Circula por ahí una teoría supuestamente nueva, innovadora, llamada MMT, o Modern Monetary Theory. Desgraciadamente, en la economía hay mucho espacio para supuestas teorías definitivas, como ésta, que atraen a los profanos como moscas a la miel, porque en realidad no son rigurosas, sino que se componen de muchas piezas mágicas según las cuales la economía podría ser regida perfectamente desde el poder. Un ejemplo es la supuesta escuela Austriaca (o sus más extremos representantes), que tiene cosas apreciables, como algunos ensayos de Hayek, pero son ideología más que economía. En la posición opuesta está esta MMT, que pretende ser una extensión de la economía keynesiana, pero como dice Cullen Roche, el mismo Keynes se revolvería en su tumba si vieran lo que han querido hacer con él.
En realidad, la MMT está más ligada, por su profundo sentido holístico, o mágico, al Marxismo que a Keynes. Prueba del nueve: ¿a quién ha venido a asesorar uno de los fundadores de la escuela, Bill Mitchell, si no es a Podemos?
Cullen Roche tiene una crítica a la MMT que vale la pena visitar a los interesados, más que nada para comprender que en Economía, los milagros, o los Reyes Magos, no existen. En economía realmente los recursos disponibles en un momento dado de normalidad son escasos, hay excesos de demanda, y la productividad no es una variable mítica, como pretenden estos señores que sin más ideólogos que buscadores de la humilde verdad.
Recogemos aquí algunos párrafos, relacionados con otros textos de otros autores citados.
Yo destacaría sobre todo el primer mito, o falsedad, de la MMT, porque creo que es suficiente para derribar todo los que sigue: el estado sí que necesita recabar impuestos, en contra de lo que afirman los MMT. No basta con ser emisor monopolista de dinero, porque el dinero es dinero si la gente, o mejor los ciudadanos, aceptan ese dinero oficial como sistema de pago. Si no lo aceptan, estamos en el caso Zimbabue, o en la hiperinflación alemana. Es realmente una engañifa montar todo un sistema simplista que lo arregla todo porque el estado es el emisor único de dinero. Hay una contrapartida que acepta ese dinero como tal, y esa contrapartida es muy tolerante, aguanta inflaciones de hasta dos dígitos, pero llega un momento que si el estado les quiere dar gato por liebre se "buscan la vida", es decir, montan un mercado de dinero paralelo, dejan de fiarse del dinero oficial que sólo usarán para pagar los impuestos, pero las transacciones privadas irán por otra línea. No estamos ahora en la amenaza de inflación, pero si un día llegaran al poder los MMT (basta que ganara el poder Podemos) sería una amenaza real: déficit público creciente, inflación creciente, deuda explosiva. Es lógico, cae por su propio peso: demasiada clientela que satisfacer: eso invita a aumentar el gasto, y con la excusa de que lo impuestos son innecesarios... Pues sólo queda la inflación. La historia mundial y la europea están llenas de ejemplos de "Debasement" monetario, para pagar guerras que los impuestos no cubrían, aunque éstos fueran realmente extractivos.
Pero lean a Cullen Roche sobre su desmitificación de la MMT. Aquí, algunas balizas en forma de párrafos.
"Since I have spent quite a bit of time critiquing mainstream economics I have written this brief MMT critique in an attempt to clarify my own personal views and where I think a heterodox school like MMT goes wrong. I have attached some links here to critiques as well as a brief overview of my own thoughts that will help others avoid the mistake that I made. The following critiques are notable primarily because they’re by other Post Keynesian economists (MMT is a subset of Post-Keynesian Econ). There are some aspects of MMT that are very good, but MMT takes a basic Post-Keynesian framework and adds a bunch of “modern” understandings that result in inconsistencies. These critiques elaborate on those inconsistencies and caution readers against adhering too strictly to MMT views. MMT, like all other schools, is definitely worth understanding if for no other reason than it will open your mind to alternative views. So dive in and make up your own mind.
- MMT, The Emperor Still Has No Clothes, Thomas Palley
- The Monetary and Fiscal Nexus of NeoChartalism, by Marc Lavoie
- MMT and the Real World Accounting of 1-1<0, by Brett Feibiger
Here’s a shorter version of what I believe are the primary flaws in MMT:
1) MYTH: MMT states that a sovereign currency issuer need not fund itself via taxes or bond sales.
REALITY: Any endogenous issuer of money must “fund” itself.
This is one of the core underlying ideas in MMT, but it is obviously false once one understands endogenous money. In an endogenous money system anyone can issue money denominated in certain state based units of account. The state can legally attribute some credibility to certain forms of money, but it cannot force the private sector to accept these forms of money as having value.
... MMTers sometimes say things like “taxpayers do not fund anything”. But this is like saying that my income does not fund my spending so long as I can find willing holders of my debt.
... In this sense, it is rather meaningless to say that the state doesn’t “fund” its spending because just like any other liability issuer it most certainly needs to find willing holders of its liabilities. The state, just like all issuers of money, must be able to to find willing holders of its liabilities which means that, for all practical purposes, it most certainly funds the liability side of its balance sheet.
3) MYTH: MMT says that unemployment is caused by the deficit being too small.
REALITY: Unemployment is caused by a lack of private investment.
MMTers claim that small deficits cause unemployment. Warren Mosler, MMT’s founder says:
“Involuntary unemployment is evidence that the desired H(nfa) of the private sector exceeds theactual H(nfa) allowed by government fiscal policy.
To be blunt, involuntary unemployment exists because the federal budget deficit is too small.”
... defining “net saving” as (S-I) MMT confuses traditional economics which defines net saving as net disposable income less final consumption expenditure. This alternative MMT definition is both confusing and useless. It is based on little more than an accounting trick intended to mislead the reader into thinking that government deficits are more important than they necessarily are. This is how MMT makes their alternative reality appear realistic, however. By changing the definitions of well known terms they can make their inconsistencies appear consistent within this alternative reality.
4) MYTH: MMT says that “taxes drive money”
REALITY: Private output “drives money”
MMT claims that the government creates demand for its currency by imposing a tax on its users. They claim that this drives the desire to obtain currency and that this currency is ultimately paid back to the government in bank reserves. In establishing this point MMT claims that the government spends first and imposes a tax that generates the demand for this currency.
The ability to tax or charge fees is not unique to a government, however. All banks charge a tax on their loans when they charge you an interest rate. This involuntary fee helps to create demand for bank money. Should we now argue that banks, as the primary issuers of money, create demand for money because they charge fees? Of course not. The reason there is demand for bank money is because there is desire to consume/invest in private output. Most liabilities are issued with some form of involuntary obligation attached to them. The government is not unique in its ability to charge taxes/fees or impose obligations. We should not misconstrue this idea as being unique to government currency.
This is related to the MMT view that the government “spends first” and “taxes second”. They have even gone so far as to claim:
“it would be impossible to collect dollars from the private sector unless they had first been spent into existence by the public sector”
Of course, this point is demonstrably false. I can borrow from a bank and the government can collect taxes without ever having spent a dollar into existence. The government doesn’t need to spend a single dime in order for it to collect a tax on inside bank money.
MYTH # 5: MMT is a Post-Keynesian School
REALITY: MMT Agrees With Some Elements of Keynesian Economics, but is Closer to Marx
Over the years MMT has been associated with the Post-Keynesian school of economics which is a school that aligns itself closely with the original views of JM Keynes. Keynes, however, would not have agreed with much of MMT. As MMT co-founder Bill Mitchell has stated:
“There are MMT proponents, who while sympathetic with much of Post Keynesian theory, disagree on key propositions – specifically relating to debt and deficits (as an example). But then they also point to Keynes’ work as seminal in the development of MMT. My own view is that many of the important insights in Keynes were already sketched out in some detail in Marx.”
Keynes was a harsh critic of Marxian Socialism:
“Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion – how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and through them, the events of history.”
