A Crypto, MMT Retrospective with Rohan Grey

Rohan Grey always uses cool cultural references. Six minutes into the episode he brings up Tintin. Later we hear about Wile E. Coyote, Star Trek, Teletubbies and Wagnerian opera.

The Tintin tale concerns a treasure hunt that required Tintin to find three maps; only when they were overlaid could he see the location of the treasure. Rohan Grey relates this to the critical juncture of law, political economy, and technology. He reviews the relationship of all three throughout the history of money.

Rohan and Steve also revisit the (relatively short) history of the MMT community – what they got right as well as missed opportunities. Brett Scott was at the first MMT conference talking about privacy and the war on cash. These issues are more vital today than they were then, yet have never become part of the MMT canon, which tends to stick to the original hits, like the Rolling Stones still performing “Satisfaction” half a century later.

“If crypto, quote/unquote, wins the public consciousness, I think that's a net loss for a lot of things MMT cares about. I'm anti crypto in that sense – as in capital C, crypto. What it stands for as a historical phenomenon right now is the empowerment of a group of people, the dominant strain of which is pro capitalist, pro massive wealth inequality, pro grift and fraud, pro right wing libertarian monetary theories, pro contempt of collective governance.”

Rohan and Steve discuss how to organize around what is useful from the crypto space without defending it. The distrust of government is healthy – many are illegitimate and corrupt – but Rohan asks why the same critique isn’t applied to property rights. How can it be acceptable for Ted Turner to be a billionaire owning half of Montana? Why does the state become illegitimate only when it wants to tax him? Rohan suggests leaning into pockets of relevance. There’s value to be gained by understanding the opposition.

Rohan asks our listeners to support #MintTheCoin and to check out the Freedom Box Foundation as well as the work being done with Creative Commons and copyleft.

Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and the founder and president of the Modern Money Network. MintTheCoin.org

@rohangrey on Twitter