In the chartalist view, taxes drive acceptance of state money. Through one channel, taxes induce labor services. The need to obtain state money to pay taxes ensures a willingness of some individuals to accept employment in the public sector in exchange for the state money. There is another channel that exists under a broader range of conditions. It is the power of government to induce supply of real output from private enterprise. Not only does government induce a private supply of real output to itself (a transfer of resources from the private to public sector), but it also induces a supply of real output to private consumers. Unlike the inducement of labor services, the inducement of private-sector output would apply equally to a pure labor economy or a purely mechanized economy, as well as to intermediate cases.
Monthly Archives: July 2015
Some Implications of the Expenditure Multiplier Process
A monetary economy needs spending for production and employment to occur. This is a truism. Spending equals income, by definition. One person’s purchase of a good or service is another person’s income. But it is also clear that causation, ultimately, runs from spending to income. More specifically, the creation of income requires a prior decision to spend. In a monetary economy, to paraphrase Michal Kalecki, each of us in isolation can decide how much to spend but we cannot choose the size of our income. Our personal income will depend not on our own spending but on the spending decisions of others acting somewhat independently of ourselves. Total income, of course, will depend on spending in aggregate – our own spending and the spending of others.
Introducing a New Currency
Warren Mosler (for example, here) has explained very clearly and succinctly the key steps involved in effectively introducing a currency such as the drachma. (See, also, Bill Mitchell’s recent post, ‘A Greek exit is not rocket science‘.) Fears of exchange-rate catastrophe would be unfounded if these steps were followed.