Mike Norman has announced his aspiration that his will be the pre-eminent blog on MMT issues. Great – makes my task easier. Here below is a short piece that sets out the stakes.
Mosler vs. Friedman: Defining Moral Battle Lines
Warren Mosler made and interesting comment on his blog the other day. He was responding to an inquiry related to taxation and wrote (in comments of this thread):“Unemployment is a monetary phenomenon.”
I couldn’t help but notice how similar sounding this statement was to one famously made by Milton Friedman, some years ago:
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”
These two simple statements, to me, reveal the essence of the two sides currently engaged in what is probably the most important domestic economic policy battle that our nation will fight since the Great Depression.
On one side, we have people who desire the best in regards to our country’s twin domestic economic outcomes: employment and output. And on the other side we have people concerned with protecting the value of what they perceive to be something they call our ‘money’.
This is a moral battle; this is a “values” issue; it is as important an issue on these terms as any others current in politics.
The desire to protect, or be concerned about the perceived value of “money”, to the detriment of our domestic employment and output is immoral. The desire to protect, or be concerned about the perceived value of “money”, to the detriment of our domestic employment and output cannot be reconciled with Judeo-Christian faiths, beliefs or values.
There are many on the Political Right who need a major “wake up call” on this.
