“First, let me remind that MMT was originally ‘Mosler Economics’ which began with ‘Soft Currency Economics’ (1993) which can be found at http://www.mosler.org/docs/docs/soft0004.htm. Also, highlights of the ‘history of MMT’ are in ‘The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy’ free online also on my website. Note too that ‘Soft Currency Economics’ was a result of my first hand experience after 20 years in banking and monetary operations. I had never read Keynes, or even heard of Lerner, Knapp, or had any knowledge of any ‘post Keynesians’. So while it may be true that MMT can be derived from one school of thought or another, it didn’t happen that way. And, for example, when I put forward my ‘real vs nominal’ discussion of fiscal transfers in a monetary union earlier this year, explaining how the production of public goods and services for the benefit of the entire union is in fact a real cost to the region that receives the funding to produce these public goods and services, that was also ‘original MMT thought’ (fully recognizing the shortcomings of such a statement!).”
“Second, if there is a ‘fundamental’ contribution of MMT to ‘the literature’ it’s the explicit recognition that a currency like the dollar is in fact a simple public monopoly, and all the rest follows. Along those lines I have lectured on the long standing ‘Keynes vs the Classics’ discussion, where the Classics argued there can be no unemployment without monopoly, and Keynes argues there in fact can be persistent unemployment even without monopoly, due to the effects of unspent income, etc. in the monetary system. My response is they both failed to explicitly recognize the currency itself is a public monopoly. Notional demand is from taxation and from savings desires, and notional supply from state spending and/or state lending. And unemployment is the evidence of a restriction in supply from the monopolist- the failure to spend enough to satisfy the need to pay taxes and the desires to net save in that unit of account. So the classics were right in that unemployment does come from monopoly, but they failed to recognize the applicable monopoly. And Keynes was right, the problem was on the monetary side, but he failed to recognize the currency itself was a simple public monopoly, even though he described it much along those lines. If Keynes had recognized the currency was a monopoly, he surely would have explicitly said so in this discussion, and many other places as well to support many of his contentions. (…).”
joseba says:
The state theory of money:
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/knapp/StateTheoryMoney.pdf
The general theory of employment, interest, and money
http://cas.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/courses/econ645/winter2011/generaltheory.pdf
Funtional finance and the federal debt
http://k.web.umkc.edu/keltons/Papers/501/functional%20finance.pdf
Stabilizing and unstable economy
http://digamo.free.fr/minsky86.pdf
Soft currency economics II
http://www.mosler.org/docs/docs/soft0004.htm
and
http://www.amazon.com/Soft-Currency-Economics-II-MMT-ebook/dp/B009XDGZLI
joseba says:
‘Soft Currency Economics’, MMT, ‘Mosler Economics’:
Warren Mosler comments on Keynes blog, Italy
http://moslereconomics.com/2012/12/09/my-response-to-a-post-on-an-italian-keynes-blog/
“First, let me remind that MMT was originally ‘Mosler Economics’ which began with ‘Soft Currency Economics’ (1993) which can be found at http://www.mosler.org/docs/docs/soft0004.htm. Also, highlights of the ‘history of MMT’ are in ‘The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy’ free online also on my website. Note too that ‘Soft Currency Economics’ was a result of my first hand experience after 20 years in banking and monetary operations. I had never read Keynes, or even heard of Lerner, Knapp, or had any knowledge of any ‘post Keynesians’. So while it may be true that MMT can be derived from one school of thought or another, it didn’t happen that way. And, for example, when I put forward my ‘real vs nominal’ discussion of fiscal transfers in a monetary union earlier this year, explaining how the production of public goods and services for the benefit of the entire union is in fact a real cost to the region that receives the funding to produce these public goods and services, that was also ‘original MMT thought’ (fully recognizing the shortcomings of such a statement!).”
“Second, if there is a ‘fundamental’ contribution of MMT to ‘the literature’ it’s the explicit recognition that a currency like the dollar is in fact a simple public monopoly, and all the rest follows. Along those lines I have lectured on the long standing ‘Keynes vs the Classics’ discussion, where the Classics argued there can be no unemployment without monopoly, and Keynes argues there in fact can be persistent unemployment even without monopoly, due to the effects of unspent income, etc. in the monetary system. My response is they both failed to explicitly recognize the currency itself is a public monopoly. Notional demand is from taxation and from savings desires, and notional supply from state spending and/or state lending. And unemployment is the evidence of a restriction in supply from the monopolist- the failure to spend enough to satisfy the need to pay taxes and the desires to net save in that unit of account. So the classics were right in that unemployment does come from monopoly, but they failed to recognize the applicable monopoly. And Keynes was right, the problem was on the monetary side, but he failed to recognize the currency itself was a simple public monopoly, even though he described it much along those lines. If Keynes had recognized the currency was a monopoly, he surely would have explicitly said so in this discussion, and many other places as well to support many of his contentions. (…).”
joseba says:
Soft Currency Economics Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Z1uWVj0YJ3M&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZ1uWVj0YJ3M%26feature%3Dyoutu.be&nomobile
joseba says:
MMT history and overview:
http://moslereconomics.com/2011/08/04/mmt-history-and-overview/