Ep 336 - MMT101 with Jim Byrne
**You’re invited to join us Tuesday evening for Macro ‘n Chill, an online gathering where we can listen to and talk about this episode. Tuesday July 15, 8pm ET/5 pm PT
This week we're releasing an interview Steve did as a guest of Jim Byrne, host of MMT101 podcast.
Steve and Jim have much in common, so it’s interesting to hear how their approaches differ. In part, this is related to the conditions of their nationalities. Jim, in Scotland, isn’t faced with the myth of political democracy. They have a devolved government, under the thumb of Westminster, with no control over the economic levers. The demands are straightforward: more money... and independence.
Jim says he prefers to see MMT “purely as a technical – almost a technical description – with a bit of theory thrown in there, because of course T stands for theory.”
Steve describes his 15-year journey with MMT. Originally, he focused on the “wonky stuff,” the mechanics of the monetary system. He came to understand that people aren’t interested until they can see how it relates to their own lives. Today he maintains that MMT should be connected to real-world issues such as class struggle, poverty, student debt, and geopolitical conflicts like the horrific situation in Gaza.
The episode is a great conversation between two MMT activists. Despite their differences, they find they have much in common.
Jim Byrne is currently developing an MMT foundation course aimed at beginners and intermediate learners, as well as people who already know about economics but are curious about Modern Monetary Theory.
Follow his work and the MMT101 podcast at mmt101.substack.com
@MMT101DotORG
Transcript
: Hey, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese.I am getting the privilege of putting out a discussion that I had with Jim Byrne of the wonderful mmt101.substack.[com], who is a prolific writer, a really interesting character that is able to write incredibly well about the inner workings of modern monetary theory and does it in such a way that I believe that regular people can understand, people – when I say regular, being non-academic, non-economist types. So I really appreciate Jim's writing. Jim was kind enough to have me as a guest on his podcast and the discussion was an interesting one.He and I come from slightly different angles on modern monetary theory and how to get the word out. I started where Jim is.Jim is very much in the camp of let's leave MMT as just MMT. And MMT which is just MMT is really good for those people that want an accounting background and want a much more theoretical understanding of the way the banking system itself works.But what I found over the 15 plus years of doing MMT activism and interviewing hundreds of hours of interviews over the time I've been doing this is that a lot of people out there simply are so far behind the curve, simply so challenged by why they should care about this esoteric accounting concept, these ledgers and tracing through reserve accounting and understanding sectoral balances and just understanding the fact of the state as the currency issuer and the little, small "s", states being currency users.Things like that just don't resonate with the larger, broader audience of people that want action, want to see their material conditions in their life change. So I believe there's absolutely room for both, and we try to do both.But from my vantage point where we've gotten as an organization here we are trying to let people understand that, "You know what, the stock market making big bucks for rich people isn't exactly what we call working class winning."And so by integrating class, we have allowed the left, who we prefer to cater to, who we are trying to reach, who have oftentimes been forgotten because Marxists have not exactly been keen to learning about MMT. Progressives – Bernie Sanders movement – has been resistant to MMT. In fact, you've even heard most of their leading voices – Kshama Sawant, Nina Turner, Jill Stein, Biden, all the others, even AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] playing on the tropes of debt and deficit hawkery and all the other stuff. So people are getting MMT twisted with the baloney politics of the day, but they need to have an answer for the hope that lies within.And so for us, we try to tie together things that matter to working class people, the issues that they're facing, from student debt to war in Gaza. How does the United States fund the war in Gaza? How does it fund the genocide that is occurring on behalf of the Zionist ethno-terrorist state of Israel? How do they do that? You know what, that's a very interesting question that, believe it or not, MMT has a very good answer for.So, to us, meeting them where they're already interested... They're already interested in understanding how in the world their hard-earned tax dollars are going to fund Israel's slaughter of children in tent cities. They want to know how these are happening. They want to understand how in the world we could provide high speed rail when we can't provide food for the poor. Well, what if we could? So we tried to integrate those things together.And so in our discussion, I think it was a great give and take between Jim and I where Jim expressed his concerns and his ideas and they're all valid. I know that Bill Mitchell would tell you that MMT is not the theory of everything.I know a lot of people out there would like to keep it in the glass case, very sterile and very isolated from political economy. But unfortunately when you're talking to Marxists, they don't talk ledgers. They don't talk accounting. They talk political economy. They talk about the balance between capital and the labor and they talk about all the political ideas and they want to slash the military budget by 75%. But they don't realize that if they don't have a spending bill in wait to backfill that cut that they're so eager to do, what they're going to in fact do is bring massive misery. So there is a two-step process there: spending and taxing. Not taxing and spending. Spending, then taxing.So this conversation I think is really fantastic. I think it shows you two sides of the MMT activism. I think it shows you that you can walk and chew gum at the same time.And I think that it shows that it takes different strokes for different folks, different approaches for different groups and it is not a one size fits all anything. I know there's some MMTers out there that mock the left because they have such bad economics. They're never going to reach them by doing that, by the way. Never ever going to reach them by mocking them.But the flip to that is, is that some of these leading voices that continually refer to their "hard-earned tax dollars," maybe they should be mocked a little bit. Maybe they should be goaded into doing better. Because when you know better, you do better.People like Nina Turner were with Bernie Sanders and around Stephanie Kelton, and if Stephanie didn't flat out say "Taxes don't fund spending," well, I don't know what to say because I've read a million of her tweets to know that she has said the same thing. I know that Pavlina Tcherneva has said a million times. In fact, some of my best saved tweets are from them saying these very keen catchphrases.So in this discussion, I think you're going to find a really nice cross section of class analysis and modern monetary theory and some of the motivations of which we approach to achieve these goals. With that, here's the pod.
Jim Byrne:: Hi and welcome to another episode of the MMT 101 podcast.I have a treat for you today, which is the fact that I was chatting to Steve Grumbine of the Macro N Cheese podcast, possibly and probably the most popular podcast about MMT out there on the digital whatever it's called, the digital something. If you've ever listened to Steve, you will know that he is a force of nature.He constantly reminds us that learning about MMT is not the point in itself. The point is to use it to make people's lives better.And in that pursuit, Steve is never afraid to say what's on his mind, doesn't hide from political realities, and doesn't ever hold back. In this episode, that is once again the case.At one point we will be chatting about the topic of Gaza, so I have to warn you, because maybe that's something you don't want to listen to. With that in mind, I have to make it absolutely clear that I condemn all violence, whether that be by Hamas or by the Israeli government. And I wholeheartedly condemn antisemitism.Okay, before we get into our chat, if you don't mind me saying, if you're finding these podcasts and the articles I write on Substack useful and educational, please become a subscriber. And if you'd like to help me to continue, please become a paid subscriber. Because I have to tell you, that will really help. Okay, that's enough for me.Let's get right into our chat. My guest this week, Steve Grumbine.
Steve Grumbine:: We are pure MMT folks.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: But we don't value the political insights of a lot of the MMT academics. We don't see their political insights as compatible with the incredibly revolutionary ideas that their economics produces.To watch Stephanie placate neoliberal politicians in the US, fundamentally doesn't match to us. You know that there's nothing about what the people want that is being in any way, shape or form advanced by this political system. Help me understand how you're telling people we can just source the vote.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: Help me understand this fake democracy that doesn't exist in the US. It's proven it's an oligarchy. It's not a democracy. So I know it feels good to say "We'll just vote our way there." That's not in line with reality.
Jim Byrne:: I mean, I come originally from quite a working-class town, a shipbuilding town called Clydebank in Scotland. But my mom and dad were very aspirational.So coming from quite a poor area, not all the family, but certainly my mom and dad wanted us all to have an education, that kind of thing.
Steve Grumbine:: Sure.
Jim Byrne:: And then my dad actually started up his own business in his late 40s, so they were pulling themselves up in that traditional story. But all of us, all of our family and all of my friends, we were all, I suppose, left wingers from the get-go.None of us would ever have voted for a Tory and still won't. There's no way I would vote for any.Although, of course I wouldn't vote for the Labour Party either now, because they're also right wing, so we don't have progressive parties here other than the Scottish National Party, which I vote for because I want Scottish independence. We are under the foot of Westminster. Under the boot again, that's an entirely different topic, you know.
Steve Grumbine:: No, but I think it's right. I think all the MMT conversations, when you think about MMT, money doesn't exist in the government sector.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: Money exists once it's spent into the private sector.
Jim Byrne:: Absolutely.
Steve Grumbine:: So that's why all this, Treasury's general account this and overdraft that and all this. I think you're complicating a simple story. Right?
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: And. But when I think about what you just said, the more important thing, which is the political. Where does the power lie?Who is making decisions with this money? Who is making legislative decisions? That's when MMT's lens starts kicking in.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: And until you understand that you don't have that power. We don't have that power. We might have it, but just not at the ballot box.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: We have to remember what our forefathers and others once did to gain independence, to gain freedom, to gain these things. And we're terrified of that. We've been pampered to the point where the idea of doing what it took to establish my nation.What it would take maybe to establish your nation in the way that you would like it to be.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: It may not be able to happen at the ballot box. And these are questions that, because we're afraid to talk about them honestly, they don't get talked about.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: So we keep recycling the same, "We'll vote for a few more progressives and everything is okay." And it's a lie.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: At least to me, it's a lie.
Jim Byrne:: It's funny, when I hear you talking about democracy, I agree with you largely. I also have a different angle. We don't have democracy in Scotland. We can't vote anybody out.We have what's called a devolved government, which is basically part of a parish council in some sense. We have no power over the main economic levers. We are constantly controlled by Westminster. Taken out of, I know the EU is not necessarily a tremendous place, but we were taken out of there without our consent. We voted against it. All sorts of things that we don't have any control over.Our Westminster government today negotiated with the EU, whole set of new deals which involve Scottish industries without speaking to the Scottish devolved government. So my angle on democracy is at least you can vote somebody out as an American. As a Scot, we cannot vote the Westminster government out.We are neutered when it comes to that.We have a devolved government and we have all sorts of problems that causes in itself, because we then don't appear to be somebody that's been captured by another country because, oh, yeah, you can vote locally. So you're not like all these African countries that became independent.
Steve Grumbine:: Well, you're colonized, brother.
Jim Byrne:: We're colonized.
Steve Grumbine:: You're a colony.
Jim Byrne:: But of course, there's folk that have got all the arguments. "Well, you were part of the colonizers," and that was way back. And that wasn't us.That was the people who negotiated to take us over, who were the elite who were given the gold and the silver to fall in line to get the land and all, whatever. But the people of Scotland never voted for that. People of Scotland never wanted that. I know, I'm starting to run.I apologize, but that's where we are.
Steve Grumbine:: I'm with you, man. I've spoken to Malcolm [Reavell] before. I've spoken to quite a few of the folks over there in the UK and Scotland.And I really do think that my days of being a Bernie guy, really focusing on Bernie Sanders, when that illusion came to a crashing halt, I started realizing that maybe your situation in some ways is better than our situation. You framed it the other way. I like to deal in the reality. MMT is reality. That's what I love about MMT. You're not horse trading on... "That's your opinion" stuff.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: You're dealing in facts. This is a ledger. These are accounting identities. This is truth. Right? So for you, you're saying "We don't have a democracy.We are under the boot of Westminster."
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: My country, we have a lot of people that are going, "Oh, no, Steve, you just don't understand. We just got to teach them and we got to vote for them. We got to do all these things and it'll be better."I'm thinking to myself, "Gosh, if I were in Scotland, I'm only about one or two decisions away from revolution, but in the US, yeah, we got to sit there and play patty cake with the people that still lead a pretty good life, are really happy with their nice car, their vacations and holidays and things like that, and they don't really want to give up the privileges of stuff."So they're going to sit there and continue the lie of a fake democracy, much, much, much longer because they don't want to give up the perceived benefits that they have.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: Whereas the people suffering at the bottom don't have a choice at all because they play a buffer to preventing real radical change from occurring. So I kind of envy you.It's not a good situation, don't get me wrong, but it's kind of hard to look that one in the eye and go, "yeah, sure, we'll just vote a few more progressives and it will be great."
Jim Byrne:: Yeah, of course. And of course, the irony is Adam Smith started just up the road from me, where I spend quite a lot of time at Glasgow University.A lot of the ideas come from Scotland, which then turned up in today's politics and economics, is neoliberal economics orthodox economics. I'm afraid it's our fault, so I apologize for that.
Steve Grumbine:: Forgiven.
Jim Byrne:: But anyway, all the stuff you're saying, as I was listening to you the other day, in fact, I was listening to you this morning again about the MMT versus the politics versus the ideology versus the power thing.I'll tell you how I think about it, right? Because I think you probably got more of an integrated view of it.I prefer to see MMT purely as a technical, almost a technical description with a bit of theory thrown in there, because of course T stands for theory.But I would also prefer not to have politics on that side of it, because as far as I'm concerned, the politics is what happens with people like me with prejudices and a particular political viewpoint and a particular ideological view of the world can implement. So I can take a sum and it's not got politics in it. I can use that and say, "We're not getting enough money and I'm going to fight for it."So the people on the one hand are the politics and the prejudice and all the stuff that's in our head and the Right and the Left and all that kind of stuff that we can fight for. But it shouldn't necessarily be an MMT because I think that dilutes it to a certain extent.But you have to have something that says, "This is a description of how things work. This is the mechanics." The analogy I use in my training course, which I need to get out there at some point, is this.The mechanic's open up the car bonus has a look and he's got the manual that tells them how it works. So that's MMT, but where do you drive it? That's the politics.
Steve Grumbine:: Fifteen years ago, I started out doing nothing but wonky stuff, going through the mechanics of it. I lived and died in Randy Wray's [L. Randall Wray's] Modern Money Primer. [Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems] before The Deficit Myth: [Modern Monetery Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy] I was into the old New Economic Perspectives.I focused purely on the blocking and tackling. And what I found was there was a niche of people. There's certainly a niche of people that play Dungeons and Dragons and enjoy very, very wonky discussions. There's a lot of academics that enjoy very wonky discussions. But when it comes to making MMT serve a practical value other than being in a glass case in a museum, dusted off periodically for other academics to ignore, I came to realize that MMT that didn't address the people's concerns was never going to touch the people. The people were never going to consider it as an important thing.And I used to get into these wonky things about reserve accounting and people be like, "What is he saying?" I can't even. I don't care. I don't care. Yeah, it's a lens on how to view the economy. It's macroeconomics. Forget the MMT. It's macroeconomics. And so once you understand that as a wonky person, and then you try to talk to somebody who has spent 10 hours working, comes home. And now all of a sudden you say, "No, no, no. I want to draw these T accounts so you could see the flow of the reserves."They're looking at you like, yeah, "What are you doing?"
Jim Byrne:: I'm not arguing for that.
Steve Grumbine:: No. I'm saying what my experience was, right? And so I started realizing that I can't make everybody happy. I'm not pizza. Okay?With that in mind, how can I reach people that I feel are closer to a revolutionary spirit, that are ignorant about the monetary operations, but they don't come to it from a monetary operations perspective. They come to it from a class perspective. They come to it looking at these things, and I said to myself, "We're not reaching them. We're not reaching them at all." We go on television and we talk about the Democratic Party as MMT academics, okay? Talking about MMT from the Democratic Party perspective. And we end up losing all of those people that are really, really excited to make change but don't understand MMT. So again, if you look, we've done 330 episodes of Macro N Cheese right now. Probably the first hundred were largely Eric Tymoigne coming on and talking about the consolidated versus the coordinated between the treasury and the Fed. Or we had Bill Mitchell coming on, very first episode, breaking down the T in MMT. We've had Warren Mosler come on countless times, over and over. I've had Steve Keene debate Warren Mosler about, you know, "Are imports really a benefit, or really a cost?" And so we have always attacked these technical issues. And then I started realizing that we weren't touching people in a way that made MMT matter.They didn't care.And so we started approaching it differently, understanding that you can tell me all you want about ledgers and you can tell me about accounting identities, but unless you show me how this benefits my life, unless you show me why this is relevant to my kids surviving, I don't care. I had to cross that bridge. That was tough.
Jim Byrne:: I see where you're coming from. I mean, this is an interesting thing, of course.Again, I do have a slightly different approach to it, but I suppose in the UK or in Scotland, the word "class" is almost like a dirty word here. Might be a dirty word in other places. I have written about class. I think there's a class system.There's probably a more overt class system in the UK than there is in America by quite a large margin. I was writing the other day about the education system.I'm a big supporter of everybody getting educated for free, from top to bottom and the whole of their life. And why would any country not do that? It's the best thing they could possibly do for their country. It's just madness that they're not doing it.But in the UK, they use education as a class divider. Those that already have the money and the power and the networks go to private schools and the rest of us go to comprehensives.But in doing that, they preserve the class system.I know we're off topic here, but if you look at Westminster and all the politicians, including the Labour [Party] as well, they all went to the same schools, they all have the same basic understanding about how society works. That's not the right thing.The basic background, how they grew up, what class, what sector of the class they grew up within, what skills they went to, what they were taught. And that's the same across lots of professions in the UK. It's the same in the law profession. It's the same in the arts profession. It's the same people you will see on your cinema screen. They all were in a particular stratum and it was controlled by the education system. So for me, class exists, but in the UK, nobody wants to talk about it because they say, "It doesn't exist anymore."And even folk who I would say are coming from a working-class background, they don't want to talk about it either. They're quite happy to say, "It doesn't exist." We built, I suppose, in America this idea that in the past there was a social...What's the word I'm looking for? I have a terrible memory. [Hierarchy?] Yes. It's not hierarchy, but the ability to move upwards.
Steve Grumbine:: Social mobility.
Jim Byrne:: Social mobility. And there was social mobility in the past in the UK, particularly post-World War II.There's very little these days, but folk who have nothing still often cling to the idea that they wouldn't want to say that we're working class because there's a lot of stigma attached to it. And they wouldn't want to even say that there is such a thing as a class system. I don't know why exactly, but, you know, there is a bit of that.So from my point of view, sticking it in the thing, it's all about class. It wouldn't necessarily be a good way for me to do that here.It certainly is about the issues and you want people to have a better life, although they won't understand what the hell a wellbeing economy is. So there's no point in talking about that, because who knows what that is?But I have a slightly weird kind of approach to it, which is that I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but you have to catch the folk. We're at the bottom of a journey. We're not very far along. The educating people about MMT journey.I don't know whether you agree with that or not, but it feels to me as if we're not very far along.
Steve Grumbine:: I have a slightly different perspective of it because, for the longest period of time, if you listen to my talks with Matt Forstater, for example, who was one of the first five. Okay? He talked about how Warren Mosler would come to him and say, "How many people do we have now?" And he'd be like, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I think we got six now."You go, "Hey, keep going." Right?
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: And there's been many revivals before most of us got involved. Right?There was a period of time where the MMT community was trying to even work with Stephen Zarlenga of the AMI [American Monetary Institute] which is kind of a positive money side. There was a whole, "Hey, we're all heterodox. Let's work together."And obviously, then you have folks that are on the periphery, like Steve Keen and Michael Hudson. And then you have others who I feel are even less in line with us, like Mark Blyth, who I tried like the dickens to win over. Didn't work out.But I believe genuinely, from the conversations that not only have I seen these guys have with these people, Warren Mosler will talk frequently about his conversations that he had. And these people know.I mean, Bernie Sanders literally had Stephanie Kelton as his economic advisor, and he made the less-than-intelligent decision to ignore that.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: Okay? And as a result of that, he set an entire generation back when he had the platform. He had the ability.Because his followers are nothing but followers. They're not actually thinkers, they're followers.And so if Bernie says, "We're going to have spaghetti for dinner tonight," they go, "Hey, we're having spaghetti for dinner tonight." If Bernie says, "Hey, taxes don't fund spending," then all of a sudden, his people go, "Did you know Bernie said taxes don't fund spending?"But he never did that.But I do know that many of them have literally talked to these politicians directly and have had deep conversations behind the scenes, and they are very aware.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: And yet at the same time, nothing changes.
Jim Byrne:: Well, that feeds into my approach. I think it's a complete and utter waste of time talking to politicians about MMT.I think it's a complete waste of time talking to economists about MMT. It's a complete waste of time talking to people who are already in power, already have,I don't know what sort of a position which they don't want to lose in society. And I don't think that's where movements occur.You're not going to have the enthusiastic Westminster MMT Club where they go every Tuesday to learn about MMT. You're not going to have that. But movements don't come from the top, they come from the bottom. So that would be more my approach.And they start small, and they tend to start with a group of people that you probably don't even like, which is folk who are a bit techie and who are probably playing [World of] Warcraft or they're collecting teacups from a particular genre. Yeah, well, what I'm saying is they're techie people and they are the kernel of a law of movements.So the people who collect stamps, the people who know all about a particular breed of birds, there's a kernel of a movement in all these things that then can take off at some point that can hit that sort of inflection point. So your Antiques Roadshow people are on the television. But antiques is a kind of niche market of the type I'm talking about.I think MMT could be addressed like that, which is that there are people who will become interested in it because of that type of attraction, but that's a kernel which will then spawn something else. So you have to start at the bottom and you have to draw people in. They are the bottom level. They're not the folk who change the world.They are just the folk that get stuff, and talking about it and put it out there and have it on forums on the Internet, and they start to spread the word. That's what it comes from. I think, to a certain extent.
Steve Grumbine:: Delman Coates, who was one of the people that the MMT community brought into the fold, he started an organization in the US called Our Money and Delmon Coates, his particular angle was to influence the influencers.
Jim Byrne:: Okay.
Steve Grumbine:: And because people are followers. People are sheep.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah, yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: They're not leaders by nature. That's not really how most people get up in the morning and so forth. So they need somebody with some pizzazz to make them pay attention.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying they don't. I'm just saying that that's the point along this journey that happens.But at this point in the journey, that's not the people it's worth trying to influence. They're not interested. But they will become interested, because it's the whole thing about social proof.You've heard the phrase "social proof," which is, you know, when lots of people are suddenly liking something and it kind of spreads like wildfire, and the people that had no interest in it before were thinking, "Oh, I need to go on board with this." Social proof is when they feel out of the loop and they want to be in the loop.And these are the people you're talking about. They will turn their head at the point and only at the point where it seems to be on the up. And we are not at that inflection point yet. As far as I can see.
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Steve Grumbine:: In 2007, 2008, when I got involved in MMT, and that's a few minutes ago, right? That's not real recent. That's almost 20 years of doing this, daily.I've tried different paths. We started Real Progressives in support of Stephanie Kelton, who was starting Bernie Sanders campaign.So you got to realize the way this all plays out. MMT wasn't even a thought in them anywhere.It became a thought somewhere because it became part of the political narrative with the Bernie Sanders campaign, even though he didn't say anything about it.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah, yeah. No, that's interesting.
Steve Grumbine:: Okay, so this is reality. This is history. This is, like, factual. You go look it up.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: So with that in mind, we started off talking about, okay, a Green New Deal. This is what people care about. A Green New Deal. How are you going to pay for that? Ah, let us tell you about that. This is talking about health care.You guys in the UK, you got a national health service. You're destroying it, but you have one. We don't have anything like that.And sorry to call you the UK because you are Scotland, brother, but you get my point. We don't have anything like that. Okay? So people are dying here because of that. It's not just a friendly disagreement.It's murder in the United States. Okay?And so when people know that, for example, as you heard the story of my mom, I hate to bring this up, knowing our shared experience, but I will bring this up. My mother was given a choice. "Get up off the bed and do this therapy that you're too weak for, or go home and die."Yeah, that's the cheapest way to handle it.
Jim Byrne:: Okay.
Steve Grumbine:: Now, for me, as a son grieving over losing his mother or going through that process of losing her.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: If somebody would have told me and I didn't know MMT..."Steve, you realize that this is 100% a political choice, that every potential financial resource ever is created by the state and could solve this instantly. [Yeah] but it's not happening. You have to ask yourself, why isn't it happening, Steve?"Now, I may not have wanted to have that conversation right in the middle of her fighting for her life, but I assure you, coming out of her death, you wouldn't have had to tell me twice that these people are murderers, that these people are not doing good things. And you have to ask, what is their class interest? Why are they interested in this? Why do they support capital over the lives of people?And so for me, these are real questions as to why is MMT not relevant to me? Why do you keep telling him about this thing? And yet nothing you say is reality. Look at the TV. Look at what the politicians. Look at this.None of it's real. "But you just don't understand. Just, they haven't been educated. They just don't know any better." Liar. They run the system.They know Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse. They know Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution says that states cannot create currency.They know that the monopoly issuer of the currency is the United States government. And most of them have heard Stephanie. Most of them have heard Fadhel Kaboub. People like Andres Bernal went out and did a lot of these things. Fadhel did a lot of these things with Brand New Congress. I go on these people's shows all the time bringing up MMT. And little by little, people are starting to realize, "Hey, that's a good question."We're dying from a climate crisis. Why is nothing happening? So to me, that is the more compelling pathway into their brains.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: And I do both. I don't like, walk on one side of the aisle. I'm not a "Steve, MMT is not political. So I don't do that." No.I do this for the people that need that and for these people, for okay, example, in the United States, one of the most important ones that's out there is reparations for enslaved, descendants of slaves in this United States. Okay?
Jim Byrne::
Steve Grumbine:: And when you think about it, these people are like saying, "Hey, you promised us 40 acres and a mule. You have kicked and beaten us down through all these different things.We're looking for our comeuppance." and people are saying, "You're not going to take my hard-earned tax dollars to pay for that. I wasn't alive then. It's not my battle, blah, blah, blah."And so all of a sudden, now I've got an entry point to talk to them about the very thing that matters most to them. Now instead of being the subject, I'm the enabler of the thing that matters to them most.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah, yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: And I feel that you can walk and chew gum. I don't feel it's an either-or proposition. I feel our job is the most difficult as heterodox. Think about what heterodox means.It's the interrelationship of all those different institutional positions. It's having to know the other guy's position too. It's having to know all this stuff.So to get into just, "Okay, here's steps one through three of how federal spending is done." "Okay, that's good, but why does this matter to me? Why are you telling me this?"And again, that's after many, many moons of dealing with this that I've positioned away from just being a pure blocking-and-tackling guy to saying, "Okay, they're not listening. How can I get them to listen?"
Jim Byrne:: And I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying, Steve. Of course we have to use whatever tools, any tool we can use.One of the things, just as a quick analogy, which again is all very left field, I teach people how to write songs. I'm a songwriter, singer, songwriter, and I have a training course. They say, "How will I start? What should I use?" Say "Use anything you like."Anything is a catalyst, is a good catalyst. Anything that makes you write a song is a good catalyst. Doesn't matter what it is. It's the same here.Anything that can change the world for the better is a good idea. And anything that can educate people. So, I mean, it's such a difficult thing to understand. On the one hand, MMT, and yet it's so damn simple.On the other hand, it's unbelievably difficult to get people to believe this very simple idea. They just don't want to believe it. It's like that's too simple somehow. "Surely that can't be the case, Jim. The government makes the money?That can't be the case, surely, Jim. That's not what I've heard." So that's a very simple idea, but very difficult to get across to people.And as one of the things you're quite good at, of course, is explaining this, which is I was saying in my email earlier, listening to you, I'm usually quite good at not speaking on these things. That's my talent. So that the person that's got the talent can explain things. But you seem to be. You seem to be getting me to talk a bit too much.
Steve Grumbine:: No, it's not too much. I like it. It's a conversation.
Jim Byrne:: That's right. So is one of the things on your podcast is your ability to explain these, in some sense rather complicated, once you get beyond the simple idea.Yes, it's the government that creates the currency, which is, you know, a very simple idea, hard to explain. But once you get beyond that, it's quite difficult to explain all the other stuff.Even the words "sovereignty" or the word "currency issuer," "currency user." These are just pieces of jargon for most people. So you can't explain anything to somebody who's never heard of this by using MMT jargon.Certainly I find it attractive having learned it. And that's the bloody thing you fall into after a while. But it doesn't make you a good explainer of what it is.In fact, I've been more and more trying to avoid when I write using jargon because I know it's a barrier for people, which is why I tried to call it MMT101.But again, it's taken me a while to get to the point where I start to understand how to write about it in a way which doesn't make it indecipherable to read. What is a reserve account with the bank of England? Who knows what a reserve, what are reserve accounts? Who knows? Only an academic knows these words.So it's trying to find ways to explain these things without using all the jargon of the day. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm not saying I'm there because each thing I write is me educating myself.
Steve Grumbine:: Absolutely, absolutely. I think from one of the things that I just recently did, and I almost sent you this, but I was like, "Nah, I'll just send you the ones I sent you."But we went on to a Marxist-Leninist podcast the other day and we've been trying like heck to get someone to lay their hand on our shoulder and say, "These guys are okay, you can listen to them." Right? Because you got to have access to these other groups. They don't listen to you unless you've got standing with them.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: Okay? Lo and behold, we've done a lot of behind-the-scenes work trying to get in the door. And I thought that I was doing a really, really good job of saying things in an easy-to-understand way.And then when the podcast came out, the guy who had interviewed us decided to do an intro where he said, "Hey, you know, we asked him about this, and I guess he's so embedded in MMT that he said it very technical." Totally.
Jim Byrne:: Yes. Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: You're thinking. I was really? Thank you. No, I think that's really me.But I realized in that interview, though, that they came away being able to say, "Okay, so here is what I think. And now I've got this new piece of information.I've got to really let it bounce around in my head to see how this affects all these synapses that I have formed over the years."And the thoughts that I have and the path and train of thought that I have in terms of how I derive answers, I've just fundamentally thrown a fly in the ointment for them. And now they've got to reconnect some thoughts and what does that mean to them?
Jim Byrne:: That's right.
Steve Grumbine:: And I found that to be one of the most gratifying experiences in my MMT journey was talking to people that had no concept of where I was coming from.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: But had their own view, a version of things.If you've dealt with Marxists, how horrific their understanding of the monetary system is, yet at the same time, so many of them have such a great perspective on standing up for the little guy and ensuring workers get their just rewards and eliminating wars and eliminating empire, eliminating colonialism. A whole bunch of things that you say, "Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you, man. I'm with you. Yes. These are all really good things to be for."Now, let's get the economics right. You can teach me all the stuff you need to teach me about the history, but let me teach you about how the economic system works.And then take your class awareness.Take your awareness of power dynamics. Take your awareness of geopolitics and all these other things that really matter to you and overlay that with an understanding the monetary system and see how many things change when you finish the computations.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: And Bill Mitchell really did a great one. We had a show with him probably about six months ago. We have Bill on frequently. I think he's been on 13 times.But this one particular interview, we talked about the lens of MMT and the values of degrowth, because guys like Jason Hickel, who start off as a degrowther, but he is now a solid 100% dyed in the wool MMT Universal Basic Services, Job Guarantee guy. This is a man who is a tremendous ally in the fight, but he has the right political sensibilities. He's not mealy mouthed. He doesn't placate neoliberals. He doesn't lock arms with people that would do austerity.He is 100% there pointing and saying "No, wrong, wrong." And I can get behind a guy like that. I can get behind somebody with the power of their convictions.
Jim Byrne:: It's one of the reasons I, like yourself, Steve, to be honest with you. I mean, this courage to say the truth. There are folk over here in the UK who, I don't know what they're up to.There's a genocide going on at the moment and nobody in the UK government, they're acting as if it's not happening and all of that kind of stuff. And I mean, that's not such a lonely thing. But you've got the courage to say that on your podcast? Yes. A lot of people are hiding. A lot of people.I don't even know what it is. I just struggle with it. People don't want to address it.
Steve Grumbine:: Ask yourself a question. In the grand scheme of things, I've got ledgers to talk to you about.Or I've got children being melted in bombs on their tents and humanitarian zones that are getting denied food. And we're all the while being told by the very presidential candidate that many MMTers were supporting.We're being told by that guy, "But do you condemn Hamas? But what about Hamas bombing Israel?" Look, folks, yeah, Hamas doesn't even have freaking army. There are people literally without hospitals.There are people without homes, without. Their entire history has been eliminated, and yet we're still supporting the very people that slaughter them, that fund the slaughter.Now ask yourself this question real quickly. What could be more MMT than disabusing people of the fact that, "No, as terrible as this genocide is, it's not your tax dollars going over there."It's worse.Your politicians have made a political decision that it is more important to slaughter those people and do ethnic cleansing while other people in elite academic circles stay quiet to maintain access and prestige. But there are people that aren't cowards like Jason Hickel and that speak boldly. Right? But what could be more important?If you think MMT is the key to fixing these things, then why wouldn't you be using MMT to demonstrate that in fact, "No, your blame, if you want to take blame here, is staying silent. Your silence in the face of a genocide, in face of Auschwitz, in the face of Gaza, that is something to be deathly ashamed of. Hang your head in shame." But use the money story. You know, the US Government has made a decision. We have a jobs program.We're going to fund the military industrial complex by funding Halliburton, by funding Boeing, by funding all these different elements. And then they in turn provide goods and services to Israel. But Israel doesn't need US Dollars. Israel needs the goods and services of real resources.So the US is making a decision. We're going to go ahead and give billions and billions up to a trillion. Our military budget now is a trillion dollars in the United States. 1 trillion US dollars means nothing in the... It could be 50 trillion. The US government could afford it. The question is, are there real resources there? And they are.But they convince rank and file people, "No, you voted for this. You voted for it with Biden, you voted for it with Trump." No, you didn't. They never gave us a choice. They're literally out there manufacturing consent for a genocide, using public money. It's the perfect MMT story. And most are staying silent on it.Unacceptable.
Jim Byrne:: But that's just. To me, it's. I know it's unbelievably serious.But it's also incredibly absurd that people are so blind that they believe these ridiculous stories and "There's no such thing as genocide happening over," the one they can see on the television, the one they can see on every day. Somehow they can convince themselves that it's not happening. I don't. I just can't get my head around that.
Steve Grumbine:: There were MMT friends that are, with all due respect to them, are not really in my sphere anymore because they denied that there was a genocide going on. People got on me because I've been harsh and I'm going to remain harsh. I'm not going to deviate from that. This is not a gentleman's club.What's happening is people are dying for real now. I'm not dying right now, but others are. So why would I act like I have the privilege to pretend otherwise?It's an extreme privilege to not be outraged at the death. It's an extreme act of privilege to not be outraged at the death, and especially death that falls within our activist bucket.The finances, the austerity, the lack of finance to support the people. When I think about what drives me to wake up seven days a week from 5am my time to typically 1am my time, that's how much time I put into this.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah.
Steve Grumbine:: When you think about that, you don't do that just because. And I do have some autism in me. So I'm not going to say that I don't have superpower to stay focused that others don't have. I do.I am not going to lie. I do have that. But I don't do that just because it's some cool, wonky thing. It is cool and it is wonky and I love that part too.But I realize I feel a scalding hot burn on my back from the climate crisis and knowing that I have a child who is special needs that will need help forever and the idea that we don't have the services. I feel like I've got to live till I'm Methuselah's age to be able to keep my son alive. And people are like, "Hey, whatever, whatever." And I'm like, "NO!"So I feel it's my job to make it matter, to make it not just matter, but really matter.Because if you think about it right now, I don't know how many people just died in the time that we've been talking, but there are people in Gaza right now that are dying, starving to death.
Jim Byrne:: Starving to death. Children are starving to death. Horrible right now.
Steve Grumbine:: Horrible, right?
Jim Byrne:: And you should be proud that you are opening your mouth and saying these things, but other people are staying quiet.
Steve Grumbine:: Painful though, because people shun you when you're not the polite. "We should all be gentle. Remember, you once didn't know this stuff too." And it's. I'm going to say something. I'm very interested in your feedback on this.I'm convinced. So this is not an even exchange on this one. Let me just tell you that up front. I'm an alcoholic. I have been sober now since 2006. September 15, 2006.And my father took my keys from me that night. And my father died September 15, 2016. Ten years to the day that he took my keys from me that night. I'd been a drunk forever.I had been eight years sober, three years sober. I've been in jail for drinking. And it wasn't until I had an awakening. It's not knowledge. I had all kinds of knowledge, man. I was smart.I had two master's degrees. It's not like I'm dumb. However, it's not until you have an awakening that the change occurs.You start being unafraid to speak truth to power about Gaza till you aren't afraid to go up to people. Like I went up to Ro Khanna, who is a darling. He was speaking at Levy Institute the other day.But Ro Khanna is a Silicon Valley politician and Ro Khanna knew at that Medicare for All rally about MMT. And I asked him point blank, face to face. I said, "Ro." I said, "I'm looking at you like six foot four. You look incredibly presidential.I can't vote for you because you won't do the MMT line. Until you get on board with that, you're nobody to me, okay?" And he continues, "Oh, we gotta pay for Medicare with this. Oh, we gotta do..."And I'm like, "You know better. You, you must do better. If you don't do better, I hold you accountable, right?"And I think awakenings are every bit the important thing that knowledge is. I remember getting my undergrads. I probably don't remember shit from them, excuse my French.I don't remember a whole lot from my undergrad degrees, but when I got into my graduate degrees, there [were] awakenings that had already happened. I had gone into industry. I got to see things as they were. I got to live a different life. I got to see China. I got to go to China for a month.I got to experience Beijing and Shanghai and the business relationship with the United States, wanting to do business in there and having to have a broker in between and stuff. Like, I got to see it. So now when I read the books, it was like, "Ah, that's what they were talking about. It makes sense now."So I feel like awakenings.If you believe that we can vote our way out of this, for example, I think that you stunt everyone because you shunt the effort for real revolutionary change and you shunt it right back into the dustbin of fake electoralism, of manufacturing consent.If you still believe that bonds finance a currency-issuing government, okay, you're going to continue the fake lie about affordability and about, "Oh, my God, well, what about this massive debt problem?"And if you know better, and these people do know better, but yet you come back to it, until you see that that light behind the eyes go on, nothing will fundamentally change. And I believe that our job is to be a cacophony of sound, a wall of sound that brings about an awakening, not just an education.And I believe that until that epiphany happens, the awakening, that they don't just print money, that they spend money into existence, that they delete it out of existence when they tax.When you understand the flows and you understand the sectoral balances, truisms of one man's spending is another man's income and these basic things that people. Currency issuer, currency user. The federal government's a currency issuer.The states are currency users. If you get these basic thoughts down, it doesn't mean anything until you have the awakening. It's like, "Oh my God, what does this mean? What's the 'so what' to me? What's in it for the WIFM? What's in it for me? What does this matter?"And when that light bulb goes on, "Oh my God."There's a reason why there's a federal emergency agency out there that solves problems for hurricanes and tsunamis because states can't bear that brunt.There's a reason why the currency-issuing nation has to be the one to provide health care, because the states are in a race to the bottom against each other, competing to lure business in and to cut taxes and all the other things that make this system so FUBAR.And when that awakening occurs as to what the currency issuer is, who the currency issuers and who the currency users are, all of a sudden you stop saying moronic things like "Let's do state by state health care." You start saying better, smarter, more informed things. You have a better purpose in life to achieve.And I think epiphanies are the game changer, right? The knowledge is good, but. And I'm going to use a Christian thing, and this is probably really bad form, but I'm going to use it anyway.When I was a young drunk trying to get sober, this one guy came to me and said, "Let me let you borrow my God for a minute." And he said, "Can we pray together?" And I was not a praying guy. I wasn't anything like that. So I sat there and held hands with this guy.And it wasn't that I necessarily started believing something different.What I did was I realized I didn't have to do this on my own, that the weight of the world was not on my shoulders, that it was a "we program" and that I could rely on my friends and rely on my support network and get through this. I didn't have to be a hero, I didn't have to be Superman.And just relieving that moment, just being able to lay down the superhero costume and just be a frail, broken drunk getting into sobriety, that was a big deal, man. I can't express it in more concrete terms. And I see MMT through that same lens. We don't have sober thinking about money.We are not sober. We are not in sobriety.We are drunk on economic lies and mysticism until we bring about that awakening, that Step Two came to believe that a power greater than ourselves kind of thing, right? So in MMT, until you have that real epiphany. Nothing will fundamentally change. What are your thoughts on that?
Jim Byrne:: You're saying so much at the same time here. It's hard for me. I mean, I did the ideology at university way back when I was in my early 20s. And you remind me of Plato and the whole idea.And he's saying the same kind of thing, actually, that what we see is not real. Out there, out of the cave for the real world.
Steve Grumbine:: Yes. The Allegory of the Cave.
Jim Byrne:: We cannot see it, of course. And you're also saying the same thing as Marx, which is not so much Marx, but who's the German playwright?
Steve Grumbine:: Engels?
Jim Byrne:: No, no, actually, an actual play.
Steve Grumbine:: Tolstoy?
Jim Byrne:: I did a dissertation on him. I can't even remember his name. Such a long time ago.But it's the idea of, you know, we watch the TV, all the things that kind of are a distraction for us. We go and watch the films and all that.It's this idea we can't see anything because we are being distracted by all the other stuff, that we can never get around to the reality of what's actually happening in the world. So you're kind of reminding me of all that kind of stuff as you talk. And it is right.We do need to have an epiphany, if that's the word we're looking for. But it's how to get there. This is the thing. I haven't figured it out.
Steve Grumbine:: There's no one path to this.
Jim Byrne:: I suppose that is the other thing, as I was listening to you. There is no one path. But you've said lots of things that I agree with.One of the things you said, which I agree with is that we need to more than just MMT in terms of our understanding. In order to have an understanding of how things work, we need a framework within which to speak, to understand it.So I did sociology as well when I was at university and I did politics. And so the kind of frameworks that keep inequality in place was the terms for all these things, the jargon.But the systems that keep us poor, the systems that keep the rich, the systems that keep black people from getting ahead or women from getting ahead, these are all the things that people are not aware of.
Steve Grumbine:: Yes.
Jim Byrne:: So you need to have an education of how your country actually operates. Structural inequality. That's the phrase I was after. There are things that are in place that keep you where you are.It's been great to speak to you and thanks very much for agreeing to come on.
Steve Grumbine:: I hope we can build on this again, because I really like where we were going. This was great for me. It was such a wonderful conversation. Hopefully I can have you on Macro N Cheese and we can have further conversation.
Jim Byrne:: Yeah, that would be great.
Steve Grumbine:: Absolutely.
Jim Byrne:: And you have a talent for speaking.
Steve Grumbine:: I appreciate that. Honed after many, many moons.And I hope like I get better because I'm clearly not there or we would have a revolution and everything would be solved by now right? So obviously I got a lot to grow on too, man. Thank you so much for having me on. This was wonderful.
Jim Byrne:: I mean, both on the same side.
Steve Grumbine:: Yes, sir. Take care, Jim. Have a good day.
Jim Byrne:: Have a good day. Cheers. Bye. Thanks, Steve. It's been a delight to chat to you and hopefully we'll catch up again in the future. Hope you enjoyed that podcast.And that's all for now. Just remind me, if you don't mind, become a subscriber on MMT101 Substack.And if you've got some spare pennies and you would like to help me to continue that work, please become a paid subscriber. Okay, that's all for now. Bye.
Steve Grumbine:: Folks, my name is Steve Grumbine. I am the founder of Real Progressives and the host of Macro N Cheese. And as you just heard, we've been going strong every week for six years now.And within that space, we have really tried hard to produce value.We are a 501(c)3 not for profit, so we tend to stay away from purely political subjects and we don't do campaigns and we try not to talk to folks that are in that space. But we do try to inform you of the world around you in the best way we know how. Are we always right? Are we always right? No, we're doing our best.Right? But within that, we feel like we're doing good work.And if you agree that we're doing good work and you believe that the effort should be supported, we welcome your support. Again, all donations are tax deductible. Please consider.You can go to patreon.com/realprogressives you can go to our Substack, which is lightly attended, but we love for you to come and make that not a thing anymore. There you can support us as well. And also on our website, realprogressives.org. Please feel free to go to the dropdown and click "Donate."We are never going to turn you away and you are always free to write it off on your taxes as long as nonprofits are tax deductible, and we are still tax deductible. So please consider becoming a monthly donor. No amount's too small, no amount's too great.And with that, on behalf of myself and Jim Byrne, Macro N Cheese, we are out of here.00:56:36 Production, transcripts, graphics, sound engineering, extras, and show notes for Macro N Cheese are done by our volunteer team at Real Progressives, serving in solidarity with the working class since 2015. To become a donor please go to patreon.com/realprogressives, realprogressives.substack.com, or realprogressives.org.
