Keynote | L. Randall Wray | The Value of Money: Implications for MMT
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- Опубліковано 27 лис 2023
- The OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative and Levy Economics Institute welcomed scholars for a two-day, in-person workshop in November 2023 on new research directions in the areas of money, finance, and public policy for intersecting crises, which explored synergies between different research traditions.
Keynote | The Value of Money: Implications for MMT
Introduction by Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Bard College, OSUN-EDI, Levy Economics Institute.
Speaker:
L. Randall Wray, Ph.D., is a Senior Scholar and Professor of Economics at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. He is one of the developers of Modern Money Theory, and his newest books on the topic are Making Money Work for Us (Polity, November 2022) and a companion illustrated guide to MMT, Money For Beginners (with Heske Van Doornen, Polity, May 2023).
For more information about this conference and its speakers, see the conference program: docs.google.com/document/d/1-...
My problem with the labor theory of value has to do with the abstract unit of labor. Does an engineering hour at GM equal an engineering hour at Toyota or Tesla. i know we're talking about generalities, but how do you account for AI and for superior organizational intelligence and efficiency? How do you account for production that preserves the environment or natural capital? Presumably those units are more valuable than those expended at GM. What is the value of a corporate mission statement like Tesla's -- "accelerate the transition to sustainable transport and energy?" Generalities or abstractions hide as much as they reveal. I think Marx if he were alive today would agree with that. Keynes too.
We need much more vivid presentszions if more are to be won for MMT and friends.
Only text slides and such an intonation is at least very old school.
Couldn't guys like him or Stephanie Kelton empöoy some modern UA-camr channels to pimp up the matter?
It is so important!
I do already have knowledge in the field and I am motivated, but its hard to follow and see the critocal points and general directions - sorry
Stephanie is the only one whi can really grab üeoples attention🙈
For "vivid", lively, captivating, etc. presentations, Randy is not the best person. Brilliant person, very scholarly, knows "what's what", but rhetorics and persuasive speech are not his forte, imo.
Randall Wray's presentation chart shows: - "Spending more than our real capacity can be inflationary" and then says "Functional approach to taxation - withdraw demand to prevent inflation".
later he says inflation is not an index in some arbitrary price index and the CPI is extremely flawed.
Randall Wray has really stated without realizing it that MMT has no measure of inflation which means it never can measure the inflation claims it will address by increased taxes. MMT has therefore No method of measuring inflation.
Randall Wray again with another of his statement about inflation not being measurable by any means he puts forward.
How is MMT able to measure the inflation it says it will fight with taxation ? No way because it can never measure it.
Get a proper mic and audio setup before you mess with the economy.
Labor is not a commodity, Randy, it's the use-value of a commodity: right to use labor-power for a time.
Do you see it as a factor of production ?
Rohan asked a great question which Randy did not properly address.
What was the question?
@@waynemcmillan5970What are ways other than imposing a non-reciprocal obligation on everyone finally payable in an otherwise valueless asset you issue whereby that asset can be guaranteed to have *some* value, such that both the issuer *and* subsequent holders thereof can provision themselves and effect their will by offering it?
The idea that taxes drive money is utter garbage that ignores historical facts. MMT argues that taxes put value into money and get it accepted.
If taxes did drive a need for money then in countries where inflation made the money worthless there still existed taxes yet the money became worthless. MMT's argument to defend this reality is that the inflation was caused by other factors. Whether or not that is true is irrelevant but the reality is still that taxes did not result in any acceptance of money or put value into it.
The overall situation was they had taxes and worthless money !!
The other answer as to why MMT is wrong about taxes driving money is a rise in taxes makes no increase in the value of money at all because value relates only to the ability of money to purchase goods and services and taxes are not goods and services.
If you put this to Randall Wray he will run away like a frightened mouse chased by a cat because he has no counter argument to show he is correct.
The idea taxes drive money is repeatedly demonstrated in the historical record also need to point out, taxes is NOT the only thing required. A foundation issue is monetary sovereignty, which is a key foundational point that MMT recognises. To be fair to Rob this may not have been mentioned in the presentation (I have not listened to all of it yet). In the instances of hyperinflation that Rob is no doubt pointing to, he fails to recognise in each instance monetary sovereignty was already severely weakened, plus many other factors at play.
Furthermore just tossing away such factors as being "irrelevant" undermines his argument further, and only shows discarding a key inconvenient truth to support his own assertion. No is not irrelevant, it critical to understanding the actual "overall" situation and the money story.
The rest only shows Rob has failed to understand the arguments MMT makes, particularly in terms of the purpose of money being to harness the real resources in an economy, which taxes provides a key mechanism to get the process started. Indeed that the point of money, to incentivise goods/service in the private sector to made available for the Government. Additionally, the simplistic notion that the value of money is directly related to the amount of taxes is false and I have no idea where he gets that idea. Certainly not in MMT.
Having taxes is what really matters, the size of the taxes not that important, noting at the extremes (e.g., very low tax and very high tax) other things come into play, but will park this for the moment. Taxes also play an important role in draining excess funds out of the economy, in this way it can also protect the integrity of the monetary system. This was the topic of a particularly famous paper published in the US in 1947.
The last bit is just false bravado which I am sure makes Rob feel psychologically safe. I cannot help but wonder if Rob has ever publicly argued for anything in his life, and how he would feel at such 'insightful' comments being left on his material. Randall Wray has done literally hundreds of presentations, seminars, podcasts and published papers. Feel free to offer to debate him. I look forward to it.
@@marcuschamp9881 Thank you for your reply. However, Firstly I would like to see the evidence for your first statement about "The idea taxes drive money is repeatedly demonstrated in the historical record". I have not seen any to date.
You also say monetary sovereignty was already weakened in instances of hyperinflation. What is your actual belief that sovereignty was weakened when sovereignty relates to the power of government to declare a national currency ?
You also have ignored the fact that harnessing real ressources does not require government to be involved at all. It merely requires one or more people to carry out work even if it is as simple as fishing in lake or the sea or catching animals to cook and eat which are natural resources being collected and put towards wealth creation to satisfy a need.
Taxes do not drain excess funds from the economy because taxes are transfer of purchasing power from one entity to another who spends them again.
Do your mathematics and look at facts to understand that is the way things have worked for many years. The facts of what has been going on are real and available on sites that contain historic factual information such as the historical US federal budget figures which are on this site on table 1.1. :- www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historical-tables/.
You said: "Additionally, the simplistic notion that the value of money is directly related to the amount of taxes is false and I have no idea where he gets that idea. Certainly not in MMT". I did not say that but you have mistakenly believed I did. Be more attentive to details if you want to criticise.
Additionally you also say " Having taxes is what really matters, the size of the taxes not that important, noting at the extremes (e.g., very low tax and very high tax) other things come into play, but will park this for the moment. ".
You supply no information to support this statement.
Let me ask you - Does an increase in taxes result in increased value of money if the size of taxes is not important? Why so or not. Give me factual examples if you have any at all. I don't care whether you just feel that way because you have shown a very poor ability to analyse the situation and made wild speculations.
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As for your other comment:- "The last bit is just false bravado which I am sure makes Rob feel psychologically safe. I cannot help but wonder if Rob has ever publicly argued for anything in his life, and how he would feel at such 'insightful' comments being left on his material. Randall Wray has done literally hundreds of presentations, seminars, podcasts and published papers. Feel free to offer to debate him. I look forward to it."
He won't debate people unless they are fellow MMTers because he shows signs of knowing his thinking is so bad and he cannot contain his anger when questions are asked that he cannot deal with. Have you ever seen him debate other economic theorists?
You are so totally wrong since I have argued many legal matters pertaining to hundreds of millions of dollars of international payments by very large organisations including one of the largest companies in the world and have successfully done so. Not that soft stuff that Randall Wray puts across with no responsibility for the consequences of his actions and no ability to support it with facts.
Where are the 'Insightful comments' left on my material. The thing I see after reading your comments is the lack of analytical ability and willingness to believe someone who plays to emotions that trap unwary people into the MMT fantasy belief.
@@marcuschamp9881 Where are the demonstrated historical records of Taxes driving money? There certainly are records of taxes not driving accetance or value of money. They are in the countries where taxes did nothing to drive value into money or get it accepted. Zimbabwe, Hungary, The Weimar Republic, Yugoslavia, Peru, Nicaragua.
@@Rob-fx2dw As you clearly have no idea about the origin and develop of monetary systems, let alone historical context of countries such as Zimbabwe, Venezuela etc...a good start would be origin of money. Suggest Graeber Debt First 5000 years, and Felix Money an Unauthorised Biography. In regard to development of monetary system, Scott Cloud Money has an excellent and easy to understand description., or Ballinger 1000 Castaways. No point arguing further if you don't understand the basics.
@@marcuschamp9881 Those who do sound analysis are supposed to observe facts by making sound observations before they come up with some hypothesis or theory.
I am astounded that anyone who has an ability to understand how rational thinking works would accept the MMT explanation of money origins and take the explanations of David Graeber seriously after listening to what he says and those of MMT's explanation of the origins of money or those of Mosler and his fellow MMT followers..
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Let's just look at what MMT puts up as the origins of money. Mosler's and Randall Wray's idea is that the money came from an authority and there was no such thing as barter which is an exchange of goods for goods or services for goods.
Their explanations both are that some authority was the creator or initiator of money. This however does not take into account the act that these explanations rely on the pre existence of an authority without money such as government or kingdom which itself would have had to operate itself before the existence of any designated or actual creation of money in any form by them.
How did the authority exist without any barter (exchanges of goods and services) which Mosler and Randall Wray and other MMT pushers deny existed?
Of course it could not have so the hypothesis or theory as they call it is false from the start.
So right from the outset they are making false assumptions for the sake of supporting a pre conceived idea derived from rationalisation rather than observable facts.
I would like to see your explanation of how they possibly could be correct.
Possibly you could ask them but you will not get an answer for the every reason that it blows apart their idea completely and shows it to be utterly false.