Monetäre Kriegsführung – MMT auf deutsch – global supply chains at war – Austrian war propaganda – US sabotage for quants – Dutch Monetary Enlightenment – global post neo-liberal economics – diversity and disaggregation – Covid democracy in Cuba – Marxist revival in Japan
soziopolis.de 7-3-2022 Monetäre Kriegsführung – von Aaron Sahr
“Bei der Verwendung der Labels „Krieg“ oder „kriegerisch“ ist Vorsicht geboten, sollen sie für etwas anderes verwendet werden als zur Bezeichnung von Waffenfeuer.[1] Andererseits ist es auch keine Effekthascherei, wenn mit Blick auf die Sanktionen gegen Russland und Belarus in der Presse von financial warfare oder, etwas eingeschränkter, von monetärer Kriegsführung gesprochen wird. Dass Geld zu Kriegsmaterial wird, ist keineswegs ungewöhnlich. „Geld ist meine wichtigste Munition“, soll der wegen der nach ihm benannten Affäre 2012 zurückgetretene US-Vier-Sterne-General David Petraeus gesagt haben, der führend an Invasion wie Besatzung des Irak beteiligt war.[2] Wie von der kanadischen Soziologin Emily Gilbert zu lernen ist, wird Geld gewissermaßen amtlich in militärischen Strategiehandbüchern als Munition klassifiziert. …”…
politischeökonomie.de 10-3-2022 Interview mit Dirk Ehnts: „Man muss nicht erst Steuergelder einnehmen, bevor man Staatsausgaben tätigen kann.“ Dirk Ehnts ist einer der bekanntesten deutschen Vertreter der Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Unser Herausgeber Otmar Tibes hat mit ihm über seine neue Einführung in die MMT sowie über Inflation, Gaspreise, die Sozial-Ökologische Transformation und weitere spannende Themen gesprochen.
amazon.de 3-2022 Modern Monetary Theory: Eine Einführung von Dirk Ehnts
linkedin/ftii 14-3-2022 Russia, Ukraine, and China by Stephen Dover
“It has become more apparent than ever that economics and finance are intertwined with national and global security. Sanctions confront armies. Banks take on tanks. And the collateral damage from economic and financial warfare is significant, as Russia is now discovering. The economic implications of Russia’s war are potentially large and global. Inflation will be higher everywhere. Economically vulnerable groups will be worse off. Global growth is expected to be weaker. …
… Plenty of discussion in China is apt to focus on other ways to hold foreign exchange reserves or to devise an alternative international payments system to SWIFT. But there is no quick fix. Existing institutions and networks that underpin the world’s financial system are not easily dislodged. Just as in social media or search, a single payments network and global reserve currency offer enormous network benefits. Global commerce works best on one platform rather than many. And, as economist Robert Triffin pointed out over 60 years ago, if a country wishes to issue and oversee the world’s reserve currency, it must provide for its supply in international finance and commerce via persistent trade deficits and a relatively open capital account.[6] Present-day China has little appetite for either, which will continue to hinder the renminbi’s development as a genuine global transactions or reserve currency rival to the US dollar.”
maroonmacro.substack.com#44: 4-3-2022 The Russia-Ukraine Crisis and its Ramifications for Global Supply Chains and Global Commodities Markets – by Maroon Macro
“What does the Russia-Ukraine crisis, particularly the potential sanctioning of Russian financial institutions, mean for the rest of the world? Let’s begin this conversation with a brief overview of Russia’s and Ukraine’s importance to the global economy. …
- Russia and Ukraine are significant producers of several key commodities including:
- Noble gases such as neon, argon, krypton, and xenon
- Base metals such as steel, copper, nickel, aluminum, platinum, titanium, palladium, and zinc
- Fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas
- Agricultural products such as wheat and corn
- Ammonium nitrate
… Conclusion: There is currently a lot of noise surrounding the ramifications that the Russia-Ukraine crisis may have for global supply chains and global commodities markets. I believe that, even absent a weaponization of exports and an escalation of sanctions, it is likely that disruptions to global supply chains and global commodities markets will cause inflation to become somewhat more persistent than was previously estimated. The magnitude and duration of the negative impact are, as of now, extremely uncertain, as they depend largely on the collateral damage to the civilian infrastructure, the responses of the Western allies, and the overall duration of the occupation. In a nutshell, we are going into a volatile period, of which there are three key contributing factors:
- The weight of Russia in the global supply chains and the global commodities markets
- The exposure of Europe to Russian noble gas, base metal, agricultural, and energy imports, as well as its involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the near future
- Very tight global supply chains and global commodities markets that have already been significantly stressed by the COVID-19 pandemic
I believe that the most important things to watch out for will be the supply of neon gas, as that could exacerbate existing semiconductor production problems, and the supply of agricultural products and ammonium nitrate, as that could exacerbate existing food supply chain problems.” >read article at source
ppe.mercatus.org/podcasts 9-2-2022 Manufacturing Militarism On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, we’ll hear a book panel discussion of Manufacturing Militarism: U.S. Government Propaganda in the War on Terror, written by Christopher J. Coyne & Abigail R. Hall. Applying a political-economic approach to the incentives created by a democratic system with a massive national security state, Coyne and Hall delve into case studies from the War on Terror to show how propaganda operates in a democracy. Peter Boettke moderates the panel with Randall G. Holcombe, Risa Brooks, Allis Chalmers
economicsfromthetopdown.com 11-3-2022 In Search of Sabotage – James McMahon, Blair Fix
Looking at the evidence, we find a clear connection between Bichler and Nitzan’s power index and the rise and fall of income inequality. We think this evidence is consistent with the sabotage hypothesis — the idea that enforcing corporate property rights is a form of social sabotage.
That said, it’s worth reviewing what other theories might say about this evidence. The answer, we believe, is very little. To review, Bichler and Nitzan’s power index consists of the ratio between a country’s main stock-price index and its average wage. To our knowledge, no one prior to Bichler and Nitzan thought to focus on this ratio.2 Why? Likely because prevailing orthodoxies gave no compelling reason to do so.
Let’s start with neoclassical economics, which is the dominant school of political economy. According to neoclassical theory, stock prices and wages are both measures of ‘productivity’. (Stock prices measure the productivity of capital. And wages measure the productivity of workers.) Since any form of productivity is treated as ‘good’, there is no reason to care about the balance between stock prices and wages.
Although its logic is different, Marxist theory also overlooks the ratio at the heart of the power index. For Marx, stock prices did not indicate the productivity of capital. Instead, stocks were ‘fictitious capital’ that was unrelated to the ‘real’ economy. And since Marx based his theory of capitalism on the ‘real’ production of commodities, it followed that stock prices were of little interest.
In contrast to neoclassical and Marxist theory, Nitzan and Bichler view stock prices as neither ‘fictitious’ nor a measure of productivity. Stock prices, they argue, are an indicator of capitalists’ power to enforce property rights. And this enforcement, they continue, is a form of social ‘sabotage’. From this thinking comes the ‘power index’, and the hypothesis that its ups and downs ought to correlate with the rise and fall of social malaise.
At least when it comes to the ill of income inequality, it appears that Bichler and Nitzan are on the right track.
springer.com/pdf 2021 Money and Debt -The Public Role of Banks – by Bart Stellinga, Josta de Hoog, Arthur van Riel, Casper de Vries
…”…In the Netherlands, the citizens’ initiative Ons Geld (‘Our Money’) has placed monetary reform squarely on the public and political agenda. In 2015, the initiative – inspired by a popular theatre play that portrayed a financial system ridden by greed, elitism, instability and injustice – proposed placing money creation exclusively in public hands and gathered more than 120,000 signatures. In the ensuing Parliamentary debate in March 2016, a motion was adopted requesting the government to seek advice from the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) on the advantages and disadvantages of different monetary systems.
The proposal for an alternative system casts light on a fact that will surprise many people, including many bank employees: most of our money is not created by governments or central banks, but by commercial banks. Banks create new money when they grant loans; while money is destroyed when loans are repaid (we explain this in Chap. 2). This means that the creation of money in our current system is inextricably linked to the creation of debt. Money and debt are in many ways two sides of the same coin. That means strong growth in debt – of concern to many international institutions and economists – cannot be seen in isolation from growth in the money supply. … Before the financial crisis, many analysts paid scant attention to money and debt. Although by some measures the size of the financial sector had come to overshadow that of the real economy, many persisted to see money and debt as an insignificant ‘veil’ over economic activity, one without notable effects on the real economy. The financial sector generally did not feature in the macroeconomic models used for policy analyses (for example by the CPB, the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis). Economic models disregarding financial risks dominated education and policy discussions, while fundamental macroeconomic research devoted scant attention to the role of money and debt. Citizens’ initiatives are rightfully calling for greater attention to the role of money and debt in our societies which, as pillars of the financial system, have far-reaching
effects. In what follows, we briefly introduce money and debt (Sects. 1.1 and 1.2) before discussing the role of trust (Sect. 1.3) and dynamism in the financial monetary system (Sect. 1.4). The introduction ends with an overview of the report (Sect. 1.5). …”…
amazon.co.uk 11-2021 Post-Neoliberal Economics by Edward Fullbrook, Jamie Morgan, Richard Parker, Richard B. Norgaard, James K. Galbraith, Lukas Bäuerle, William E. Rees, Jayati Ghosh, Richard C. Koo, Neva Goodwin, Max Koch, Jayeon Lindellee, Johanna Alkan Olsson, Katharine N. Farrell, John Komlos, Clive L. Spash, Adrien O.T. Guisan, Andri W. Stahel
Kindle $8.00 US UK DE FR ES IT NL JP BR CA MX AU IN Paperback $22.00 US UK DE FR ES IT JP CA
If you feel that there is nothing new or liberal about neoliberal economics, and that neoliberal economics is to understanding capitalism what astrology is to understanding the Cosmos, read this book! –Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economics – University of Athens
Fullbrook and Morgan in this excellent anthology continue to act as trust-busters in breaking up the suffocating neoliberal monopoly on academic economics by giving a venue to clearer thinking. – Herman Daly, Emeritus Professor, University of Maryland, USA
Post-Neoliberal Economics is a triumph. It comes when the long-established neoliberal binary between “natural market” and “artificial state” has substantially lost credibility, thanks to the North Atlantic financial crisis, China, and Covid. Anyone who enjoys the company of articulate, provocative, offbeat intelligences will want to read it. Some will want to pick a fight with it. – Robert H. Wade, Professor of global political economy, London School of Economics and Political Science
As a project, neoliberalism remade the world; as an ideology, it became inconsistent with the very world it made. This rich heterodox volume examines the theoretical, societal, and environmental failings of neoliberalism – as well as what might and should replace it. – Jonathan Nitzan, Professor of Political Economy at York University, Toronto
Fullbrook and Morgan have assembled an interesting collection of essays from some of the world’s leading heterodox economists. It is a valuable cross-section of thinking outside of the mainstream of the profession. – Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington D. C.
The world has become more unequal, the economy more fragile, and our existence on Earth more tenuous, because we followed the advice of Neoclassical economists who think they are capitalism’s best friends, when in fact they are the greatest threat to its continued existence. We desperately need a Post-Neoliberal Economics. – Steve Keen
This book is a must-read not only because it shows neoclassical economics’ fundamental inadequacy for understanding today’s world, but also because it outlines a new economics that can lead us to living in harmony with our ecosystem. – Norbert Haering, Handelsblatt
In times where good news tend to be scarce, let me celebrate the publication of Post-Neoliberal Economics; a timely collection of essays authored by key critical thinkers of the discipline, with the purpose to design a new, inspiring future for Economics as a science useful to solve the real problems of society today. This work, meticulously edited by Fullbrook and Morgan, puts forward a substantive, solid and passionately argued call to transform Economics as it currently stands in order to make it relevant to meet the crucial challenges faced by our peoples, urbi et orbi. Of utmost important to lecturers at undergraduate and graduate levels, the book puts forward a practical blueprint to change its curricula, teaching and research practice so that students of Economics, on the one hand, keep alive enthusiastically their aspirations to make this a better world and, on the other hand, acquire the analytical and technical abilities to make such dreams come true. – Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid, UNAM, México
equitablegrowth.org/ 7-2021 Diversity in economics and data disaggregation can improve our understanding of the U.S. economy – by Marie T. Mora…”…The lack of representation in economics results in pervasive barriers and blind spots along the economics pipeline and pathways, from who becomes an economist and how economics is taught to how data are collected and the ways in which researchers and policymakers analyze and use those data. As a Latina economist who has long worked to diversify the profession—particularly with respect to race, ethnicity, and gender—I know all too well the obstacles that my peers face in the field, as well as the benefits of the diversity in lived experiences, viewpoints, and backgrounds that we bring to the table…”….
academi.edu pdf 2-2022 A look at citizen participation during COVID-19 in the city of Pinar del Río – by Yusmila Adalina Hernández Fernández, Hany Raisely Pérez Bruno
…”…Building citizenship is promoting the active participation of people in the construction and transformation of the society in which they live according to their interests and needs.(Camacho, 2001, p. 79). To participate is to belong to a whole that understands and has theparticipantinmind. It happens to be an activeentity, feeling with possibilities to do, contributeand decide. According to Gabriel Gyarmati, participation is the real and ffective capacity of the in-dividual or a group to make decisions on matters that directly or indirectly affect their life and activities in society (Krause, 2002, p.) … To what limits does citizen participation go and how it reverts in a moment of crisis, is a matter for reflection …”…
nhk.or.jp 2-2022 Japanese scholar looks to Marx’s theory to explain pandemic, climate change