Economic Update: Government Deficits; Why They Happen, Who Benefits From Them, and MMT
Richard Wolff mentions the printing of money occasionally, but he never squares that with the government supposedly needing to tax and/or borrow first before it can spend.
He spends the last two minutes talking about MMT, but not as a theory of fiat money; instead as a novel monetary policy proposed by “progressive-minded economists.”
Somewhere in there he also repeats the common fallacy that what banks lend is other people’s savings. They don’t. The money they lend is created out of thin air, and the “money multiplier” is a myth.
I’m just a technerd who’s never taken an economics course, and I grind my teeth every time this expert botches these fundamentals. Why Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai never push back on him when they do talks together is a mystery to me.
I’m not an economist… but I think Richard Wolff is pretty solid. If absolutely anything, he does a very good job bringing Marxian economics to a wider, western audience.
There aren’t very many highly educated American Marxist economists who have the kind of reach that he does and can explain very complex ideas in terms that people without economics degrees can understand.
I just think this comes off very unnecessarily hostile.
Aside from these few but significant issues, I agree that Wolff is great, and I often recommend him to people.
My hostility comes from 3+ years of frustration in watching him flub these basics over and over again.
I mean it’s possible to that his perspective is just different on some of these things. Wolff isn’t necessarily interested in discussing the intricacies of MMT, more just introducing the concept to wide audience in an engaging way.
If Wolff were speaking at a panel to other economist scholars, I think he would probably provide more than a 2 minute analysis on MMT.
I mean, I really think the guy an incredibly brilliant economist who’s goal is to reach as many people as possible with Marxist economic analysis which is a great thing