Replies (2)

• @markhburton@mstdn.social 2026-07-24 08:17

  @GeofCox@climatejustice.social From my reading (e.g. Anwar Shaikh) @dazinism@social.coop has it more or less correct. MMT makes some helpful points (e.g. that taxation is not equal to gov expenditure) but does a sleight of hand, confounding the issue of currency with the creation of money (pointed out by Jo Michel), and then creates an edifice on that. In the popularised versions it often confounds value with money (but not in the core texts or your summary Geof).

  Open ##4888734

• @dazinism@social.coop 2026-07-24 09:26

  @GeofCox@climatejustice.social Im all for looking at things from diverse perspectives, less so for making statements that sound like declaration of absolute truth. For certain monetary, tax and economic systems are complex. Clever people get paid lots of money to figure out clever/complex ways to work around 'issues' in the system - generally this is wealthy people/corporates attempting to avoid tax or regulation - which they often achieve. But you could include things like govs using Public Private Partnerships to take finance off balance sheet. This all adds more complexity. It gets increasingly difficult to get a reasonable understanding - and so its hard to counter stuff like repeated government giving a simplified explanation of countries finance being the same as an individuals/households finance to justify austerity. Which was amplified by mainstream media and widely accepted/became a common understanding. /continued

  Open ##4888736