのエピソードを聞いて、この特定のエピソードに関連する他のいくつかのことと一緒にショーノートでリンクした紹介を聞きたいと思うかもしれません。patreon.comを介してこのポッドキャストを経済的にサポートできる場所にリンクしましたmmtポッドキャストのサポートは、月に1ドル、月に1ポンド、またはそれに相当するものがどこに住んでいても、どのレベルのサポートを提供しても、早期にアクセスできます。私たちのすべてのエピソードとパトリシアmmtの質問をすることができるすべてのエピソード私たちは100人のリスナーが資金を提供していますあなたの財政的支援は、他の人に私たちを推薦することによって、または単に聞くことによって、ショーを続けるのに本当に役立ちますそして、このことについての言葉を広めることは、これまでのすべてのサポーターに本当に感謝します。mmtを理解するためにいつも感謝します。mmtポッドキャストに飛び込みましょう。私はクリスチャンライリーです。私はパトリシア・ピノです。本日、現代貨幣理論の学者であり、現代貨幣理論を理解している著者であるl randall ray hi randy hi randyが加わったことを光栄に思います。制度派経済学おめでとうございます。しかし、ここから始めて、ブルームバーグは最近、あなたや他のコアmmc学者が貢献した、まだmmtの世界に住んでいるというタイトルの作品を公開しました。この作品は、mmtにとってはかなり公平だと思います。混乱につながる可能性のあるmmtの鍵となる何かが、この一節の引用を含んでいます。mmtは、税金が需要の再分配収入の冷却や落胆や望ましくない行動などの他の目的に役立つ可能性があることを認めていますが、支出を支払うために収入を増やす必要があります。憲章のお金の見方であり、通貨発行政府のために支出と税金が発生するシーケンス全体です。その空白を埋めることができます。どうやってここにたどり着いたのか、深く考えていないのですが、なぜアメリカでこれらの[音楽]緑色の紙を取り、それらを手に入れるために一生懸命努力しているのでしょうか。人々はしませんなぜそうなのか不思議に思うので、mmtが強調しているのは、最初からそうする理由がなければならないということです。多くの人がそう言うだけではありません。しかし、それは論理的な回帰です。ええと、それは決して終わらないのです。信頼だけに基づいているとしたら、システム全体の信頼をやめたらどうなるでしょうか。システム全体が崩壊することを知っていると言えます。」私たちの通貨システムの根底にあるものは、紙に価値があるという妄想的な信頼よりもはるかに重要なものでなければならないので、当局と常に当局が課す口座のお金を選択した当初から、私たちは主張します自分の負債で支払われるその口座のお金で建てられた義務ええと、私たちはそれらのものをええと、お金の通貨と呼んでいます、そしてあなたは私たちがそうしないことを知っています」新しい国が形成されたとき、彼らが最初に行うことの1つは、そのお金に義務を課すアカウントのお金を選択することであることが論理的および歴史的にわかっているため、すべてがどのように始まったのかというこの無限の回帰問題に苦しんでいます。アカウントと彼らはそのアカウントのお金で彼ら自身の義務を発行しますそしてそれは本当に通貨を最初から動かすものです支出はインフレを引き起こす可能性があり、税金を使用して支出を削減し、公共の利益のために使用できるリソースを解放することができます。税金を使用して不平等を減らすことができるので、人々が税金の支払いではなくそれに焦点を当てていることを本当に嬉しく思いますええ、それはそれがはるかに良いです」チャーターレスの枠組みがない場合に見逃されるもう1つのことは、政府がお金を使ってそのお金をブルームバーグの記事に値するものにするために、最初に納税義務が発生する順序です。彼らがあなたから少し使ったのは、私たちがmmtの世界にいたら、政府のパンデミックな対応がどのように行われたかについて話していたということです。彼らの目的は、税金が労働だけでなく、税金が行うことであり、それはあなたが動員できる資源を解放することであり、それは政府が税金を使用するものであり、それはあなたが大きな新しいイニシアチブに再び着手するグリーンニューディールは例ですパンデミック対応はあなたが直面している問題に取り組むためにリソースを解放する必要があるかもしれない別の例ですそして税金はそれを行う方法ですこれを理解したのですが、私たちがすでに約5兆を費やした問題をご存知だと思いますが、そのための議論の支払いは本当に後回しにされていましたが、今はさらに4兆を費やそうとしています。誰もが最初からmmtを本当に理解していれば、再び支払うことを心配しています。それは間違った質問だと知っているでしょう。重要なのは、入札者が提案しているようなことを行うために必要なリソースを動員できるかどうかです。ブルームバーグや他の人々が最初のラウンドで指摘したように、mmtの本当の理解が何をするかmmtが参照されましたが、ミルトン・フリードマンのヘリコプターマネードロップに似たこの新しい支出方法は、私たちがお金を落とすことができます経済に入るしかし、それは私たちの背後にあると考えています。今はもっと慎重にならなければなりません。ヘリコプターマネーのようなばかげたことはできません。今はジャネットイエレンの支出にお金を払わなければなりません。財務長官は今まさにそのようなことを言っています。税金を上げて財政スペースを開くことを心配しなければならない」バイデンが望んでいるようなことをするためのより多くの財政的スペースを私たちに与えるので、これは今後の問題だと思います彼らはそれが常に存在していたことを当然のことと考えています。
00:00 we 00:01 define unemployment as people who are 00:04 ready and willing to work 00:08 for wages unemployed people 00:11 are not unemployed in the sense that 00:12 they're doing nothing often they're 00:14 doing lots and they're working a lot too 00:17 trying to survive 00:19 they're unemployed because they're not 00:21 working for wages and previous kinds of 00:24 human societies did not experience 00:26 unemployment it's monetary systems that 00:29 have unemployment our 00:32 monetary system from inception was 00:34 created by the authorities and the 00:36 purpose of that was to move resources to 00:39 the authorities for their use to fulfill 00:41 the public purpose it's crazy to use 00:44 your monetary system to create 00:46 unemployed resources that you then don't 00:49 put to work 00:50 most of your listeners if they're not 00:52 economists will say well boy that makes 00:53 sense to me 00:55 right 00:56 but if we've studied economics 00:58 it won't because economics teaches every 01:02 student that unemployment is desired 01:06 unemployment is not a policy mistake 01:08 it's a policy tool it's the tool we use 01:12 to fight inflation 01:14 so that what normal people would see is 01:16 a problem economists see as a solution 01:20 it's pretty crazy but this is what 01:22 economics teaches 01:31 this is the mmt podcast with patricia 01:34 pino and christian riley 01:40 hi i'm christian reilly and welcome to 01:42 the modern monetary theory podcast you 01:45 can find us on twitter at mmtpodcast and 01:48 you could support the show by going to 01:50 patreon.com 01:52 mmt podcast if this is your first time 01:55 hearing about mmt you might want to 01:57 listen to our first three episodes for 01:59 an introduction which i've linked to in 02:01 the show notes along with some other 02:03 things that relate to this particular 02:05 episode and as ever i've linked to where 02:08 you can support this podcast financially 02:11 via patreon.com 02:13 mmt podcast 02:15 support starts at a dollar a month or a 02:17 pound a month or whatever the equivalent 02:19 is wherever you live and no matter what 02:22 level of support you give you get early 02:24 access to all of our episodes and patron 02:27 only episodes where you can ask me and 02:28 patricia mmt questions we're 100 02:32 listener funded your financial support 02:34 really helps keep the show going and 02:36 your support in other ways whether it's 02:38 by recommending us to other people or 02:40 just by listening and spreading the word 02:42 about this stuff really helps too a big 02:45 thank you to all of our supporters so 02:47 far and thanks as ever for the time you 02:50 put into understanding mmt 02:53 let's dive in welcome one and all to the 02:56 mmt podcast i'm christian riley and i'm 02:58 patricia pino and we're honored to be 03:01 joined today by primary mmt academic and 03:03 author of understanding modern money 03:05 professor l randall ray hi randy hi 03:08 randy we wanted to preemptively 03:10 congratulate you on being presented with 03:12 the 2022 veblen commons award in 03:14 recognition of outstanding scholarly 03:16 contributions to the field of 03:18 evolutionary institutional economics so 03:21 congratulations yeah 03:23 thanks but starting with the here and 03:25 now um 03:26 bloomberg recently published a piece 03:28 entitled are we living in an mmt world 03:32 not yet which you and other core mmc 03:36 scholars contributed to and the piece is 03:38 quite fair to mmt 03:40 i think they 03:42 missed something key to mmt that could 03:43 lead to confusion the piece contains 03:45 this passage quote mmt's take on taxes 03:49 boils down to the notion that 03:51 governments don't need to raise revenue 03:53 to pay for their spending though mmt 03:56 allows that tax may be useful for other 03:58 purposes such as cooling down demand 04:00 redistributing income or discouraging 04:02 and undesirable behaviors 04:04 now i would just say 04:06 they've skipped over the primary purpose 04:09 of taxes according to mmt which is the 04:11 charter's view of money and the whole 04:14 sequence in which spending and taxi 04:16 occurs for currency issuing governments 04:18 could you fill in that blank yeah well 04:21 you know i think everyone takes for 04:23 granted 04:24 that we 04:25 live in these monetized economies 04:28 and you know they don't really think 04:31 that deeply about how did we get here 04:34 why is it that we take in america 04:37 these uh 04:38 [Music] 04:40 green pieces of paper 04:42 and are willing to work hard to get 04:44 those 04:45 and the store is happy to accept them in 04:49 payment 04:50 so most people don't you know wonder 04:54 why that is 04:56 and um so what mmt is 04:59 emphasized is that 05:01 from inception 05:03 um there has to be a reason why you 05:05 would do it it's not simply 05:08 many people say oh well it's trust i 05:10 trust i can pass this off to somebody 05:12 else but you know that's a 05:15 logical uh regress uh 05:18 you know and yeah it never ends 05:20 um and what and if it's only based on 05:23 trust wow what would happen if people 05:25 stopped trusting the whole system would 05:27 collapse 05:28 and we say that you know that's nonsense 05:30 the the thing that underlies our 05:33 monetary system has to be something much 05:36 more significant than a delusional trust 05:40 that paper has a value and so we argue 05:43 that from the the very beginning 05:47 when 05:49 authorities and it always was 05:50 authorities 05:52 choose a money of account 05:55 they impose obligations denominated in 05:58 that money of account 06:00 that are payable 06:02 in their own 06:04 liabilities uh man we call those things 06:07 um uh money currency 06:10 um 06:10 and so you know we don't suffer from 06:13 this 06:14 infinite regress problem 06:16 of how did the whole thing get started 06:18 because we know both logically and 06:21 historically 06:23 that when a new nation is formed one of 06:26 the very first things they do is choose 06:27 a money of account 06:29 they impose obligations in that money of 06:31 account and they issue their own 06:33 obligations in that money of account 06:36 and that is really what drives the 06:38 currency from inception 06:41 but let me just say in their defense 06:45 we are so happy 06:47 that 06:48 bloomberg 06:50 and others 06:51 are now focusing on 06:54 the important issues 06:57 which are 06:58 that too much spending can cause 07:01 inflation 07:02 that taxes can be used 07:05 to reduce spending 07:08 to 07:09 release resources 07:11 that could be used in the public 07:13 interest 07:14 that we can use taxes 07:17 to reduce inequality 07:19 so we're really glad that people are 07:21 focusing on that rather than on taxes 07:24 pay for stuff yeah it's much better it's 07:26 it's definitely a step in the right 07:28 direction the other thing that gets 07:29 missed if you don't have that 07:31 charterless framework is the sequence 07:34 the 07:34 tax liabilities come first allowing the 07:37 government to spend money into existence 07:40 and have that money be worth something 07:42 the bloomberg article the bit they used 07:44 from you was you talk about how the 07:46 government's pandemic response would 07:48 have played out if we were in an mmt 07:51 world 07:52 could you talk about that yeah 07:54 um so let me credit warren mosler you 07:57 know who always said 07:59 that taxes create unemployment 08:02 and that is their purpose 08:03 so that's what taxes do not just of 08:06 labor but what taxes do is they release 08:09 resources 08:11 that you can then mobilize 08:13 and that's what government uses taxes 08:15 for 08:18 and that's especially important 08:20 when you're undertaking a big new 08:22 initiative the green new deal would be 08:25 an example 08:26 a 08:27 pandemic response would be another 08:29 example 08:31 you may need to release resources in 08:33 order to tackle the problems 08:36 that you face 08:37 and taxes are a way to do that 08:41 um so 08:43 if um 08:45 we completely understood this 08:48 uh we would realize that um 08:51 you know the the issue of the 08:55 we already spent about five trillion 08:58 and 08:59 the pay for 09:01 uh arguments 09:03 really were on the back burner for that 09:06 but now we're trying to spend another 09:09 four trillion 09:11 um and uh suddenly everyone's worried 09:14 about the pay for again if they really 09:16 understood mmt from the very beginning 09:19 they would know that's the wrong 09:21 question 09:22 what's important is 09:24 whether we can mobilize the resources 09:27 that we need 09:28 to do the kinds of things that biden is 09:30 proposing i think that that's what 09:32 a real understanding of mmt would do as 09:36 bloomberg and and other people have um 09:39 pointed out 09:41 in the first rounds mmt was referenced 09:45 but it was referenced as 09:47 uh this new way of spending that is 09:50 similar to milton friedman's helicopter 09:52 money drops we can drop money into the 09:55 economy 09:56 although normally we would not want to 09:58 do that the pandemic is so severe 10:01 uh we're gonna go ahead and do it as an 10:04 emergency measure now that the emergency 10:06 is sort of past us 10:09 uh fingers crossed i don't think it is 10:11 but 10:12 the thinking is that it's somewhat 10:14 behind us 10:16 uh you know now we have to be more 10:18 prudent we can't do silly things like 10:20 helicopter money again 10:22 now we got to pay for the spending janet 10:24 yellen the treasury secretary said 10:27 something exactly like that now we have 10:29 to worry 10:30 about opening the fiscal space 10:33 by raising taxes that'll give us more 10:35 fiscal space 10:37 to do the kinds of things biden wants 10:40 so i think that this is a problem going 10:42 forward.
P:
10:43 you were talking about how people sort 10:45 of don't think about what um 10:48 where money you know they assume money 10:51 sort of 10:52 you know they take it for granted that 10:53 it always existed and they don't really 10:54 think about 10:56 when that might have happened and um and 11:00 i know that you have a talk or two 11:02 related to 11:04 the origins of money and how that is 11:06 very heavily connected to 11:09 the origins of debt itself can you say a 11:12 little bit about that.
so people have 11:15 learned this story and my my older 11:17 daughter when she was six years old came 11:19 home and told me 11:21 the story about rob's crusoe on friday 11:24 and how they were bartering 11:27 until one of them 11:29 got the brilliant idea of you of using 11:32 uh seashells as medium of exchange 11:35 and that is where our money comes from 11:37 so everyone learns this story i guess 11:40 now in first grade 11:43 and 11:44 the majority of economists 11:46 uh 11:47 accept this story 11:50 not that it is literally true 11:53 but they accept the story as the way 11:56 they frame their thinking 11:59 about money and the monetary system and 12:01 the role of the government in the 12:02 monetary system 12:05 and i i think that it's a dangerous view 12:08 it's a wrong historically it's a wrong 12:11 view as david graber 12:14 the late great david graber 12:17 argued in his um monumental book dead 12:20 the first 5 000 years 12:22 uh there is no evidence uh for 12:24 barter-based economies outside of 12:27 pretty trivial prisoner of war camps and 12:29 so on 12:30 uh no society's ever organized their 12:33 economies that way 12:35 um so it's historically wrong but it 12:38 also gives us a wrong view 12:40 of what this system that we call 12:43 capitalism 12:45 that we live in 12:47 is all about 12:48 it it focuses on 12:51 these individual exchanges as if and we 12:54 call it you know an exchange economy we 12:56 call it a market economy 12:59 and all of these things and i say it's 13:02 dangerous because 13:04 this is not what capitalism is all about 13:07 it's 13:08 uh it's not an economic system in which 13:11 you know friday and and crusoe meet as 13:15 equals 13:17 and they're each trying to maximize 13:20 their own individual utility 13:22 uh through trade and that that 13:25 the market is this wonderful invention 13:27 that gives us all the freedom 13:30 to engage in mutually beneficial trade 13:34 but that's not what capitalism is all 13:35 about 13:37 and so we we don't understand the system 13:41 and then we also 13:43 from this story 13:45 we developed this view 13:47 that the government is sort of an 13:48 illegitimate interloper 13:52 into this nicely functioning system 13:56 right the government interve we use this 13:58 terminology in economics all the time 14:01 government intervenes 14:03 the government intervenes into the 14:05 economy maybe to do good things but it's 14:08 an intervention 14:11 and so we start to see 14:13 the government in this kind of a light 14:16 and the government is you know spending 14:18 our money 14:19 the government is taxing us 14:22 taking our money away from us and then 14:24 doing some things we like but lots of 14:26 things we don't like 14:29 and all of this is just wrong it's 14:31 fundamentally wrong historically 14:33 and 14:34 uh 14:35 as an understanding of the way our 14:37 economy works 14:39 so 14:40 our argument is from inception 14:43 the monetary system did come from the 14:45 authorities now 14:47 those were not democratic 14:49 uh elected governments in the old days 14:52 today that's what we strive for 14:54 to have democracies 14:56 in which um 14:58 uh you know we 15:00 choose our government and our government 15:02 is supposed to serve us 15:05 um that's the ideal that's what we 15:07 we aim to do but we can't even conceive 15:11 of a monetary system without a 15:13 government 15:14 we can't even conceive of a capitalist 15:16 economy 15:18 without the government playing a huge 15:19 role 15:20 in the economy 15:23 both 15:24 in in providing our the basis of our 15:26 monetary system 15:28 but also in um 15:31 uh 15:32 creating what we call markets which are 15:35 complex institutions 15:37 uh creating these things and regulating 15:40 them in our interest 15:41 so i think that that barter story 15:45 shapes the way 15:48 that you view the economy and the proper 15:50 role of the government 15:52 and the alternative gives you a very 15:54 different view that i think is much more 15:57 uh accurate but also more useful i asked 15:59 because uh we had a we had a question 16:02 last week about uh the the kind of 16:04 viability of a society without money and 16:07 we were discussing this and um do you 16:10 think that the the the money creation or 16:13 the advent of money came 16:15 together with the you know as a 16:17 societies became larger or were they 16:19 completely an arbitrary imposition on 16:21 existing societies that otherwise work 16:24 very differently i think that 16:27 money 16:28 came along with 16:30 the rise of class societies 16:34 and i with uh john henry uh also the 16:37 late great uh john henry who also 16:40 recently died 16:41 um 16:42 uh 16:43 stephanie uh bell stephanie kelton and i 16:46 and alla semanova all wrote with john 16:49 henry uh on this connection between the 16:53 rise of class society 16:55 and um the uh development of uh money 16:58 and then 17:00 gradually the development of a monetary 17:03 system where 17:05 the the monetary part of the economy 17:08 absolutely dominates 17:10 uh 17:11 and you know that's what we call 17:12 capitalism 17:14 capitalism is very unusual for human for 17:17 human societies it's a very 17:19 unusual kind of society where the 17:23 the majority of the production process 17:27 is all tied up with money so this is why 17:30 marx keynes and veblen the three 17:34 founders of the three main 17:37 heterodox 17:39 schools of thought 17:41 all came to the same conclusion 17:43 what we live in they called a monetary 17:46 production economy 17:48 where 17:49 most of 17:51 the productive process is tied up with 17:53 money as mark said you start with money 17:55 in order to make more money so it's a 17:57 profit seeking enterprise now can we 18:00 imagine 18:02 a society without money 18:04 very easily because 18:06 99 of the time the humans were on earth 18:09 that's what they lived in societies with 18:11 no money 18:12 so we generally call this tribal society 18:16 uh there 18:17 there's 18:18 varieties of tribal societies they're 18:20 they're not all identical uh but they 18:23 did not have money 18:24 and that is the kind of society humans 18:26 lived in and the difference just to 18:30 to make the distinction 18:31 in those societies 18:34 the production 18:35 is to satisfy the needs and wants 18:38 directly 18:40 it's not to make money so that's the big 18:43 difference between 18:44 uh our kind of society that is 18:46 thoroughly monetized and it's a tribal 18:49 society that has no money so telling the 18:51 mmt money story as warren uh calls it 18:55 and i like it very much um it's telling 18:58 it in a in a functional way 19:00 the the government issues tax 19:02 liabilities uh which creates sellers of 19:06 goods and services it basically makes 19:08 the whole population unemployed in the 19:10 first instance 19:12 which is some kind of hard for people to 19:13 get their head around until you dig a 19:15 little bit deeper with them that 19:18 that's what we mean when we say the tax 19:20 created the unemployment so everybody's 19:22 unemployed in the first instance and 19:25 then the government can then spend that 19:26 money into existence to 19:28 hire people and buy things to provision 19:31 the public purpose hopefully a public 19:34 purpose has been decided along 19:36 democratic lines 19:38 but then there's this 19:40 um gap where the government has hired 19:43 everybody it needs to hire but there's 19:44 still not enough spending power left 19:46 behind in the economy even though it's 19:48 running a deficit 19:49 to give everybody that wants a job a job 19:52 and and that's where the job guarantee 19:54 comes in that's a big difference between 19:57 living in an mmt world and not living in 19:59 an mmt world i'd say you know with the 20:01 with the job guarantee in place like you 20:03 said in the bloomberg article makes a 20:05 lot more sense than paying airlines 20:08 three hundred thousand dollars per job 20:11 could you say a little bit more about 20:12 that yeah so you know we we uh define 20:16 unemployment 20:18 as people who are ready and willing to 20:21 work 20:22 for wages 20:25 right that is to earn money 20:28 uh wages that is what unemployment means 20:32 the unemployed people 20:35 are not unemployed in the sense that 20:36 they're doing nothing right 20:39 uh 20:40 often they're doing lots 20:42 and they're working a lot too trying to 20:45 survive 20:46 um you know some people might be 20:48 collecting uh you know the the bottles 20:51 that are left by the side of the road 20:53 working as hard as anybody 20:55 but they're unemployed because they're 20:58 not working for wages and previous kinds 21:01 of human societies did not experience 21:03 unemployment 21:04 uh 21:05 it is calculated that uh native 21:09 americans 21:10 might have might have you know worked in 21:13 the sense of 21:14 producing uh the things they needed 10 21:18 to 20 hours a week 21:20 and the rest of the the time was 21:22 uh relaxing and socializing 21:26 um 21:27 but nobody was unemployed 21:29 okay every everybody performed uh their 21:34 socially determined functions 21:37 uh it's just it's monetary systems that 21:40 have unemployment 21:42 the way that we define it 21:44 you can't imagine unemployment without 21:46 having a monetary system 21:49 and as warren says 21:50 uh our 21:52 monetary system from inception was 21:55 created by the authorities and the 21:56 purpose of that 21:58 was to move resources 22:01 to the authorities for their use not 22:03 again as we both said 22:05 we live in democratic societies so these 22:08 should be to fulfill the public purpose 22:11 in the old days that wasn't true it was 22:13 to fulfill the the wants and desires of 22:16 those who were the authorities 22:20 but 22:20 it's crazy 22:22 to use your monetary system 22:24 to create unemployed resources that you 22:27 then don't put to work 22:30 because 22:31 there's uh 22:33 no sense in releasing resources if 22:36 you're not going to use them 22:38 so 22:38 we see unemployment as always a policy 22:41 failure 22:43 it must be by definition a policy 22:45 failure 22:47 because there's no reason 22:49 to 22:50 remove those resources from other uses 22:54 if the authorities are not going to use 22:56 them i think most of your listeners if 22:58 they're not economists will say well boy 22:59 that makes sense to me 23:01 right 23:02 but if we've studied economics 23:05 it won't 23:07 because economics teaches every student 23:10 that unemployment is desired 23:13 unemployment is not a policy mistake 23:15 it's a policy tool 23:17 it's the tool we use to fight inflation 23:22 okay so this is what economists have 23:24 managed to do 23:26 they managed to twist the thinking 23:28 around 23:30 so that what 23:32 normal people would see as a problem 23:35 economists see as a solution 23:38 the unemployment is desired 23:41 because 23:42 it keeps prices in check 23:44 it's pretty crazy i mean it's almost 23:47 psychopathic 23:49 but this is what 23:50 economics teaches 23:52 because we wanted to set the scene for 23:54 the european mmt conference at which 23:56 you're a keynote speaker in september 23:59 i thought we could talk about mmt as it 24:02 relates to the euro now you've argued 24:04 since 24:05 before the birth of the euro that the 24:07 design of the european monetary union is 24:10 fatally flawed 24:11 could you lay out that criticism for us 24:14 um yes so 24:16 way back in the very beginning 24:18 um i mean several things that sort of 24:20 came together 24:22 and uh several individuals who were very 24:24 important in um helping 24:27 uh to flesh all this out charles 24:29 goodheart 24:30 uh who's british 24:32 wrote a piece arguing that the european 24:35 experiment was 24:37 unprecedented because it was going to 24:39 de-link 24:41 the currency from the nation and he said 24:44 as far 24:45 when you look around the world today and 24:46 as far as you go back in time this has 24:49 only been rarely done and it was always 24:52 done by 24:53 very very small 24:56 political units 24:57 maybe principality 25:00 in italy or something like that 25:02 that would use the italian currency 25:04 rather than have their own what almost 25:07 always happens is when a new nation is 25:09 started 25:10 it creates its own currency of course 25:12 that's exactly what america did when we 25:14 split off we dropped the british pound 25:17 and we didn't even want to call our 25:18 currency the pound 25:20 we wanted to show 25:21 how independent we were 25:23 so we called it the dollar and this is 25:26 always the case uh almost without 25:28 exception new nations always have their 25:30 own currency and he said it can't be a 25:33 coincidence 25:35 i think the first draft of the paper was 25:36 1996. so you know yes that would that 25:39 set us thinking and 25:41 then when godly who as early as 1992 25:45 had reached the same conclusion 25:47 he said 25:48 that if you give up your currency 25:51 you reduce your status to 25:55 one of a colony 25:56 so if you give up your currency and 25:58 adopt someone else's you become a colony 26:01 the third piece was 26:03 that um stephanie who was a grad student 26:05 at the time 26:06 said 26:07 um you know we're thinking so 26:10 the member states of the eurozone are 26:14 going to be something like u.s states 26:17 because you're all going to adopt the 26:18 euro just like every state in the united 26:20 states adopted the dollar i wonder what 26:23 the debt ratios of u.s states are like 26:26 relative to their own gdp so we looked 26:29 and the highest one was a debt ratio of 26:31 17 percent 26:33 and of course in europe you had italy 26:36 with a debt ratio of 100 26:38 and the mastery criteria allowed 60. 26:42 we said hold it that's three times 26:44 higher 26:45 than the most indebted u.s state 26:48 this has got to 26:49 lead to a disaster the 26:52 credit rating agencies will not allow 26:55 u.s states 26:56 to 26:57 budget deficits that is to project that 27:00 they will end up with a deficit at the 27:01 end of the year 27:03 and they won't allow their debt ratios 27:05 to go higher than 17 percent how will 27:08 credit ratings agencies 27:10 allow in italy to exist 27:14 they're going to downgrade them there's 27:16 going to be a run against italian debt 27:20 uh they're gonna run to the safest 27:22 country 27:23 which of course 27:24 uh 27:25 became germany now that that wasn't 27:27 absolutely clear at that time because 27:29 germany was always called the sick man 27:31 of europe 27:32 uh in the very beginning germany uh was 27:35 not one of the countries you would have 27:36 thought 27:38 would be the high rated but eventually 27:39 that's what happened of course 27:41 so anyway i mean you put those three 27:43 pieces together 27:45 and your predictions for the euro 27:48 would be that uh this is going to lead 27:51 to a crisis and it did lead to a crisis 27:53 and i 27:55 i guess the fourth piece is warren very 27:57 early said 27:59 that um the crisis will start as a 28:02 financial crisis 28:05 and because the individual nations are 28:08 responsible for their own banks 28:10 they will have to bail them out 28:13 and that will create a sovereign debt 28:17 crisis so it will start as a private 28:21 financial system crisis 28:23 that will become a sovereign debt crisis 28:27 as governments 28:28 try to bail out their own banks and 28:30 spend a lot of money trying to bail them 28:32 out 28:32 which of course is exactly what happened 28:35 ireland was the best example a country 28:38 that had no government debt to speak of 28:40 and they had to they tried to bail out 28:42 the banking system and it morphed into a 28:45 sovereign debt crisis so i though i 28:47 think all four of those things 28:50 uh 28:51 came true and uh that really 28:55 was the problem 28:57 of the um the euro design 29:00 it's a design flaw 29:01 now they you could have easily i don't 29:04 mean politically i mean uh economically 29:06 you you could have easily 29:09 designed the system so it would not uh 29:12 have failed 29:13 so it would have been robust 29:15 and all you had to do is look at the 29:17 united states as an example because 29:20 we have a monetary union 29:22 with the dollar and every 29:24 individual state adopts a dollar 29:27 but we have um 29:29 a u.s treasury 29:32 that spends about uh 29:34 25 percent or so of gdp 29:37 and it spends it in in a way that 29:39 redistributes 29:41 uh demand on a somewhat progressive 29:44 basis in other words spends more in the 29:46 poorest states 29:47 um whereas the european union 29:51 had a a budget of about one percent of 29:53 gdp and it wasn't net spending because 29:55 it was contributed by members 29:57 so you know it's 25 times too small so 30:01 you just do the math and you know that 30:03 this can't possibly work even in the u.s 30:06 the states have become bankrupt and 30:08 faced with resistance from the fed was 30:11 that the case of detroit yes yes so 30:14 detroit you say well they were pretty 30:16 poor place so it's i like to use orange 30:19 county because it's one of the richest 30:21 areas in the united states and it did 30:23 default it did go down so yes state and 30:26 local governments can go down 30:30 and then 30:32 the the federal government 30:35 could of course bail them out 30:38 and you could also use your central bank 30:40 so people have discussed doing this too 30:42 the the point is that the um 30:44 the sovereign center the central 30:46 government can prevent it now 30:49 hours chooses usually not to do that 30:53 it allows orange county to fail 30:56 and that's not 30:58 i wouldn't say 31:00 that you know there's not a good 31:02 justification for that so they see this 31:04 as a way to discipline 31:06 so they will allow 31:08 failure but 31:09 we still have 31:12 a social safety net 31:14 that will help protect 31:16 uh the the people who lose so when 31:19 orange county fails what happens is uh 31:21 teachers and 31:23 firefighters and the police 31:26 uh lose jobs 31:28 uh and that then affects you know demand 31:32 more generally and unemployment goes up 31:34 and all that 31:35 so if you have a good social safety net 31:38 you can protect 31:40 uh the people who lose their jobs and so 31:42 on 31:43 um and you can 31:45 provide more funding try to keep the 31:46 schools open and all of that 31:49 policy can can definitely do that 31:54 to protect 31:55 um from the worst 31:58 possible fallout now whether or not you 32:00 should allow a county default on is dead 32:03 you know is worth 32:05 discussing so as you mentioned there 32:07 that you can have a a national 32:10 federal social safety net and that kind 32:12 of circles back to the mmt job guarantee 32:15 so you know when we want to simplify 32:17 that hopefully not over simplify 32:19 mmt for policy activists here in say the 32:22 uk 32:23 we'll say mmt is a lens that allows you 32:25 to see how the money system works and we 32:27 can get into that but long story short 32:29 there's only one policy prescription in 32:31 mmt which is the job guarantee which 32:32 we've talked about or the transition job 32:35 as warren likes to call it or employer 32:36 of last resort and then we could work 32:39 back from there to tell you why we think 32:40 that's important and necessary and just 32:43 better than the way we deal with 32:44 inflation right now 32:46 but right now we use unemployed buffer 32:48 stocks by inflation we think using an 32:50 employed buffer stock is better on a 32:52 point of logic 32:53 but crucially we could boil it down to 32:55 this idea that if we implement the job 32:57 guarantee we know 32:58 that the government the issue of the 33:00 currency will be injecting spending 33:02 power into the economy precisely where 33:04 it's needed to sustain truthful 33:06 employment and then the lens part of mmt 33:09 shows us how 33:10 the government can always afford the job 33:12 guarantee in terms of currency but a 33:14 policy activist in a eurozone country 33:17 can't say that about their own 33:19 government 33:20 um 33:21 you know how should activists and and 33:23 people concerned with with policy in 33:26 eurozone countries apply mmt to their 33:29 thinking about policy space and a way 33:33 forward well i i think they they 33:35 definitely should demand a job guarantee 33:38 it has to be funded from the center 33:39 though yeah it would go a long way 33:43 toward 33:45 resolving many of the problems in the 33:47 euro area 33:48 probably it should be a single wage just 33:52 like we advocate for the united states 33:54 it should be generous 33:56 it should provide 33:58 benefits a benefit package 34:01 and it should establish 34:04 good working conditions you know the 34:06 number of hours per day the vacations uh 34:10 break time all that stuff 34:12 if you provide all of that in your job 34:15 guarantee program that becomes the 34:16 minimum standard all over 34:18 europe and um 34:21 people can vote with their feet 34:23 so 34:24 private employers have to match 34:26 the whatever those minimum standards are 34:28 so that helps to 34:31 equalize 34:32 up so the the uh 34:36 poorer nations 34:38 where wages are lower where working 34:40 conditions are worse 34:43 will be brought up to the higher 34:46 standards 34:47 that the program sets 34:49 so you're trying to integrate 34:52 europe and you're trying to raise the 34:54 living standards in the poorest nations 34:57 the job guarantee helps to do that by 35:00 paying the higher wages you're also 35:03 increasing the demand 35:06 in the 35:07 lower 35:09 income 35:11 nations 35:12 so you're you're bringing up demand in 35:14 those areas too we make all these 35:16 arguments for the united states you know 35:17 the same thing would happen in 35:18 appalachia in america 35:21 some people say oh well we should keep 35:23 the wage lower in appalachia i say no 35:25 that that doesn't make sense let's raise 35:27 the wages let's increase demand in those 35:29 areas 35:31 raise the living standards all over the 35:33 united states 35:35 you know we're all american and in 35:36 europe they're all european 35:38 they all ought to enjoy the same good 35:41 things 35:42 and this is a way to do that 35:45 so 35:46 i think the job guarantee 35:48 actually helps the integration 35:51 uh it helps reduce 35:53 uh inequality across nations 35:56 and it helps to 35:58 increase demand 36:00 uh in the um 36:02 uh 36:03 the parts of europe that are being left 36:05 behind 36:06 so for all those reasons the job 36:08 guarantee is a way to do it though 36:10 but individual nations as you're saying 36:12 cannot do this it has to be funded from 36:14 the center if i heard right um you said 36:17 that you would apply a single level of 36:19 wage throughout europe so that would 36:21 effectively homogenize the 36:24 economy of europe 36:26 and level things up yeah 36:29 that makes sense because i was wondering 36:31 you know how you know how what wage 36:32 level you might set in germany compared 36:34 to wage level in italy in greece but 36:36 this with the cost of living is lower 36:39 and you know what arguments that might 36:41 lead to but actually if you just said 36:42 one single wage that simplifies 36:44 everything 36:45 that's the way i would do it not all 36:47 supporters of the job guarantee agree 36:49 with this i know that in the united 36:51 states we have advocates for having 36:54 several different wage levels uh i'm not 36:58 dismissing 36:59 the arguments that they're making you 37:01 know 37:01 so 37:02 they say well hold a second 37:04 we're pushing for um we were pushing for 37:07 15 an hour in the united states plus 37:09 benefits in the u.s you know we don't 37:12 have health care so the benefits would 37:14 be a very significant boost to the 37:17 living standard for americans in europe 37:19 if you already had 37:22 good healthcare benefits 37:24 then 37:25 maybe the the 37:27 the 37:28 boost to the benefit wouldn't be that 37:30 great and and maybe you would want a 37:32 wage above 15 an hour i'm not 37:36 saying that that would be the right 37:37 number for europe but one of the goals 37:40 is 37:42 you know to create a 37:44 well-functioning labor market 37:47 and to stabilize the value of the 37:49 currency 37:50 uh you know the these were always 37:53 part of the buffer stock argument 37:55 of using the job guarantee 37:58 program 37:59 and the way you do that is you is by 38:01 setting the base wage 38:02 that base wage establishes the value of 38:04 the dollar or the value of the euro 38:07 uh that is our argument 38:09 but some people say but hold it you've 38:11 got college graduates who can't find a 38:14 job 38:16 and if they only receive 15 an hour 38:20 they couldn't even pay their student 38:21 loan debt which could well be true in 38:23 the united states 38:25 but you know 38:26 our answer is that 38:28 first 38:30 uh we're trying to catch people that 38:32 that are you know falling down we're 38:34 setting a floor 38:36 okay 38:37 and um 15 an hour is a huge improvement 38:41 over our floor now which is zero 38:46 and we're not trying to retain people in 38:48 this program 38:49 they're available to be hired out 38:52 and so who's going to be the first hired 38:54 out well likely those college graduates 38:59 they're going to be hired away 39:00 when the economy improves 39:02 third 39:04 college graduates should not be in this 39:05 program 39:07 okay so if we're operating our economy 39:10 with so much slack 39:13 that college graduates can't get jobs 39:16 the answer is 39:17 you know to speed the economy up it's 39:20 not to raise the wage in the job 39:22 guarantee program 39:24 is to operate the economy 39:26 at a a 39:28 higher growth rate 39:30 so that jobs are being created for 39:32 college graduates 39:34 um and then third of course people 39:36 should not have to go into debt to go to 39:38 college yeah 39:39 that was my number one actually what we 39:42 need to do is 39:43 you know eliminate all the 39:46 student debt we need student debt relief 39:49 and then to find a different way to 39:51 finance college education 39:53 people should not be 39:55 going into debt 39:57 to do something that is in the public 39:59 interest which is get an education 40:01 you know we we already won that battle 40:05 for uh 40:06 grades up to grade 12 in the united 40:08 states was basically 18 years old 40:11 oh and we won that a very long time ago 40:14 so 40:15 you can you can get free schooling 40:18 to age 18. 40:21 i don't remember when that finally 40:23 became the standard for the u.s but all 40:25 of my lifetime that's been the standard 40:28 um 40:29 and then we've never raised it which 40:30 made no sense whatsoever we want people 40:33 to go to college 40:35 let me just give you an example so we 40:37 have a huge problem 40:39 with the the medical delivery system we 40:42 don't have nearly enough doctors 40:43 especially general practitioners and the 40:46 pandemic has made this much worse 40:48 because a lot of doctors 40:51 have re retired because of the pandemic 40:54 they were overworked and didn't like the 40:56 way things were going and so on so we 40:58 have an acute shortage 41:01 of medical 41:03 delivery people 41:05 and one of the reasons why we have 41:07 shortages so other than the retirement 41:09 is it's too expensive 41:11 people can't get a medical education 41:13 because it costs hundreds of thousands 41:15 of dollars of debt that they then have 41:17 to 41:18 try to work off the next 20 or 30 years 41:22 when they practice medicine 41:24 and the obvious solution is 41:27 free medical education 41:29 right 41:31 that's the public interest 41:33 so the answer is 41:35 uh you know college education needs to 41:37 be free it's funny because i i often 41:39 hear mainstream economies speak about a 41:42 problem of over-education in the economy 41:45 and 41:46 you see you seem to be saying there's no 41:47 such problem is is the opposite we're 41:49 not utilizing the people who are 41:51 educated we have a lot of miseducation 41:55 so i'm not trying to minimize that 41:57 problem um you know we have severe 41:59 shortages in some areas severe shortages 42:03 and 42:05 those are typically filled by 42:07 immigrants 42:08 foreigners 42:10 who 42:11 come to the united states get college 42:12 education and go into those fields we 42:15 need to start 42:16 at a much younger age you know 42:18 age three years old trying to 42:21 prepare 42:23 students for the kinds of jobs that we 42:25 are creating.
so there there is a bit of 42:28 a mismatch 42:29 and we probably have far too many 42:31 students uh 42:33 going into business school and not being 42:35 well prepared for the kinds of jobs that 42:36 we that we are creating.
so there is a 42:39 bit of that 42:40 but the notion you're gonna have people 42:42 are too too educated just uh it doesn't 42:46 make any sense to me.
R:
42:47 going into some of the more technical 42:50 aspects of mmt uh for anybody new to 42:52 this mmt is a branch of post-keynesian 42:55 thought which is a development of what 42:57 keynes actually thought 42:58 and randy you've made the observation 43:00 elsewhere that keynes talks about money 43:03 in different ways at different points in 43:05 his writing.
he writes about it 43:07 differently in the treaties on money as 43:09 compared to the general theory could you 43:12 talk about those differences ?
Wray:
in the 43:14 general theory 43:16 there are three 43:19 uh chapters 43:21 that are the most important ones 43:24 that deal with uh money 43:27 uh chapters 13 and 15 43:30 and then chapter 17. 43:32 and uh so 43:34 this is a bit wonky our audience will.
43:37 love that .
43:38 only students who have had 43:40 you know intermediate level macro at the 43:42 undergrad level 43:44 will be familiar with what's called the 43:45 islm model so this was the way that 43:49 keynesian economics was taught 43:52 almost everywhere in the post-war period 43:55 the model was actually developed by 43:56 hicks 43:58 who was a contemporary of um keynes and 44:01 sort of an opponent and 44:03 that modeled 44:05 more or less faithfully 44:08 reproduces the view of money that keynes 44:12 had in chapters 13 and 15. 44:15 and so to just be extremely brief 44:19 it is sort of a fixed money supply 44:23 and a downward sloping money demand 44:25 curve 44:26 and that's what you use to drive the lm 44:28 curve behind that is sort of the 44:31 assumption that the government controls 44:33 the money supply then you have a money 44:35 supply 44:36 money demand determines the interest 44:38 rate so there's a fixed money supply 44:41 there's a single interest rate 44:43 and there's a 44:45 demand for money that is a function of 44:47 income and interest rates it's a very 44:50 very simple model and that has always 44:53 been taught as being the the keynes 44:55 model chapter 17 44:58 is completely different chapter 17 is a 45:01 liquidity preference theory of asset 45:03 pricing so that's even more wonky than 45:05 the other one 45:06 and chapter 17 is a very difficult 45:09 chapter 45:11 almost nobody reads it 45:13 uh 45:14 the 45:15 the few mainstream economists who've 45:17 tried to read it like paul krugman said 45:19 i can't make any sense of it they don't 45:21 know what it what it's all about 45:24 it's a 45:26 generalization 45:29 of the theory of interest rate remember 45:31 that his his book is called the general 45:33 theory so 45:35 it is the 45:37 theory of interest rates 45:39 of the general theory okay so it really 45:43 is the chapter 45:45 that we need to focus on 45:47 if we want to know 45:49 what keynes was thinking about money in 45:52 and interest rates 45:54 but unfortunately it's almost virtually 45:56 ignored except by 45:58 the people who are often called the 46:00 fundamentalist keynesians 46:02 and fundamentalists sounds bad uh but 46:05 [Music] 46:06 it it wasn't wasn't meant that way 46:10 these are um people like paul davidson 46:13 uh hyman minsky 46:14 and uh jan kriegel you know all of these 46:17 were developers of the post-keynesian 46:19 approach so post-keynesians are more 46:21 familiar with this in general and uh 46:25 realized that 46:27 you know this was a an important part of 46:29 the general theory the important point 46:31 is 46:32 the money supply is not taken to be 46:34 fixed 46:35 okay it's 46:36 in our the terminology we use endogenous 46:40 and the the second point is there's no 46:43 such thing as the interest rate 46:46 kane said there is an implicit interest 46:49 rate 46:50 on anything you can hold through time 46:53 he said there's a wheat weight rate of 46:56 interest 46:57 there's a steel rate of interest 47:01 okay and there is a money rate of 47:03 interest anything you could hold through 47:05 time as an asset 47:07 has an interest rate tied up with it 47:11 so it's a generalization 47:14 of the theory of interest rates and it's 47:17 interesting that keynes developed this 47:19 view 47:20 based on earlier work 47:23 uh he and srafa had done first 47:26 when they were speculating in 47:28 commodities 47:29 keynes famously 47:31 uh had bet on i think it was wheat 47:34 futures 47:36 and uh ended up having to take 47:40 and store wheat 47:42 at the university of cambridge 47:47 they made fortunes 47:49 in commodities and then they made 47:51 fortunes 47:52 in exchange rate 47:54 futures 47:55 so they used this theory 47:59 to speculate in commodities and exchange 48:01 rates and i think another famous one was 48:03 when cain said he had broken the 48:06 portuguese currency 48:08 so he okay 48:09 someone has calculated that 48:12 keynes at one time was as rich as warren 48:14 buffett 48:16 he was very successful he also lost a 48:18 lot of money too you know he made money 48:20 and he lost money but he left cambridge 48:23 uh king's college a very big endowment 48:26 managing their funds in the general 48:29 theory 48:30 there's a footnote where he says 48:32 uh the the monetary details are going to 48:35 fall into the background he was trying 48:36 to simplify the exposition except in 48:39 that chapter 17. 48:41 and uh 48:42 the reason why he could do that is 48:44 because he had already dealt with all 48:46 the monetary details in the treaties on 48:48 money which is a two-volume 48:51 book it was you know sort of his life's 48:54 work 48:56 in 1930 he published it in 1930 48:59 and uh 49:01 as it went to the press 49:03 he wrote to his friends he said i'm 49:05 already dissatisfied with it 49:08 okay you spent all this time two volumes 49:10 goes to the press he says 49:12 i'm starting to write a new book and 49:14 that became the general theory 49:16 because he had made a huge mistake 49:19 in the treaties on money 49:21 which is that he had no theory 49:24 of the determination 49:26 of output and employment as a whole 49:30 he took those as given 49:32 which is what all the mainstream 49:35 economists 49:36 what we now call the neoclassical school 49:38 had done he did what everyone else did 49:41 he just assumed the economy would be at 49:44 full employment 49:46 you'd be producing as much as you could 49:48 using all of your resources so the 49:50 treaties assumes full employment 49:53 he realized that was a mistake 49:55 okay so the new book was going to 49:59 explain 50:00 the determination of employment and 50:02 output as a whole 50:04 that's what the general theory is 50:06 it's a theory that explains 50:10 what determines output and it need not 50:12 be full employment so that was the 50:14 revolution of his thought 50:16 that's what the general theory is all 50:18 about 50:20 he was resolving that error 50:22 from the treaties on money but he didn't 50:24 mean to change any of his monetary 50:28 theory his theory of money and interest 50:30 rates 50:31 okay 50:32 and he had laid out you know how money 50:34 works how banks work 50:36 he had 50:37 written 50:39 a bit about the origins of money the 50:41 history of money uh based on um work he 50:44 had done in the uh in the teens between 50:47 1914 and 1919. 50:50 he uh 50:51 he knew knapp's work keynes was a 50:54 chartalist in the treaties on money so 50:58 he wasn't trying to change any of that 51:00 what he was trying to do was to explain 51:03 the the determination of output and 51:06 employment as a whole and he was 51:08 continually urged 51:10 by the young economists who were working 51:13 with him 51:15 called the the circus the cambridge 51:17 circus 51:18 continually urged to make it simpler 51:22 okay they said no one's gonna understand 51:24 what we're talking about make it simpler 51:25 make it simpler use supply and demand 51:28 because economists understand supply and 51:30 demand 51:31 and 51:32 uh and there are 51:34 three 51:35 three different areas in the general 51:37 theory where he does that he simplifies 51:39 he reduces this to supply and demand 51:43 and all three of those 51:45 lead to 51:46 huge problems 51:48 such as uh reducing 51:51 his money theory to an lm curve 51:54 okay so all all three cases where he did 51:58 what his 51:59 students told him to do 52:01 simplify it 52:02 make it supply and demand 52:04 lead to uh 52:06 conceptual errors and lead to 52:08 controversy because he gets attacked by 52:10 people like srafa who know 52:12 uh you know what the problems are of 52:15 reducing things to supply and demand um 52:18 to your knowledge to what extent was 52:20 kinds aware of marx's works and 52:23 influenced his work at all or was he 52:26 nothing to do with him well obviously 52:28 you know there were 52:31 political biases yeah okay you know okay 52:35 kane said when the revolution comes you 52:37 know i'll be on the side of the 52:38 bourgeoisie 52:40 okay so there are huge political 52:42 differences people have um explored this 52:45 and 52:47 students who took notes in keynes's 52:49 classes those notes have then been 52:52 incorporated into uh into books you know 52:55 what keynes was actually teaching in the 52:57 classes there's there's not much doubt 53:00 that uh 53:01 keynes understood but strongly disliked 53:05 uh 53:06 marks 53:07 and that 53:09 the framework at least for the original 53:11 drafts of the general theory were all 53:15 in a 53:17 in the same frame as uh marx's that is i 53:21 and i already said this the monetary 53:23 theory of production you start with 53:26 money 53:27 to produce things to sell for more money 53:30 that was the frame 53:31 and uh 53:32 the the early drafts of the the general 53:35 theory are much more clear on this that 53:37 that is the way he set out to do it 53:40 monetary theory production that 53:43 pretty much all got deleted 53:45 uh you can see the early drafts in his 53:47 collected works 53:49 uh so you can see the similarities 53:52 but uh the final 53:54 product uh you don't see much except 53:57 there are the statements you know the 53:59 the entrepreneur has no other interest 54:02 than to end up with more money okay to 54:04 make profit so that that still exists 54:08 but it's not so obvious but other people 54:10 have 54:11 uh you know done the comparisons uh 54:14 there's a nice uh article that i use 54:17 often 54:18 in classes that 54:20 you can map 54:22 the general theory exposition 54:24 to marx's department's exposition 54:29 essentially one-to-one okay so the the 54:32 the end result the theory of effective 54:34 demand 54:35 has an almost exact counterpart in marx 54:39 is it a bit ironic that at the moment 54:42 the when we talk about you know um 54:44 economists of a certain political ban we 54:47 always refer to the kensingtons as the 54:49 leftists 54:50 when obviously that was not kaisen's 54:52 intention well 54:54 keynes in many ways was progressive 54:57 and uh the policy recommendations at the 55:01 end of the general theory chapter 24 55:04 policy recommendations 55:06 i think anyone who reads those 55:08 would see those as very progressive 55:10 so he wants to 55:13 greatly reduce inequality he doesn't 55:16 want an equal distribution he says there 55:18 is some justification for inequality 55:21 people who work harder 55:23 and who take risks 55:24 should get a higher return 55:27 but he says 55:29 the the amount of inequality we actually 55:32 have the the capitalism produces on its 55:35 own so it wasn't a coincidence he saw 55:38 this as a tendency the amount of 55:40 inequality that it produces 55:43 is actually detrimental 55:45 for everybody 55:46 even for the capitalists 55:48 uh because 55:50 uh it keeps demand so low 55:53 that you have to be inordinately 55:56 lucky to make it 55:59 if if inequality is really high 56:02 so 56:03 he he wanted less inequality he wanted 56:06 full employment 56:08 and he wanted to euthanize the rontier 56:12 class 56:13 now euthanasia is a pretty radical 56:16 policy prescription 56:18 for people who live on interest income 56:22 now of course he didn't mean kill him 56:26 but he is purposely using 56:29 a radical term 56:31 euthanized them he wanted to euthanize 56:33 them 56:34 through what we would now call zero 56:36 interest rate policies zerp 56:39 keynes wants zerp permanently 56:42 so monetary policy always should aim for 56:45 a zero overnight interest rate that was 56:47 keynes's policy he used another um 56:50 a radical term 56:52 he wanted to socialize investment okay 56:56 well socialism again another radical 56:58 term 56:59 it's not completely clear what he meant 57:03 by socializing investment in the general 57:05 theory it's vague if you read through 57:08 other things he wrote like especially um 57:12 the uh little pamphlet the end of 57:14 laissez-faire it seems more like 57:18 government and uh 57:20 corporate control over the investment 57:23 decision probably something more like 57:25 galbraith senior the 57:29 new industrial states sort of arguments 57:32 with government planning and government 57:34 support 57:35 you you have the the kind of early 57:38 post-war planned economy with high 57:41 aggregate demand and high investment 57:43 that seems to be probably what he wanted.
R:
57:46 the last time we spoke you told us that 57:48 warren mosler's observation that bond 57:50 sales are a reserve drain 57:52 was the thing that you'd never heard 57:54 until he'd said it that way and that 57:56 that started this line of inquiry for 57:58 you that grew into what we now call mmt 58:02 so 58:03 and the idea behind that statement if 58:05 i'm right is that whether the central 58:08 bank or the treasury sells government 58:09 bonds it's draining reserves system-wide 58:13 and when reserves have been drained to a 58:16 certain point there's a system-wide 58:17 shortage and it causes banks to need to 58:19 lend reserves to each other 58:21 that creates an interest rate on bank 58:23 reserves 58:24 so the big insight is that government 58:26 bond sales are a monetary policy 58:28 operation no matter which branch of 58:29 government does it 58:30 so does that sound about right so far?
Wray:
58:34 yes so i 58:37 was 58:39 a 58:40 deficit dub for sure 58:44 i 58:45 didn't worry about government debt 58:47 i 58:48 figured that 58:51 the demand for government bonds was 58:54 virtually without limit 58:56 but when warren said that 58:59 you know suddenly you realize 59:02 that you shouldn't think of debt as 59:04 borrowing at all 59:06 okay so i i wasn't worried we would you 59:09 know run out of the ability to borrow by 59:11 issuing bonds 59:13 but when he said that 59:15 it's just a reserve drain and then i 59:18 thought back to my money and banking 59:20 class stephanie and i both had this 59:23 professor john randlett so we had gone 59:25 through all this and i knew the the what 59:28 we call t accounts the accounting for it 59:31 so i knew he was right and that just 59:34 instantly changes your view 59:36 of what the bonds are doing then 59:38 all they're doing is draining reserves 59:40 it's not a borrowing operation the 59:42 reserves have to be put into the banks 59:44 first and if that's true 59:47 you're not borrowing 59:49 okay because 59:50 the reserves are not a borrowing 59:52 operation it is the central bank 59:56 that is either 59:58 buying 59:59 up assets from banks or lending to banks 60:02 that leads to the creation of the 60:04 reserves there's no borrowing operation 60:06 there at all 60:08 and so once you realize that then 60:11 you know you're taking the blinders off 60:13 and you see governments don't borrow 60:16 i i had always thought the government 60:17 could 60:18 you know print money and pay for things 60:21 and i wasn't worried about that either 60:24 but the the i did think that they were 60:26 borrowing and he made it very clear 60:29 that's not true 60:30 so then then you just see the bonds in a 60:32 completely different light 60:34 and then 60:35 of course you can 60:38 instead just pay interest on reserves so 60:41 putting aside the effect of quantitative 60:43 easing for a moment um i've been working 60:45 with the idea that central banks outside 60:48 of a policy like quantitative easing hit 60:50 their interest rate target by adding or 60:52 draining reserves through open market 60:54 operations but i've also heard you talk 60:56 about a thing called the announcement 60:58 effect and if i've understood that 61:00 correctly the idea there is that the 61:02 federal open market committee's own 61:04 announcements of their target interest 61:06 rate in and of themselves serve to 61:08 achieve that rate 61:10 nobody wants to fight the fed i believe 61:12 the saying goes and and so if i've got 61:14 that right presumably bond sales still 61:16 do drain reserves but if the government 61:19 aren't buying and selling bonds to 61:20 affect interest rates and they're not 61:22 doing it to raise revenues as we've 61:24 established 61:25 where does that leave us well see 61:28 some of this is 61:32 because of 61:34 these peculiar operating procedures we 61:37 had in the united states 61:39 up until 1994. in the united states the 61:42 fed did not announce its target interest 61:45 rate 61:46 so we didn't know what it was 61:48 the fed would meet behind closed doors 61:51 at the end of the meeting 61:53 they would allow one reporter to to 61:56 phone them the reporters are next door 61:59 in another room 62:00 but they're not allowed in the meeting 62:02 they got one phone call 62:05 and uh the fed would read a little 62:07 statement that would say 62:09 in view of the conditions blah blah blah 62:11 blah of the economy we've decided to 62:14 slightly increase pressure 62:18 and that was it 62:19 okay 62:20 and so then the markets had to try to 62:22 figure out oh okay what is the new 62:25 overnight interest rate target increased 62:27 pressure that sounds like they're going 62:28 to raise it 62:30 what is it 62:31 we don't know 62:33 and so it would take a little while for 62:36 the market to figure out what it was 62:39 and the the fed might have to push the 62:41 market a little bit you know maybe the 62:43 market 62:44 i thought it was going to go higher than 62:46 what the fed wanted so they're going to 62:48 put some reserves in 62:50 or it didn't go high enough the fed 62:52 takes some reserves out 62:54 so the fed did engage in open market 62:56 operations 62:57 to nudge the rate 62:59 to the secret rate they wouldn't tell 63:01 the market 63:03 what they were aiming for 63:05 that all changed in 1994 and that's a 63:08 very interesting story why it changed 63:10 uh but anyway so after that fed okay 63:13 we're going to be transparent now we're 63:15 going to tell you what the the target is 63:18 and once you do that it's going to go 63:20 there immediately because 63:23 you know the fed is going to put it 63:24 there 63:25 so 63:26 no one is going to lend below that and 63:29 no one's going to pay more than that so 63:31 the market rate is going to move to it 63:33 immediately 63:34 so they don't have to do anything 63:36 anymore so it was this strange thing 63:38 that the fed wouldn't tell them what the 63:40 target was 63:41 that that that then forced the fed to 63:43 actually do things now it doesn't have 63:45 to do anything at all but it still does 63:47 open market operations sure uh it will 63:50 do those 63:51 um in coordination with the um the 63:55 treasury because 63:57 the 63:58 treasury impacts 64:00 uh bank reserves 64:02 either 64:04 tax receipts or treasury spending will 64:06 impact bank reserves 64:08 and the fed has to 64:10 accommodate those i think warren calls 64:13 it offsetting operating factors right 64:15 yep okay got it you've mentioned 64:17 elsewhere that you think the canadian 64:19 central bank has probably the most 64:21 efficient approach 64:22 to targeting their interest rate could 64:24 you talk about that yeah 64:26 so they um banks are um encouraged to 64:30 try to end each day with zero probably 64:33 everything has changed with qe i know 64:35 nothing about canadian qe okay 64:39 so uh 64:40 all the countries that adopted 64:42 qe 64:43 have put massive excess reserves into 64:45 their banking system okay 64:48 uh so 64:49 now you're you never have to worry about 64:51 banks being short reserves 64:53 because they've got trillions of extra 64:56 so the fed never has to 64:59 put reserves in 65:01 in advance of some 65:04 big you know april 15 as tax day in the 65:06 united states you don't have to put 65:08 reserves into the banks in advance of 65:11 that because they have so many extra 65:13 there won't be any impact so anyway the 65:15 canadian system was aim for zero 65:19 if you end up short that's perfectly 65:21 fine because the central bank 65:23 allows an overdraft and charges you 65:26 interest 65:27 if you end up with a positive amount 65:29 that's perfectly fine 65:30 the central bank pays interest on 65:32 reserves canada was already doing that 65:35 i'm pretty sure when i was writing 65:37 understanding modern money so that's 65:38 like 19 1997 65:41 canada had already moved to that system 65:44 by contrast in the united states the fed 65:46 paid zero 65:47 interest on reserves so 65:50 you couldn't um 65:52 leave extra reserves in the system 65:55 because 65:56 the interest rate would drop to zero in 65:59 other words unless your target was zero 66:00 which it never was back then 66:03 you would be pushing 66:04 the market rate way below your target 66:07 all the way to zero 66:09 in canada it couldn't fall to zero 66:11 because it would only fall to whatever 66:13 the central bank paid 66:15 we we also changed so after the global 66:18 financial crisis 66:20 the fed got permission from congress to 66:23 pay interest on reserves so we've moved 66:25 to 66:26 or toward a canadian system but we've 66:29 had qe ever since 66:31 so our banks have massive excess 66:33 reserves since the global financial 66:35 crisis 66:37 and um 66:38 you know there's lots of discussion 66:39 about 66:40 how do you get out of that will we ever 66:43 get out of it will we ever go back to 66:46 normal where banks only hold the 66:48 reserves that they're required to have 66:50 and 66:51 your answer to that question is 66:54 is it even important we want a permanent 66:56 zero interest rate policy 66:58 just like keynes did right i would 67:00 prefer that we took interest rate 67:02 setting out of the hands of the central 67:05 bank 67:06 and um 67:07 and said it by congress and 67:10 yes uh zero or very very low 67:14 and don't use that as a policy tool no 67:18 that would be my preference 67:20 and in that case you could be paying 67:22 zero or very very low 67:25 then the next question is do you want to 67:27 still issue government bonds 67:30 the interest rate on the shortest term 67:32 bonds is going to be very close 67:34 to whatever that interest rate target is 67:36 so 30-day bonds are going to be very 67:38 similar 67:39 and then you start to wonder doesn't 67:41 make any sense to issue bonds if all the 67:43 bonds are is an alternative to reserves 67:45 why not just get rid of the bonds 67:48 and that's what you know bill mitchell 67:50 and warren moser have been 67:53 advocating let's just stop issuing the 67:55 bonds all together and do you think that 67:58 uh on that bond issuance um is there a 68:01 place for that say you know in times of 68:03 war i know that they have bonds have 68:05 been instrumental 68:06 is there a chance that bonds may become 68:09 again instrumental in in the case of a 68:11 climate emergency a green new deal 68:15 or any other sort of immediate need for 68:18 savings so yeah it's it's part of 68:21 patriotic saving so 68:23 it's your patriotic duty to not consume 68:27 and here we will give you a reward we 68:30 will sell you a bond and we we will pay 68:32 you this interest rate 68:34 so yeah i think that it can serve 68:37 an important 68:40 important place in trying to release 68:42 resources 68:44 it's preferable to taxes 68:46 people don't like taxes of course but 68:48 but also the point is 68:50 taxes remove 68:52 the income permanently so it's gone 68:55 what bonds do is it shifts 68:59 the income to later 69:01 and that's probably what you want to do 69:04 if we're undertaking all of this 69:06 investment 69:07 in building a sustainable 69:10 i mean environmentally 69:12 socially 69:14 sustainable 69:16 economy 69:18 maybe it's going to take us 10 years to 69:19 do that 69:20 you know that's sort of the the time 69:22 frame people are looking at to green the 69:24 economy so let's say it takes 10 years 69:27 of massive investments to do this 69:30 we only want to 69:31 reduce 69:33 resource use 69:35 for consumption and private investment 69:38 for 10 years after that 69:40 we're going to have greater capacity and 69:42 it's going to be sustainable capacity 69:45 we want to release the spending 69:48 so that's the good thing about the bonds 69:51 people only postpone their consumption 69:54 they don't have to permanently reduce it 69:56 so that that's why you want to use bonds 69:58 i also think even aside from fighting 70:01 the the multiple pandemics there is a 70:04 positive role for bonds to play 70:07 i would keep 70:09 savings bonds 70:10 uh as an option so i wouldn't eliminate 70:14 all bond sales i but i would 70:17 say that you know only 70:19 households 70:21 and maybe not for profits 70:23 would be allowed to buy savings bonds 70:27 congress would set the interest rate set 70:30 the terms maybe put income limits people 70:34 with income greater than 70 000 wouldn't 70:36 be able to buy these 70:38 just as a way to promote safe 70:41 private saving 70:43 among low to middle income people you 70:46 know for college for uh 70:48 buying a house later and so on to give 70:50 them a safe alternative to 70:53 private uh 70:54 financial institution offerings so you 70:58 recently co-authored a policy note with 71:00 edward lane entitled why president biden 71:03 should eliminate corporate taxes to 71:05 build back better now this in my 71:08 experience has been a very tricky point 71:10 to get across to progressive people even 71:12 when they understand mmt 71:15 could you just lay out the idea behind 71:17 this policy note yes 71:20 so 71:21 as an undergraduate as i said i 71:24 studied money and banking with john 71:26 randlett 71:27 and i studied uh public finance uh with 71:31 um 71:32 wilma krebs 71:34 and um she used musgrave and musgrave 71:37 uh a 71:38 husband and wife team who wrote the most 71:41 famous public finance book and 71:44 a lot of it is you know very mainstream 71:47 economics with the 71:50 neoclassical micro 71:52 theory 71:53 but 71:54 a lot of it also is keynesian they had 71:57 chapters in there that uh went through 71:59 the corporate uh attacks and i i read 72:01 all this in the late 70s but it's always 72:03 been in the back of my mind 72:05 uh you know that the the corporate tax 72:07 has a lot of problems 72:09 and then hyman minsky my professor 72:12 dissertation advisor 72:14 had a section in his book and i remember 72:17 in class also talking about the problems 72:19 of the corporate income tax and then 72:22 finally beardsley rummel who we've used 72:26 mmt he went around the country after 72:28 world war ii saying taxes are no longer 72:31 needed for revenue purposes the war has 72:33 taught 72:34 the government and the people that we 72:36 don't need taxes to pay for stuff 72:38 he also 72:40 had a long section on how bad the 72:43 corporate tax was it was his 72:45 main example 72:47 of a very bad tax okay 72:50 and 72:51 all of them 72:53 pointed out 72:55 that uh in terms of tax incidents which 72:57 means 72:58 that you know we we put the tax on 73:00 corporate profits 73:02 but who really pays it 73:06 may not be the corporation 73:08 because corporations can pass it 73:11 we say pass it forward that is they can 73:13 raise the price to consumers to cover 73:16 the tax they can pass it backward 73:19 that is they pay lower wages to workers 73:22 to make up for the tax 73:25 or they can pass it to the shareholders 73:27 which 73:28 means that they pay less dividends 73:31 to the shareholders 73:33 okay if they pass it forward it's 73:35 inflationary 73:36 and 73:38 probably not progressive 73:40 because you're hitting consumers if they 73:42 pass it backward 73:44 it is hitting workers not progressive 73:48 if they pass it to shareholders good 73:51 that that's progressive 73:53 okay because shareholders tend to be 73:55 higher income 73:56 but then you look at who the 73:57 shareholders are only about a quarter 74:01 of shareholders are american individuals 74:05 75 percent are not 74:07 if i remember 40 of foreigners and the 74:09 rest are institutions which includes 74:12 your pension funds and so on so only 25 74:17 are potentially 74:19 uh you know it would be a potentially 74:22 progressive tax and uh 74:25 economists debate all the time about how 74:27 much of the shifting occurs the 74:29 estimates are wide so i will admit that 74:32 my 74:33 my belief is 74:34 that uh it's probably mostly workers and 74:37 consumers that pay the tax because our 74:40 corporations 74:41 have 74:43 both 74:44 power in pricing and power in wage 74:46 setting especially 74:48 after ronald reagan and the destruction 74:50 of labor unions 74:52 so 74:53 i don't think it's a progressive tax 74:55 then there are other potential problems 74:58 such as offshoring 75:00 moving your headquarters which might 75:02 mean you only have a mailbox in ireland 75:05 now biden is trying to deal with that i 75:07 think that's a good thing if you're 75:09 going to have a corporate tax 75:11 it's got to be international 75:13 otherwise 75:15 you're just 75:16 encouraging corporations to play games 75:19 to 75:20 avoid and evade avoid as legal evade is 75:24 illegal they do both 75:26 to avoid and evade the corporate profits 75:29 tax so it creates problems like that too 75:32 and so you know we we wrote it up and i 75:35 i know progressives hate it because 75:38 two reasons if you look at corporate tax 75:42 revenue as a percent of federal income 75:46 and federal revenue sorry 75:48 we call it income 75:50 and also states 75:52 uh it has plummeted for two reasons one 75:55 the tax rate has declined but also it's 75:58 the evasion and avoidance so it's 76:00 plummeted 76:01 potentially 76:03 it could raise a lot of revenue if you 76:05 can enforce it 76:07 and raise the rate so they see it as a 76:10 way to 76:11 get a lot of revenue to pay for all the 76:13 good things they want 76:15 and of course we know that's nonsense 76:17 but they really truly believe that and 76:20 the other reason is because 76:22 and the response will be 76:23 but you know corporations are evil so we 76:25 ought to attack some 76:27 and my response to that is no if they're 76:29 evil we ought to shut them down 76:34 you don't tax evil 76:37 you stop it uh 76:39 and i think corporations do engage in a 76:42 lot of evil behavior and we have a 76:44 solution to that corporations have to 76:46 get charters 76:48 the chartering process 76:50 because from the very beginning the idea 76:52 behind corporations is they have to 76:54 serve the public interest 76:56 and if they're not they should not exist 76:59 we should take away the corporate 77:01 charters i think that's a much better 77:03 solution 77:04 uh to dealing with bad behavior 77:07 corporations you take away the charters 77:08 and you say sorry you are no longer 77:11 allowed 77:13 to be a corporation that's publicly 77:15 owned now we have problems with the 77:17 private owned ones too so we got to deal 77:20 with a lot of 77:22 uh bad behavior 77:24 by firms uh but i i think that arguing 77:28 taxing taxing them because they're evil 77:31 uh is just not the the right way if we 77:33 want to go after the shareholders and i 77:35 think that is what we should do 77:37 uh we should be imputing 77:40 uh all of the um profits to the owners 77:44 of the corporations not for profits own 77:47 corporations they're already exempt so 77:50 we we don't need to to tax the holders 77:53 that are not individuals 77:55 but we would impute the the profits to 77:58 the owners the individual owners of 78:00 stocks and tax them as normal income i 78:03 think that's the right way to get at the 78:05 shareholders okay well i think that's a 78:07 great place to leave it we've been 78:09 speaking with professor l randall ray 78:11 author of many key mmt texts most 78:14 importantly understanding modern money 78:16 and professor ray will be a keynote 78:19 speaker at the upcoming 2021 european 78:22 mmt conference and you can find links to 78:24 professor rey's work and to information 78:26 about the conference in the show notes 78:28 for this episode 78:30 but for now thank you so much we're so 78:33 honored and it was great thank you so 78:35 much for joining us today on the mmt 78:37 podcast professor l randall ray thank 78:40 you 78:43 [Music] 78:50 that was the mmt podcast with patricia 78:53 pino and christian riley 78:55 don't forget you can support the show 78:57 through patreon starting at a dollar a 79:00 month and get access to patron only 79:02 episodes you can do that by going to 79:04 patreon.com 79:06 mmt podcast you can also find me on 79:09 twitter at mmt podcast and you can find 79:12 patricia on twitter at 79:15 patricianpino and you can email us at 79:18 mmtpodcast 79:19 outlook.com thanks for listening and we 79:22 hope to hear from you 79:24 [Music] 79:37 you
グラフ00:00we 00:01は、失業を00:04の準備ができており、賃金のために働く意欲のある人々と定義しています00:08失業者00:11は、00:12彼らが頻繁に何もしていないという意味で失業していません00:14たくさんやっていて、彼らもたくさん働いている00:17生き残ろうとしている00:19彼らは00:21賃金のために働いていないので失業していて、以前の種類の00:24人間社会はそうではなかった経験00:26失業00:29が失業しているのは通貨システムです私たちの00:32通貨システムは当初から00:34当局によって作成され、その00:36の目的はリソースを00:39当局に移動することでした00:41公共の目的を達成するために使用する00:44通貨システムを使用して00:46失業中のリソースを作成し、それを00:49稼働させないのはおかしいです00:50あなたのリスナーのほとんどは00:52ではない場合エコノミストは私にとって00:53意味のある男の子と言うでしょう00:55正しい00:56しかし私たちが経済学を研究したなら00:58経済学が教えているのでそれはそうではありません失業が望まれるすべての01:02学生01:06失業は政策の間違いではありません01:08それは政策ツールですそれは私たちがインフレと戦うために01:12を使用するツールです01:14普通の人々が見るものが01:16になるようにエコノミストが解決策と見なす問題01:20かなりクレイジーですが、これは01:22経済学が教えていることです01:31これはパトリシアのmmtポッドキャストです01:34ピノとクリスチャンライリー01:40こんにちは私はクリスチャンライリーです01:42に現代貨幣理論のポッドキャスト01:45はツイッターのmmtpodcastで私たちを見つけることができ、01:48あなたは01:50 patreon.comに行くことによってショーをサポートすることができます01:52 mmtポッドキャスト初めての場合01:55mmtについて聞いて01:5701:59の最初の3つのエピソードを聞いてください02:01にリンクした紹介といくつかのショーノートこの特定の02:05エピソードに関連する他の02:03の事柄、そしてこれまでのように私がリンクした場所02:08このポッドキャストを財政的にサポートすることができます02:11patreon.com経由02:13mmtポッドキャスト02:15サポートはで始まります月に1ドル、月に02:17ポンド、またはそれに相当する02:19はどこに住んでいても、02:22のレベルのサポートに関係なく、02:24にすべてのエピソードとパトロン02にアクセスできます。 :27あなたが私に尋ねることができるエピソードと02:28 patriciammtの質問私たちは100です02:32リスナーはあなたの財政的支援に資金を提供しました02:34は本当にショーを続けるのに役立ちますそして02:36それがそうであるかどうかにかかわらず他の方法であなたの支援s 02:38他の人に私たちを推薦するか、02:40このことについて02:42という言葉を聞いて広めるだけで、本当に大きな助けになります02:45すべてのサポーターに感謝します02:47遠く、ありがとう02:50がmmt02:53を理解するために、02:56mmtポッドキャストに飛び込みましょう。私はクリスチャンライリーです。02:58パトリシアピノです。 03:01本日、プライマリーmmtアカデミックと03:03現代貨幣理論の著者が参加しました03:05教授l randall ray hi randy hi 03:08randy先制したかった03:10おめでとうございます03:122022 03:14のベブレンコモンズ賞は、03:18の進化的制度派経済学の分野への優れた学術的貢献03:16の表彰であるため、03:21おめでとうございます03:23感謝しますが、ここから始まり、03:25今um 03:26 Bloombergは最近、「私たちはmmtの世界に住んでいますか」というタイトルの作品を公開しました作品は03:38mmtにかなり公平です03:40私は彼らが03:42mmtに何か鍵を逃したと思います03:43混乱につながる可能性があります03:51政府は、支出を支払うために03:53の収入を上げる必要はないという考えに、mmt 03:56は、需要の冷却などの他の03:58の目的に税金が役立つ可能性があることを認めています04:00所得の再分配または04:02と望ましくない行動を思いとどまらせる04:04今私は04:06彼らが04:11憲章であるmmtによると税金の主な目的04:09をスキップしたと言うでしょうお金の見方と、通貨発行政府のために支出とタクシーが発生する04:14シーケンス全体04:18その空白を埋めることができますか? :24私たち04:25はこれらの貨幣化された経済に住んでいます04:28そしてあなたは彼らが本当に私たちがここに来た方法について深く考えていないことを知っています04:34なぜ私たちはアメリカを受け入れるのですか04:37これらええと04:38 [音楽] 04:40緑の紙04:42そして04:44それらの04:45を手に入れるために一生懸命働いて喜んでそして店は04:49支払い04:50でそれらを喜んで受け入れます人々は04:54なぜそれが04:56であるのか不思議に思うので、mmtが04:59で強調されているのは、最初から05:01 05:03umあなたが05:05をする理由がなければならないということですそれは単に05:08ではありません多くの人々はまあそれは私を信頼していると言います05:10信頼私はこれを誰かに渡すことができます05:12他の人はそれが05:15論理的ですええと回帰ええと05:18あなたは知っていますそしてええそれは決して終わらない05:25システム全体の信頼をやめたらどうなるか05:27崩壊05:28そしてそれはナンセンスだと言う05:30私たちの05:33通貨システムの根底にあるものは何かしなければならない05:36妄想的な信頼よりも重要05:40その紙には価値があるので、05:43は最初から05:49当局であり、常に05:50当局であった05:52を選択すると主張します。アカウントのお金05:55彼らは05:58に建てられた義務を課しますそのアカウント06:00のお金は彼ら自身の06:04の負債で06:02支払われますええと私達はそれらのものを06:07ええとええとお金の通貨06:10 um 06:10だから、私たちは06:13に苦しんでいないことを知っていますこの06:14無限後退問題06:16論理的にも06:21も歴史的に知っているので、全体がどのように始まったのか06:18 :23新しい国が06:26のいずれかで形成されたとき、彼らが最初に行うことは、06:27アカウントのお金を選択することです06:29彼らは06:31アカウントのそのお金に義務を課し、彼ら自身の06を発行します:そのアカウントのお金での33の義務06:36そしてそれは本当に06:38通貨を開始から駆動するものです06:41しかし私は彼らの弁護で06:45私たちはとても幸せです06:47その06:48ブルームバーグ06 :50他06:51は現在06:54に焦点を合わせています06:57は06:58であり、支出が多すぎると07:01インフレを引き起こす可能性があります07:02税金を使用して支出を減らすことができます07:05 :08から07:09リリースリソース07:11公の場で使用できる07:13利害07:14税金を使用できる07:17不平等を減らす07:19だから、人々が07:21税金ではなくそれに焦点を合わせていることを本当にうれしく思います07: 24お金を払うええそれははるかに良いです07:26それは間違いなく正しい方向への一歩です07:28あなたがその07:31チャーターレスフレームワークを持っていない場合に07:29を逃す他のものはシーケンス07:34です07:34の納税義務が最初に来て、07:37政府がお金を使って存在するようにします07:40そしてそのお金を何かの価値があるようにします07:42彼らが使用したブルームバーグの記事07:44あなたはどのように07:46政府のパンデミックな対応は、私たちがmmt 07:51の世界にいたら、07:48が実行されたでしょう。57誰がいつも07:59に税金が失業を生み出すと言ったのか知っています08:02そしてそれが彼らの目的です08:03だから、税金は08:06の労働だけでなく、税金は08:09のリソースを解放します08:11その後、08:13を動員することができます。これは、政府が08:15に08:18に税金を使用するものです。これは、大きな新しい08:22イニシアチブに着手する場合、特に重要です。 08:26 08:27パンデミック対応は別の08:29例です08:31あなたが直面している問題08:36に取り組むために08:33にリソースを解放する必要があるかもしれません08:37そして税金はそうする方法ですその08:41ええと08:43ええと08:45私たちはこれを完全に理解しました08:48ええと私たちはあなたが08:55の問題を知っていることを理解するでしょう私たちはすでに約5兆08:58と08:59 09の支払い:01ええと引数09:03は本当にその09:06のバックバーナーにありましたが、今私たちはさらに09:094兆09:11ええとを費やそうとしていますそしてええと突然みんなは彼らが再び支払うことについて09:14を心配しています本当に09:16最初からmmtを理解しました09:19彼らはそれが間違っていることを知っているでしょう09:21質問09:22重要なのは09:24リソースを動員できるかどうか09:27必要な09:28入札者が09:30を提案しているようなものは、09:32ブルームバーグや他の人々が09:39が最初のラウンドで09:41を指摘したように、mmtの本当の理解が行うことだと思います09:45を参照しましたが、09:47と参照されました。これは、ミルトンフリードマンのヘリコプターに似た09:50の新しい支出方法です。09:52マネードロップ09:55エコノミーにお金をドロップできます09:56通常、09:58はパンデミックが非常に深刻であることを望んでいませんが、10:01ええと、緊急10:06が私たちを過ぎてしまったので、10:04緊急対策として実行します。 10:09ええと、指が交差しました。10:11だとは思いませんが、10:12は、私たちの後ろにいくらか10:14あると考えています。 10:20ヘリコプターマネーのようなばかげたことをもう一度10:22今私たちは支出ジャネットの支払いをしなければなりません10:24イエレン財務長官は10:27とまったく同じようなことを言いました10:33増税によって財政スペースを開く10:35財政スペース10:37入札者が望んでいるようなことをするために10:40だから、これは10:42先に進む問題だと思う
Landers Film & Video Reviews - 第 36 巻 - 22 ページ books.google.co.jp › books · このページを訳す 1991 · スニペット表示 次の書籍のコンテンツと一致: – 22 ページ Keynes ' great political tracts made him an international celebrity who spoke with authority . ... socialism yet called himself a " man of the left , " but he stated that if revolution were to come , " I ' ll be on the side of the educated bourgeoisie .
ry Political Thought books.google.co.jp › books · このページを訳す Professor of Political Science Terence Ball, Terence Ball, Richard Bellamy · 2003 次の書籍のコンテンツと一致: – 50 ページ The revolution would find him on the side of the educated bourgeoisie ' ( Keynes 1971-89 , vol . IX , p . 297 ) . Keynes believed that the great task for ...
返信削除Landers Film & Video Reviews - 第 36 巻 - 22 ページ
books.google.co.jp › books
· このページを訳す
1991 · スニペット表示
次の書籍のコンテンツと一致: – 22 ページ
Keynes ' great political tracts made him an international celebrity who spoke with authority . ... socialism yet called himself a " man of the left , " but he stated that if revolution were to come , " I ' ll be on the side of the educated bourgeoisie .
ry Political Thought
返信削除books.google.co.jp › books
· このページを訳す
Professor of Political Science Terence Ball, Terence Ball, Richard Bellamy · 2003
次の書籍のコンテンツと一致: – 50 ページ
The revolution would find him on the side of the educated bourgeoisie ' ( Keynes 1971-89 , vol . IX , p . 297 ) . Keynes believed that the great task for ...
返信削除9説得論集
356〜7
私は自由党党員か
それでは、私は労働党に入党すべきだろうか。一見したところ、その方が魅力的ではある。しかし、もっとよく考
えてみると、多大の困難が控えている。まず、それ [労働党]は階級政党であるが、その階級は私の所属する階級で
はない。とにかく階級的利益を追求するのだとすれば、私は自分自身の利益を追求するだろう。もしも階級闘争とい
うことになれば、私の偏狭で個人的な忠誠心も、他の人々と同じように〜〜一部の不快なまでに熱狂的な人々は別で
あるが〜〜、私自身の環境によって支配されるだろう。私が、自分にとって正義であり、良識であると思われるもの
から影響を受けるというのは、ありうることである。しかし、階級戦争が起これば、私は、教養あるブルジョアジー
の側に立つことになるであろう。
も愉快なことであるに違いない! |多額の献金に応じ、ひまな時間をすべてつぎ込むに足る価値あることに違い
ないだろう|もっとも、それらも諸君が政治的動物であるとしたならば、の話だが。 hの
したがって、政治的動物は、「私はどこの政党員でもありません」などという見下げはてた言葉をどうしてもロに
することができないのである以上、どの政党にも属さないでいるよりも、むしろどれかの政党に所属しようとするこ
とであろう。このような人は、もしも積極的に魅力の大小にしたがって自らの党を見つけることができなければ、消
極的に、嫌悪感の大小に従って自らの党を求めざるを得ないのであり、仲間はずれになっているよりは、嫌悪を感じ
治
政
第
る度合いが最も少ない人々のもとへ赴くにちがいない。
さて、私自身の場合を考えてみようーこの消極的なテストによれば、私はどの政党に身を置くことになるのだろ
うか。どうして私が保守党員になれようか。保守党は私に、食料も飲み水も与えてくれはしない すなわち知的な
慰めも精神的な慰めも与えてはくれないのだ。保守党は、私を愉快にさせたり、あるいは興奮させたり、あるいは啓」
発させることもないにちがいない。保守党員||とはいえ、その名前はあげないでおくが に共通する雰囲気、心
的態度、人生観によっては、私自身の利益も公共の利益も増進されはしない。それはどこへも導いてくれない。それ
はいかなる理想も満足させてくれない。それはどのような知的基準にも合致しない。それは、われわれがすでに達し
ている文明の水準を、その算奪者たちから護ってくれるほど頼りがいのあるものでもないし、そのようなことに適応 切
しているわけでもない。
それでは、私は労働党に入党すべきだろうか。一見したところ、その方が魅力的ではある。しかし、もっとよく考
えてみると、多大の困難が控えている。まず、それ [労働党〕は階級政党であるが、その階級は私の所属する階級で
はない。とにかく階級的利益を追求するのだとすれば、私は自分自身の利益を追求するだろう。もしも階級闘争とい
357
3 私は自由党党員か
うことになれば、私の偏狭で個人的な忠誠心も、他の人々と同じように〜〜一部の不快なまでに熱狂的な人々は別で
あるが〜〜、私自身の環境によって支配されるだろう。私が、自分にとって正義であり、良識であると思われるもの
から影響を受けるというのは、ありうることである。しかし、階級戦争が起これば、私は、教養あるブルジョアジー
の側に立つことになるであろう。
しかし何にもまして、私は、労働党内の知識人分子がつねに十分な支配力を発揮することになるとは考えていな
い。自分たちが論じていることが何たるかを全然知らないような人々によって、あまりにも多くのことが決定される
のが常となろう。そして、||ありえないことではないが||もしも、この政党の支配力が独裁的な幹部連に握られ
るようなことになれば、この支配力は、極左派|私ならば破壊党(the party of catastrophe)と呼ぶような労働
党の分派|の利益となるように行使されるだろう
消極的テストにしたがえば、私の気持ちは、自由党こそ、やはり将来の進歩のための最善の手段だという信念に傾
くほかはない ただし、自由党のみが強力な指導力を発揮し、正しい綱領を備えているとしてのことだが。
しかし、政党の問題を積極的に||反接を誘う点ではなく、むしろ魅力を感じさせる点を参考にしてー 考える段
になると、われわれの希望を政党の政策面に託そうとも、党を構成している人間の面に託そうとも、どの政党につい
ても同じように、形勢は暗濡としている。しかも、その理由はどの政党の場合にも同一一なのである。一九世紀の歴史
的な政党問題は、一週間まえの羊の肉と同様、生気を失っている。そして、未来にかかわるさまざまの問題が不気味
に迫ってきているのに、それらは今なお政党問題となるに到っていないし、旧来からの政党の路線ではとても把握す
ることができない。
市民的自由と宗教的自由、参政権、アイルランド問題、イギリス属領の政治的自立、イギリス上院の権限、所得。