Thread by @battleforeurope

Our response to James Meadway's anti-MMT article, where we explain that socialists shouldn't be afraid to seize the means of production of money 💵💵💵 ✊ 

tribunemag.co.uk/2019/06/for-mmt

A few points we make: MMT not only threatens powerful vested interests in our societies, but also challenges the hegemony of mainstream macroeconomists who have been able to dominate the policy debate for decades using a series of myths about how fiat monetary system operate.

Labour should prioritise building a narrative that will advance the socialist cause for the decades to come and educate the public about the capacities of a currency-issuing government. It should reject the ideology of ‘sound money’ outright.

Labour should explain to citizens that the purpose of fiscal policy is to advance broad welfare concerns, which pertain to wages, employment, equity, price stability, environmental sustainability and the like, not to achieve 'fiscal balance'.

Labour should strive to shift the Overton window–what is accepted in public discourse–rather than passively submitting to it for perceived (and highly dubious) short-run political purposes. This is precisely what MMT is doing.

If there’s anything the establishment fears more than the working classes seizing the means of production, it’s the working classes seizing the means of production of money (currency) You would think that socialists would understand that.

MMT gives us the power to imagine truly transformational politics, without getting caught up in meaningless debates about whether we can ‘afford’ it or not. This is also why it is being attacked so fiercely.

MMT is not being attacked by the establishment for its theoretical foundations, but for the range of economic and political possibilities that it opens up.

The bottom line is that MMT is here to stay. The Labour Party can choose to stick to an old neoliberal fiscal paradigm–or it can join the revolution.