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<https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/covid-19-debt-crisis-modern-monetary-theor y-solution> "While MMT proposes a solution to the problem of unemployment, it is often put forward without sufficient cognisance of the fact that, for capitalism, unemployment is not necessarily a problem to be solved, but rather a valuable tool to maintain profits. Having a pool of workers who are poor and unemployed keeps up competition for jobs, which helps keep wages down. Economists even tend to define full employment as being when 4-5% of people are unemployed. Anything lower than that is viewed as undesirable, because it strengthens workers' bargaining power. This doesn't mean that MMT should not be used to try to eliminate unemployment. But, as long as capitalism exists, measures to eliminate unemployment will be met with a war and not a thank you. All the money and power of capital and its media and politicians will be brought to fight against measures that would have all workers benefiting from decent standards of living. There are likewise problems if MMT were to be used as a solution to the environmental crisis, if the capitalist sector left to its own devices. If an army of job guarantee workers were enlisted to help save the planet while a capitalist sector is left to destroy it, the climate catastrophe would merely be postponed. Also, on the environmental front, while MMT provides a means to solve unemployment by using the economy to capacity, the environmental crisis means that we may not want to use the economy to capacity." _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
