Hi Question completely unrelated to the video but I saw yourf high response rate and need an answer. Here is a hypothetical. Say everyone in our modern representative democracies fully understood the nature of our money system and of its implications. Would this lead to a probable dictatorship of the proletariat and then communism?
Ummm.... maybe? Probably not. The monetary system is just a tool. People can do what they want with it. The problem we face today is that most people don't understand how the tool actually works, and believe we are far more limited than we actually are. It's like if you didn't know that your phone could send text messages. You're basically asking "if everybody knew that their phone could send text messages, would we all text *so-and-so*?" The goal of teaching people how the monetary system actually works isn't necessarily to gin for (or avoid) a specific outcome, but to give people real choices, instead of the false choices we believe we're limited to now.
As a Canadian i understand why after years of brainwash, our American friends are so afraid of socialism. But Canada and Europe are good exemple of a mix of capitalist and social democraties. And yes it works and people live happy lives. And as our MMT friends explain, our money problems are political, not financial. Thx.
If the effect were a falling exchange rate, wouldn't that start to make local productive industries more competitive against imports, leading to more investment in local production? And wouldn't the export sector of the economy - in Australia being dominated by mining and agriculture - benefit from a lower domestic currency? What I'm asking is - for a country such as Australia, wouldn't any negative effects be to some extent at least offset by certain beneficial effects?
Basically the answer is, maybe. Although for a a developing country heavily dependent on imports, a fall in the exchange rate could have very serious survival implications for people.
@@deficitowls5296 I understand the issues it might pose for a developing country, especially if they happen to have huge debts denominated in foreign currencies. I'm really posing the question in relation to a modern Western democracy. Specifically Australia since that is where I live. What is mentioned in your video is used regularly here as an argument to denounce the idea of a Job Guarantee. It appears to me that those opposed are conflating the effects on a modern economy with the possible effects on a heavily foreign indebted developing economy - I think they are overblowing it, with their real motivation being that they are in favour of a permanent pool of un/underemployment as a means of disciplining labour.
It's true that while Australia is practically awash in primary produce such all all manner of food and agricultural products, and natural resources (especially minerals) a great many goods are nonetheless imported. But as I understand it, we aren't talking about giving the unemployed $150 000 a year mining sector jobs (those are almost ludicrously well-paid) - we are talking about legislating jobs at the basic minimum wage and no more. Their ability to consume goods both domestically-produced and imported would obviously rise from the current subsistence-level welfare (it's extremely poor here as I'm sure Bill Mitchell would agree) but we aren't talking about it leading to an imported jet-ski in every garage in the country - the fact that it would be only at the legal minimum would act as a constraining factor as to the extent. I can see it going into a great many locally-produced goods and services in addition to imports. I understand that developing economies may not have such a capacity to respond in such a manner.
@@jasonfoster737 I don't think there's even a guarantee that the exchange rate would fall. It's more of a hypothetical, which applies more to developing countries and probably doesn't apply to Australia at all.
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Hi
Question completely unrelated to the video but I saw yourf high response rate and need an answer.
Here is a hypothetical. Say everyone in our modern representative democracies fully understood the nature of our money system and of its implications. Would this lead to a probable dictatorship of the proletariat and then communism?
Ummm.... maybe? Probably not. The monetary system is just a tool. People can do what they want with it. The problem we face today is that most people don't understand how the tool actually works, and believe we are far more limited than we actually are. It's like if you didn't know that your phone could send text messages. You're basically asking "if everybody knew that their phone could send text messages, would we all text *so-and-so*?" The goal of teaching people how the monetary system actually works isn't necessarily to gin for (or avoid) a specific outcome, but to give people real choices, instead of the false choices we believe we're limited to now.
As a Canadian i understand why after years of brainwash, our American friends are so afraid of socialism. But Canada and Europe are good exemple of a mix of capitalist and social democraties. And yes it works and people live happy lives. And as our MMT friends explain, our money problems are political, not financial. Thx.
If the effect were a falling exchange rate, wouldn't that start to make local productive industries more competitive against imports, leading to more investment in local production? And wouldn't the export sector of the economy - in Australia being dominated by mining and agriculture - benefit from a lower domestic currency? What I'm asking is - for a country such as Australia, wouldn't any negative effects be to some extent at least offset by certain beneficial effects?
Basically the answer is, maybe. Although for a a developing country heavily dependent on imports, a fall in the exchange rate could have very serious survival implications for people.
@@deficitowls5296 I understand the issues it might pose for a developing country, especially if they happen to have huge debts denominated in foreign currencies. I'm really posing the question in relation to a modern Western democracy. Specifically Australia since that is where I live. What is mentioned in your video is used regularly here as an argument to denounce the idea of a Job Guarantee. It appears to me that those opposed are conflating the effects on a modern economy with the possible effects on a heavily foreign indebted developing economy - I think they are overblowing it, with their real motivation being that they are in favour of a permanent pool of un/underemployment as a means of disciplining labour.
It's true that while Australia is practically awash in primary produce such all all manner of food and agricultural products, and natural resources (especially minerals) a great many goods are nonetheless imported. But as I understand it, we aren't talking about giving the unemployed $150 000 a year mining sector jobs (those are almost ludicrously well-paid) - we are talking about legislating jobs at the basic minimum wage and no more. Their ability to consume goods both domestically-produced and imported would obviously rise from the current subsistence-level welfare (it's extremely poor here as I'm sure Bill Mitchell would agree) but we aren't talking about it leading to an imported jet-ski in every garage in the country - the fact that it would be only at the legal minimum would act as a constraining factor as to the extent. I can see it going into a great many locally-produced goods and services in addition to imports. I understand that developing economies may not have such a capacity to respond in such a manner.
@@jasonfoster737 I don't think there's even a guarantee that the exchange rate would fall. It's more of a hypothetical, which applies more to developing countries and probably doesn't apply to Australia at all.
@@deficitowls5296 Thank you for your time (am I speaking to Randy?). Much appreciated. Cheers