Ep 346 - MMT: Why Our Allies Ignore Us with Yeva Nersisyan

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Our friend, MMT economist Yeva Nersisyan, joins Steve to discuss the struggle to communicate MMT's core principles in a media landscape filled with misinformation, including from those who should know better. They call some of them out by name and express disappointment when natural allies on the left reject modern monetary theory.  

“At this point, you cannot just be MMT curious. You have to make up your mind, do you want the ‘scarce money’ framework? Is that the way you're going to view the world? Or do you view it through the MMT framework? Because there is no other option.” 

Yeva and Steve agree that MMT is not a political ideology but a crucial lens for understanding that a monetarily sovereign government is the creator of currency, which means scarcity is serving another purpose – eg, supporting this economic system. 

They talk about government spending during Covid as a missed opportunity to educate. They criticize so-called progressive politicians (hello Bernie!) who, despite likely understanding MMT, refuse to publicly champion its principles. This leads to self-sabotage (perhaps intentionally?) when they claim to argue for progressive policies within a conservative tax-and-spend agenda. Result? Austerity. 

As we regularly try to stress, a correct understanding of MMT is no solution, but rather a tool in building a revolutionary class analysis. 

Dr. Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of Economics and Department Chair at Franklin and Marshall College and a research scholar at Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Professor Nersisyan has published more than 25 journal articles, book chapters, policy notes and policy briefs on the topics of Modern Monetary Theory, fiscal policy, the Green New Deal, and financial instability. She is the editor of the Elgar Companion to Modern Monetary Theory with L. Randall Wray, and her work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian and The Hill. 

Find her work at levyinstitute.org/publications/yeva-nersisyan