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I wish someone would hook you up with some good eats while I explain that this folk theory of MMT is incorrect. It is a common mistake to presume MMT only applies to the U.S. due to its military-backed dollar hegemony. 1/x https://twitter.com/bathr0bespierre/status/1324491839492165635
MMT's argument is that money is not & has never emerged from private barter-like exchanges. Money is, rather, a creature of governance & law, understood in a very broad sense that includes e.g. Incan "knot" accounting as well as the medieval Church's taxation & banking. 2/x
Money on MMT's analysis, then, is a credit/debt instrument that is widely receivable & can be used to settle public debts first, private second. In the nomenclature, we say "taxes drive money" or "money is a tax credit." 3/x
Upon this basis, MMT further insists that, because money is created as a social relation within said governmental & legal matrices, the authorities responsible for issuing & redeeming a money unit can never run out. 4/x
This works across registers & scales. Thus, for instance, the Japanese government cannot run out of yen any more than American Airlines can run out of frequent flyer miles. Any authority that defines & issues credits maintains a nominally infinite supply of said credits. 5/x
Nothing in any of this, meanwhile, presumes a governance project like Japan or even American Airlines requires a massive military or to become a global empire in order to spend as needed. 6/x
There are limits to spending, on MMT's view. But this has nothing to do with game of "lacking" or "finding" the money. Instead, spending is limited primarily by the material & social capacities in a collective at a particular moment. 7/x
So, say the U.S. govt wants to create a #m4all system. The question is not HoW aRe We GoInG tO pAy FoR iT but rather how are we going to *resource* it? Do we have enough hospital beds, trained nurses & doctors, etc.? If not, can we educate & employ the presently unemployed? 8/x
Can we transfer people from the carbon economy into the #m4all economy? If we are putting thousands in the medical insurance industry out of work, how, where & when are we going to re-employ them in, e.g., a broader Green New Deal economy such that we avoid a recession? 9/x
Back to the non-hegemonic spending question, a currency issuing government can similarly afford to spend on public investments so long as it is attending to the same complex quandaries. 10/x
So, say Senegal wishes to issue money after years of colonial exploitation, extraction & "export-led growth" under the colonial CFA franc monetary system. 11/x
As @nssylla explains, Senegal will have to not only contest the austerity of the CFA Franc's legacy, but also carefully target spending toward building up a sustainable food & energy production system, reversing its import-based debt economy. 12/x https://mronline.org/2019/03/15/confronting-monetary-imperialism-in-francophone-africa-with-ndongo-samba-sylla/
My colleague @FadhelKaboub is also quite good on this. 13/x https://mronline.org/2018/07/07/the-new-postcolonial-economics-with-fadhel-kaboub/
As Thomas Degregori has argued, moreover, "resources are not, they become." 14/x https://www.jstor.org/stable/4225924?seq=1
That is to say, sure, if Senegal wants to pursue modern industrial & technological "growth," then it's likely going to be a long & difficult haul, not to mention the revolutionary politics it will require. 15/x
However, Senegal can also constitute endogenous materials, labor, & knowhow as alternative resources that contribute to a very different project of social production, participation, & above all valuation. 16/x
I see that @MaxSeijo has linked to another thread I wrote this topic, so I think I've stop here & let you catch up. Let me know you have any questions. 17/x
