It seems the failure of neoclassical macroeconomists to foresee the global financial crisis and the willingness of some of its more extreme members, in the Great Recession that followed, to push for ridiculous remedies such as “contractionary expansionism” have resulted,…
We are subjected constantly to threatening talk by politicians and media personalities about budget deficits and public debt. Budget surpluses, or at least balanced budgets, are touted as fiscally responsible, whereas deficits are painted as burdensome and unsustainable. This framing…
In a previous post, I briefly introduced Marx’s value theory. Values and prices were considered at the aggregate level without breaking the economy down into different sectors. This enabled a focus on basic macro relationships. In this post, the economy…
I’ve been thinking about it. Work, being a core part of life, is meant to be interesting, engaging, and meaningful. Otherwise, why are we wasting our time on this planet? Yet, for many, work is not living up to its…
In a recent post focusing on inflation and distribution, I touched on the connection between the aggregate markup and income distribution. Here, I thought it might be worth demonstrating the connection explicitly, and then outlining a simple extension that brings…
The neoliberal policy approach in the decades leading up to the crisis basically amounted to enticing or pushing people into increasing levels of private debt. With private debt burdens mounting in relation to real GDP, we were told that consenting…
An earlier post discusses the way in which Modern Monetary Theorists conceptualize the value of the currency. In this context, ‘value of the currency’ refers to the currency’s domestic value, not its exchange rate. This value is defined in MMT…
Kalecki’s profit equation famously shows realized gross profit, prior to its distribution into various parts (retained earnings, interest, rent, etc.), as a function of aggregate demand. In a simplified model of a closed economy with only capitalists and workers, in…
In thinking about the relationship between Marx and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), one point of entry appears to be the ‘monetary expression of labor time’ (MELT), introduced by Alejandro Ramos Martinez in chapter 5 of The New Value Controversy, in…
Federal systems, in a similar way to a common currency zone, seem tailor made for neoliberalism. By starving currency-using state governments of funds, a currency-issuing federal government is able artificially to create a need for the states to find private…
