Thread by @rohangrey

Just woke up to a very big MMT twitterstorm inspired by some of @matthewstoller's tweets (currently visiting family in Oz). A few responses:

1. I find it honestly bizarre that someone would try to separate my institutional/monetary analysis from MMT, given that I learned what I

know through MMT and consider my work a direct extension of it (even as I don’t mean to presume other MMTers will agree with all of my views).

2. For example, I wrote my major writing credit paper in law school on the legalities of the platinum coin, which was inspired by the

MMT-informed legal analysis of Carlos Mucha, who first wrote about the coin on Warren Mosler’s blog. I remember at the time discussing the nitty gritty of legal and operational budgeting details with many MMTers, without whom I wouldn’t have come to the conclusions I did.

3. Shortly after, I was encouraged to apply for a research grant by Chris Desan, who I met through one of our MMN seminars as a ‘fellow traveler’ of MMT. Here is the paper that emerged from that grant, on mobile money, replete with citations to MMTers, Minsky, and building

directly on its core insights:

binzagr-institute.org/working-paper-…

4. After I wrote that paper, MMN held a seminar on payments systems, featuring @stf18 as a speaker (since he’s written a bunch on the ‘nitty gritty’ of payments from a MMT perspective):

modernmoneynetwork.org/symposia/payme…

5. Another speaker at that seminar was Brian King, from USAID’s mobile finance team, who was fascinated by the ‘macro’ implications of my MMT-inspired take on mobile money, and shared my paper around until it got to some of the people involved in eCurrency Mint, who asked me to

write a white paper on the macroeconomic implications of digital fiat currency, which I again did, using insights from MMT regarding monetary-fiscal coordination, safe assets, budget financing dynamics, etc:

ecurrency.net/media/document…

6. Since then, I have used a MMT framework consistently to inform my analysis when engaging with other digital currency specialists during my legal PhD which focuses on the legal design and regulation of digital currency. I wouldn’t have done any of that if I didn’t have my

background training in MMT, despite also learning directly from a number of other very prominent and insightful scholars of money and finance along the way.

7. I consider this project a self-assigned division of labor within the MMT collective, rather than something distinct

from it. Which is why I made sure we had a panel on digital currency at the first MMT conference, to keep ‘bringing back’ the fruits of my work to the broader collective:



8. In addition, I suggested we invite Brett Scott as a featured keynote speaker to

discuss the threat of digital surveillance posed by the war on cash, which was immediately accepted by the conference organizers, and Brett’s talk very well received by the broader MMT community:

9. I wouldn’t be doing any of this work, however, if I wasn’t supremely confident that others, including Stephanie, were doing a better job leading the charge on other issues (deficits, austerity, inflation, taxes, etc) than I ever could. I do my bit to contribute to those

debates when I think it useful, ie.:

ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/01/155…

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

But a lot of my effort is devoted to boosting the work of others in the community who I agree with, which is why this attempt to split me from the is weird. For example, I was incredibly proud

to organize this event on Paying for the Green New Deal, featuring Stephanie, Pavlina, and others alongside myself:

payforgnd.org

11. In general, one of the great things about the MMT paradigm is how fruitful it is – how many new questions and areas it opens for

investigation, and how it allows for new connections between seemingly disparate areas of scholarship. I can guarantee, for example, the number of people involved in payments systems who are also thinking of its implications for, say, full employment, or macroprudential

regulation, are extremely low. Why do I connect those dots? Because of MMT. 12. As for Gerry Eptsein’s critique – I agree with my colleagues that it is a poor piece of scholarship, and erases the work of many MMTers for the sake of constructing a convenient, albeit false,

narrative that makes it easier for others to dismiss MMT. I was on a panel w Gerry only a month ago at a UK Law & Money event, suffice to say I do not agree in the slightest w his critiques of MMT, as many attendees who observed our back-and-forth can easily attest.

13. Lastly, I'd note as a non-American, who first came to MMT through the blog of a fellow Australian, Bill Mitchell, I find the constant erasure of non-US-centric MMT analysis by critics to be tiring and imperialistic. Some of us have ended up focusing on US matters for various

reasons, but that doesn't mean we get up every day thinking about how to perpetuate US empire - to the contrary, I care so much about the US precisely because I reject its enduring global superiority. So if you're going to take Gerry's critique seriously, which is your

prerogative, I suppose, it is worth taking seriously the fact many of the people that critique is directed at are, in fact, non-Americans focusing on non-American issues. If you can't think of their names, such that the only MMTers you're familiar with are US based, that's on you