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A thread on what #MMT has to say re: small, non-hegemonic or so-called "developing" countries, a vital topic for any truly global & decolonial political economy. @FadhelKaboub has been working on this for decades. But recently many MMTers & fellow-travelers r now taking it on 1/x https://twitter.com/bazintastic/status/1181702040029925376
Let's review MMT basics: fiscally speaking, any currency-issuing gov't with a floating exchange rate & productive infrastructures can afford to mobilize available persons & materials in order to serve communities & the planet. MMT terms this "monetary sovereignty." 2/x
According to MMT, monetary sovereignty is neither absolute, nor an all-or-nothing condition. Instead, monetary sovereignty comes in many qualities & degrees. Here is a good introductory talk on the topic by my colleague @NathanTankus at @law_uom. 3/x
As a side note, my own work goes further. I challenge the very name and logic of "sovereignty." A modern notion w/ no real pre-modern equivalents, sovereignty has come to mean absolute political independence & freedom, & a position above & outside law within specific borders 4/x
Eschewing the rhetoric sovereignty, I conceive governance grounded in inescapable problems of global dependence & law as mediating such dependencies from within. Far from opposing MMT, I see myself developing & nuancing its own impulses. 5/x https://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/shape-law
In any case, I now prefer the term "monetary agency" to "monetary sovereignty." And so, I speak in terms of "degrees of monetary agency," preferring not to reproduce the problems associated with discourses & practices of sovereignty. 6/x
When it comes to non-hegemonic countries, the 1st obstacle to actualizing monetary agency occurs when a gov't either 1) does not issue its own currency, 2) pegs its currency to a foreign currency, 3) takes on large foreign debts or 4) is legally denied credit creation powers 7/x
All 4 of the above obstacles are, of course, political decisions, meaning that there are no autonomous economic laws keeping them in place. That said, politics & production are never without challenges--*especially* given centuries of colonial destruction & exploitation. 8/x
So, while one part of increasing monetary agency for a non-hegemonic country is to reclaim the political & legal capacities to create money in one way or another, the other crucial part requires using the public purse to build up & reorganize production in decolonizing ways. 9/x
Meanwhile, the majority of postcolonial countries have been ruined by export-led growth policies. They ship out raw materials which, if needed, might otherwise be mobilized internally, while importing costly capital & manufactured goods, along with potential inflation. 10/x
The result is a vicious cycle, which leaves many countries fiscally incapacitated and also highly reliant on socially & ecologically destructive foreign investments & seasonal tourism--not to mention genocidal IMF debt restructuring requirements. 11/x
To reverse this vicious cycle, po-co countries must reclaim their monetary agency, but also use their fiscal capacities carefully, focusing on environmentally sustainable energy & agriculture production--what economists typically call "energy" and "food sovereignty." 12/x
Even with increased fiscal agency & productive capacities, however, plenty of obstacles remain. MMT is not magic & centuries of systemic devastation are't going to be reversed overnight. Still, MMT-informed politics are a powerful step forward. 13/x
Along the way, there are plenty of things a country can do: 1) developing production that does not reproduce hegemonic carbon-based economies 2) increasing capital controls 3) delimiting specific imports 4) demanding/fighting for geopolitical assistance (e.g. reparations). 14/x
For summaries of @FadhelKaboub's important contributions to MMT-informed postcolonial political economy, see his interview on @TheStalwart & @tracyalloway's #Oddlots podcast ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2019-04-05/this-is-how-mmt-applies-to-emerging-markets-podcast) as well as on my own podcast, @moneyontheleft ( https://mronline.org/2018/07/07/the-new-postcolonial-economics-with-fadhel-kaboub/). 15/x
I equally recommend the work of my new friend Ndongo Samba Sylla ( @nssylla), a brilliant Senegalese economist who has recently turned to MMT. We interviewed Ndongo about the colonial legacy of the CFA Franc currency zone on @moneyontheleft. 16/x https://mronline.org/2019/03/15/confronting-monetary-imperialism-in-francophone-africa-with-ndongo-samba-sylla/
@nssylla also delivered an important keynote speech on the CFA Franc at the recent @mmtconference at @stonybrooku 17/x https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=507&v=lSCpJ3dSJ24&fbclid=IwAR3OgocIb7o2XU2-hhN9OpVN4_TO--s1_dtWzk_H4okE76FtgI4_yt2JcvU
As one can imagine, this thread only scratches the surface of MMT's importance for non-hegemonic countries & decolonial politics. But hopefully I have provided a few foundational thoughts and paths to explore. 18/x
