Brighton Labour Party Fringe Event with Chris Williamson – full audio coverage

This Post Has 8 Comments

1. Listened earlier. It was bloody brilliant. Well done to all!

2. I didn’t know the MMT podcast yet. Great work.

3. In the audience, if not the picture here! The atmosphere was great and the whole thing was every bit as good as Bill describes. I want to thank him for showing true solidarity at a problematic time.

4. Fantastic forum. Some very good questions. Love the grassroots effort. Loved how Chris Williamson says its up to the people to help the heavy lifting. Very true and inspiring.
   I’d very much like to hear more on Bill’s vision for the respective roles of socialism and capitalism in a progressive economy. What would Bill’s optimal system look like?

5. Very exciting to hear that the MMT message has finally entered the sphere of politics at the grass roots level somewhere in the world. Excellent talk!

   The election campaigns in Canada, Right, Left, Center, and Green continue to compete for the award of finest display of neoliberal “financial responsibility” for their platforms; all custom tailored for favorable judgement under the light of the mandatory “cost analysis” performed by a few dozen accountants etc in the parliamentary “budget” office.

6. Inspiring discussion, and the thought that Bill is circling the globe to facilitate discussions like this is heartening to the max. Let me offer two thoughts on a couple of issues that came up. First, with regard to lesser developed nations, I see no reason why MMT principles could not be employed to permit such nations to develop in simpler, more sustainable ways; i.e., along the lines envisioned by Gandhi, E.F. Schumacher, and others. Who knows, maybe these lesser developed nations could actually chart the course for a new kind of human-scale civilization more compatible with natural constraints and the human spirit? Just look at what Cuba, for example, with precious little resources, managed to do with the crucial issues of health care, literacy, and immiserating poverty. Second, concerning the issue whether MMT serves the capitalist right or the socialist left, perhaps the left should think of MMT as a weapon as well as a lens. To return to Cuba, weapons can be used by a dictator to oppress the people (as in Batista), or by the people to overthrow him (as in Castro, Che & Co.). As I see it, MMT is not only equipping the left to see macroeconomics more clearly but is also arming them intellectually to fight for a better, more beautiful world, currency-sovereign nation by nation.

7. Heartily second all the approving comments already made: the atmosphere was well and truly conveyed – a great example of communicating effectively.

   @ David B
   “I’d very much like to hear more on Bill’s vision for the respective roles of socialism and capitalism in a progressive economy. What would Bill’s optimal system look like?”

   Not to dampen enthusiasm in any way, wouldn’t doing that go against what Bill during this event (by no means for the first time) expressly declines to do? Namely, to use his position as a teacher as a platform from which to espouse any given political agenda.

   He overtly refuses to do that (whilst making abundantly clear where in the political spectrum his own personal political beliefs happen to place him, as an individual). IMHO that is exactly the correct position for any teacher to take. Each “pupil” (in this case, us) must decide for her-/himself what their own personal vision of what “the respective roles of socialism and capitalism in a progressive economy” ought to be, and their vision might – as Bill repeatedly stresses – differ quite markedly from Bill’s own whilst not in any way clashing with what MMT tells us about how the monetary system actually operates.

   Despite that being his “official” position, he did allow himself to be lured by one of the questions into making some declarations of his own beliefs which touch on the area you raise (eg that he personally would favour nationalising the banks) and thus could be said to have broken his own self-imposed rule of silence concerning political issues. But I don’t think that letting slip the occasional such admission compromises his basic position fundamentally (as I understand it anyway, sketched above). It’s just a temporary lapse. We’re all human, and he does set himself an astonishingly punishing schedule! (Frankly, I don’t know how he can keep up such a pace).

8. ALP politicians have recently sent ALP members (like myself) an email asking: “Do you want to see a lift in Newstart” (and please sign the petition, donate, etc).

   I replied saying I want to see the introduction of a Job Guarantee (pointing to Bill Mitchell’s blog).

   I concluded with this comment:
   “As long as we are all deluded that the federal government budget is subject to the same constraints as our households budgets, Labor cannot win elections with a progressive platform (as shown in May), because a majority of people do not want to pay higher taxes (and hence Labor could not even promise a lift in Newstart, at the May election)”.
   …….

   How hard can it be to get this message across?
   Everyone knows we want desirable goods and services (beginning with essentials) NOT ‘money’ (worthless bits of paper, or code in computers).

   So this delusory conflation of real resources with ‘money’ is a major problem.

   Maybe the ABC can be enlisted in dispelling the delusion?