“...Because we recognize that taxes are not a funding operation, there's this myth that people who support MMT don't want to use fiscal policy to promote equity. Of course, taxes are redistribution … Things have gotten way out of hand, so taxation is also intended to promote equity, to affect distribution and allocation. Resource allocation.”Mat Forstater was on this podcast four years ago (episode 21!) recounting the history of MMT. He described his early days at Levy Institute and UMKC, his relationship with Warren Mosler and Pavlina Tcherneva, and how they established MMT as interdisciplinary, expanding into law and humanities. If you haven’t listened to that episode, we urge you to check it out.This week, Mat talks to Steve about the role of taxation in the economy and its relation to government spending. It’s not enough to understand how taxes create a demand for the nation’s currency and give it value. Mat always reminds us to consider the total impact of any policy — from using taxation to encourage or discourage behavior, to its ripple effects and unintended consequences.They touch on the importance of decoupling taxation from federal programs and the need to design tax policies that consider the indirect effects on society. They also talk about the potential deflationary impact of programs like Medicare for All, and whether a job guarantee can address unemployment and provide quality jobs.Dr. Mathew Forstater is a professor in Economics at the University of Missouri/Kansas City and the Research Director of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. having received a Ph.D. at The New School for Social Research. His research focuses on the History of Economic Thought, Economic Methodology, Political Economy, Public Policy, Economics of Discrimination, Environmental Economics, African and African American Economic History. @mattybram on Twitter

The title of this week’s episode is taken from an article to be published in September’s Monthly Review. The author, Jason Hickel, talks to Steve about the topic in his third visit to the podcast.Before we look at the double objective of ecosocialism we must analyze the double crisis we’re facing – ecological and social. Both are caused by the same underlying issue: the capitalist mode of production.Capitalism creates an almost perfect circuit that begins and ends with commodification and enclosure. Well, actually, it ends with massive profits... and that double crisis we mentioned. With essential goods and services outside our control, we have no bargaining power when it comes to the cost of living. We are helpless in the face of artificial scarcity and price-gouging. Faced with the high price of necessities we are forced to work longer and harder in order to simply survive. And of course, the more we need to work, the less control we have over our wages. The capitalist class makes out at both ends.There are at least two undeniable problems with this system. It wreaks havoc on the environment and is inconsistent with democracy, if you care about that sort of thing.“This is where our analysis has to ultimately lead, and the underlying pathology is basically that capitalism is fundamentally not democratic.”Even those of us who live in the US, Europe, or other countries with nominally democratic electoral systems have no illusions about their undemocratic nature.“More importantly, when it comes to the system of production, which all of us are engaged in every day, on which our livelihoods and our existence depends, not even the shallowest illusion of democracy is allowed to enter.”After identifying the quagmire, Jason and Steve talk about a solution. Jason lays out the necessary policies that ecosocialism should provide: universal public services, a public works program, and the job guarantee. Jason even suggests the possibility of post-capitalist firms and post-capitalist markets, and describes how they might operate in such a system.We can’t have a Jason Hickel episode without a discussion of degrowth and whether that concept applies to the exploitation of the Global South. Nor is there a means of achieving our goals without domestic and international class solidarity.“We can't underestimate the scale of the struggle that is really involved here. I think we have to take inspiration from successful social movements that have occurred in the past. There's this amazing line from Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso that goes 'we are the heirs of the world's revolutions'.Pretty much every good thing that we have is the result of revolutionary forces that fought to bring that to be. Everything from literally the minimum wage, as pitiful as it is, to the weekends, to whatever admittedly meager forms of democracy we get to exercise. These are all the benefits of revolutionary movements that have at least won some concessions in the past, and in some cases against extraordinary odds.”Dr. Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist, author, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Visiting Senior Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, and Chair Professor of Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo. Health.Jason's research focuses on global political economy, inequality, and ecological economics, which are the subjects of his two most recent books: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions (Penguin, 2017), and Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (Penguin, 2020), which was listed by the Financial Times and New Scientist as a book of the year.@jasonhickel on Twitter

It will come as no surprise to our listeners that countries of the Global South are mired in a foreign debt crisis and that default is directly tied to the lack of monetary sovereignty.Our friend Ndongo Samba Sylla, a Senegalese development economist, talks to Steve about the situation, how it came to be, and how it can be overcome.Countries of the Global South usually are tied to debt in a foreign currency for a number of reasons, including balance of payment constraints and the capture of export income by transnational corporations. Some debt was carried over from colonial rule. Ndongo emphasizes that these countries are often trapped in an extractive economic model. Their resources are exploited by foreign companies, leading to a cycle of debt and dependence.Debt cancellation, while absolutely necessary, is not enough to address the structural issues that perpetuate the crisis. Ndongo mentions ecological debt — the extraction and exploitation of natural resources from the Global South by the Global North. He highlights the need for a fundamental change in the domestic economic model of accumulation to eliminate the role of debt as an instrument of domination.Ndongo also traces the history of structural adjustments after attempts at reform in the 1970s, beginning with the proposal for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) that challenged the imperialist system. The austerity we witness today arose from the reaction to that agenda.Ndongo Samba Sylla is a Senegalese development economist. He has previously worked as a technical advisor at the Presidency of the Republic of Senegal, and is Programme Manager at the West Africa office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. He is the co-author of Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story and author of The Fair Trade Scandal.@nssylla on Twitter

**Don’t forget to check out our transcripts! There’s one for every episode of this podcast, as well as a section of “extras” with links to relevant resources. Go to realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/ This week we’re bringing you all three sessions of the Real Progressives Book Club on L. Randall Wray’s Making Money Work for Us.  RP Book Club is run by our volunteers with guest experts leading the discussion and taking questions from attendees.  This is much longer than our usual episodes of Macro N Cheese, so we’ve included the time codes for each session. [1:43] — Session One Guest economist Eric Tymoigne  Chapter 1, What is Money? Chapter 2, Where Does Money Come From? [1:14:35] — Session Two Guest economist Yeva Nersisyan  Chapter 3, Can We Have Too Much Money?  Chapter 4, Balances Balance  Chapter 5, Life is Full of Trade-Offs [2:43:33] — Session Three Guest economist Randy Wray Chapter 6, The MMT Alternative Framework for Policy  Chapter 7, MMT and Policy Use this link to order the book: Making Money Work for Us: How MMT Can Save America by L. Randall WrayEric Tymoigne is an Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. @tymoignee on Twitter. Yeva Nersisyan is an Associate Professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College and a Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. L. Randall Wray is a Professor of Economics at Bard College and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. 

“People talk about campaign finance being the problem as to why ‘progressive’ politicians can't get elected. But that's more of an effect of this rather than the cause, because let's say, Citizens United, the court ruling which now allows corporations to pretty much give unlimited donations to candidates. That's just the most recent evolution of a system which precludes all possibility for radical change.”Our guest this week is 1Dime, a content creator on YouTube and the podcast, 1Dime Radio, and a graduate student in political science. The interview is another stop on Steve’s journey to find the intersection of Modern Monetary Theory and Marxism. 1Dime is one of the few socialists – or democratic socialists – who accept MMT. Our audience understands that capitalism is antithetical to democracy. 1Dime suggests that the US is unique in that it is very liberal in what it allows its citizens to do in the private sphere, or civil society, without allowing for real political power, which he defines as the ability of a social class to actualize its interests. Steve and 1Dime compare the political history of the US with parliamentary democracies, discussing what that means for the working class. Agreeing that elections have limited value for American socialists, they look to alternatives. Tony brings up the idea of dual power: establishing power within the state while engaging in revolutionary actions outside it, building media institutions as well as organizations that can reach out to labor. Tony runs the YouTube channel "1Dime" and the podcast 1Dime Radio. On his main channel, 1Dime does video essays and mini-documentaries that involve the political economy, history, geopolitics, leftist theory, and various socio-political topics. 1Dime is known most for his videos involving MMT and Marxian thought, such as "The Problem With Taxing The Rich" and "Why Billionaires Prefer Democrats." His most recent video series was on the History of Post-Soviet Russia and the Putin regime. Each video serves as both an educational analysis of a different topic and a unique artistic experiment. Check out his YouTube channel, 1Dime and his podcast, 1Dime Radio, on Apple, Spotify, and most podcast platforms. @1DimeOfficial on Twitter

Is the US a failed state? Well, with a paralyzed economy, debt deflation, and a ruling elite waging class warfare on labor, what else should we call it?Economist Michael Hudson often writes and talks about the US role as a global force bending the rest of the world to its will. Or trying to. This week he and Steve bring the focus home, looking at the state of affairs in the US; breaking down the causes and devastating effects of the massive transfer of income and wealth from the working class to the 1% — specifically the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sectors.Michael slices through false promises of re-industrialization after half a century of brutal policies by both Democrat and Republican administrations.“America cannot re-industrialize without reversing this whole philosophy of post-industrial society as a class war against labor. You can't have both. You can't have a class war against labor and re-industrialization, with the labor unionization that goes with it. That's the conundrum.”It’s well known that the people want public spending on healthcare, student loan forgiveness, and other social programs. The episode looks at the complementary roles of both parties in opposition.“The pretense is that the government has to borrow from bond holders. Because the bond holders decide what is economically worthwhile. Well, what does this ignore? That the bond holders are the 1%, and what they find economically worthwhile isn't using the government to benefit living standards, benefit labor, and to provide social services.”Should either party feign to support a policy and pass legislation benefiting the people, the Supreme Court is there to stop it in its tracks, citing the original intent of the Constitution.“Because the Constitution was drafted by authors who feared democracy. Who said that we have to make sure that we have enough checks and blocks, so that the mob cannot rule and take away the power of we, the bond holders, and landlords, and slave owners.”There are certain themes Michael Hudson visits again and again, strengthening connections and adding nuance to a comprehensive class analysis and global political economy. If you’re lucky, he’ll pepper it with a few snarky observations as well.Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Support him at patreon.com/michaelhudsonFind his work at michael-hudson.com

In this episode, David Correia and Tyler Wall, co-authors of Police: A Field Guide, lead a webinar about policing in the US.The common narrative about the police is intentionally misleading. Without a class analysis and an understanding of history, it will remain a problem with no solution. Policing isn’t a side-show to capitalist political economy. It’s part of the main stage. Far from engaging in enforcing the law and fighting crime, the police are a coercive force, with origins as slave patrols, colonial militia, and strike-breakers.Addressing possibilities of reform or abolition, the point is made that attempts at reform only serve to further maintain the legitimacy of the police. Reform does not address the monopoly on violence — a violence that is non-negotiable and non-reciprocal. Reform feeds into the myth that we hold the police accountable. Abolition, on the other hand, does not mean absence; it looks at possibilities for a different kind of world. Can this be done within the capitalist system?David Correia is a professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico. He writes about violence, law, and race under capitalism.Tyler Wall is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His areas of interest include critical police studies; state violence and racial capitalism; law & society, race and class.Correia and Wall are co-authors of Police: A Field Guide (Verso)

If you’ve recently chatted with a well-informed liberal – the kind who reads the NY Times or watches PBS NewsHour – you’ve heard encouraging things about the economy. You’ve heard that Biden’s doing a good job. Unemployment has gone down, wages have gone up. Why can’t you be happy about it all?To celebrate all this good news, we brought back our friend, Yeva Nersisyan, associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College, research scholar at the Levy Institute, and frequent collaborator with MMT OG Randy Wray.Yes, unemployment rates are lower, but we know those numbers don’t tell the true story. Or have you already forgotten our episode with Pavlina, just two short weeks ago? Yes, wages have gone up. But so has inflation. And in the race between inflation and wages, inflation is winning. Speaking of which, our Macro N Cheese family knows that one thing worse than inflation is the Fed’s cure for it.In this episode, Steve and Yeva look at the disconnect between the ongoing immiseration of the working class and the rosy scenario painted by politicians, pundits, and economists. At least one of those groups should know better. They discuss the looming student debt crisis, and the effect of the Fed’s interest rate hikes on student loans.When discussing MMT-informed solutions, Yeva warns:“You have to be consistent — whether it's the Trump tax cuts, whether it's the social security question. And you have to consistently say: the question of taxes and government spending, it should not be about deficits, should not be about debt, it should be about: is this the right thing for the economy? Is this what the people want? Is this what the people need? That's what you need to start with. And just because you want to raise taxes on the wealthy, which I do too, but I don't want to tie it to things like social security, because I think that's just a losing argument, and that's just not true.”MMT points toward answers, if anyone is asking.Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, and a research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

It’s always interesting to get the insights of someone whose job places them near the beating heart of the imperial behemoth. Especially when they’ve begun to pull back the curtain and take a hard look at reality. Paul Gambles lives in Thailand where he specializes in emerging markets with MBMG Group.Paul and Steve talk about the clarity that MMT provides. The public is kept intentionally misinformed by a mainstream narrative purposely obscuring the power relations of the capital order.Paul describes capital flight in developing nations and how the US gains and maintains economic control through dollar hegemony, international institutions like IMF, and military aggression. The western system imposes itself on emerging markets as if drawing them into a warm pool of water, a step at a time. Once they are in the system, they find it is shark infested.The discussion covers conditions that led to the banding together of BRICS to create an alternative pathway to the US-dominated system. Paul warns that western hegemony is not going to surrender easily and is practicing economic terrorism against emerging markets trying to disentangle themselves from dollar hegemony.“I don't believe that anybody can hand on heart say that there's no connection whatsoever with the BRICS attempts to disentangle themselves from Western commercial, economic, and currency hegemony and the actions that we've seen in terms of American geopolitics in and around the Ukraine and in and around the South China Sea ... I think we're seeing it move into a geopolitical and into a military sphere, and I think that's terrifying.”Just like old-fashioned colonialism, the US is engaging in a form of value extraction and will use all the means at its disposal to continue the plunder.Paul Gambles is the Co-Founder of MBMG GROUP and a Director and Chief Investment Officer of MBMG Investment Advisory, a SEC regulated investment advisor. Find Paul’s articles on https://mbmg.substack.com/@PaulGambles2 on Twitter

When economist Pavlina Tcherneva was last on this podcast, we were a few months into the pandemic. She and Steve talked about nationalizing payroll and the heightened need for a federal job guarantee during a time of crisis.In this episode, the neoliberal approach to unemployment comes under scrutiny. Pavlina explains the inadequacy of official unemployment data. She looks at the problem from several angles, including geography, demographics, and of course, economics.Pavlina and Steve discuss MMT, the politics of NAIRU, and the debt ceiling. They look at a job guarantee as an automatic stabilizer, similar to entitlements like social security and unemployment insurance, possibly shielding it from shifting political tides.Pavlina tells Steve about her collaboration with the Democratizing Work Initiative, a group of academics who are organizing around the principles of democratizing work, decommodifying labor, and decarbonizing the planet.Pavlina Tcherneva is an Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College, the Director of OSUN’s Economic Democracy Initiative, and a Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute, NY.  She specializes in modern money and public policy. Find her work at pavlina-tcherneva.net@ptcherneva on Twitter