February 5, 2019

MMT ― backstop or advanced life support for the Oligarchy?

Comment on Tom Hickey on ‘Michael Roberts ― MMT 3 ― a backstop to capitalism’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference

Michael Roberts, the card-carrying Marxist economist, evaluates MMT: “MMT only offers a backstop to capitalist investment and employment, not an alternative.”

This does not excite the MMT philosopher Tom Hickey: “OK. Well, MMT didn’t set out to replace capitalism. So, the MMT economists are not calling for revolution. As if that is most serious charge that can be mounted against MMT?”

No, the most serious charge against MMT is that it claims to benefit WeThePeople but instead benefits the Oligarchy. To pay for social benefits with deficit-spending/money-creation is simply a political fraud. This is because of the macroeconomic Profit Law which boils down to Public Deficit = Private Profit. So, MMT offers a permanent free lunch to the Oligarchy which is beefed up with interest on a permanently rolled-over growing public debt. This amounts to reversed taxation of WeThePeople by the IRS on behalf of the Oligarchy.

Fabulous wealth in the USA is the mirror image of fabulous public debt (~$22 trillion and counting) ― NOT of productivity, innovation, monopoly, free markets, or exploitation.

Because the Marxist economist Michael Roberts does not know what profit is, he swallows MMT as an employment program and does not realize that it is a profit program that keeps the Oligarchy alive and well until the growth of public debt hits a wall.

Hundred and fifty years ago, Marx did not understand how capitalism works but things have not improved in the meantime among Marxist and non-Marxist economists.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


Related 'MMT and Marxism ― blather as immunizing stratagem' and 'Here is the long overdue scientific death certificate for Marx and Marxists' and 'MMT vs The Rest of Economics ― a Punch and Judy show' and 'MMT: Distribution is the drawback NOT Inflation' and 'MMT: For the record' and 'MMT Progressives: stupid or corrupt or both?'. For the full-spectrum refutation of MMT see cross-references MMT.

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REPLY to Panclasta on Feb 10

You ask: “How to analyse the current impacts of deficit spending to prove MMT does not and will not work to rescue capitalism in its current form?”

MMT does exactly that because deficit-spending/money-creation is a free lunch for the Oligarchy, see Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump, etc. and exploding profit.


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Twitter Feb 26, 2023 Oligarchy is the correct designation, not Democracy