MODERN MONEY THEORY

L. Randall Wray

Subtitle: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems, Palgrave, Macmillan, 2012, 294 pgs., index, bibliography, paperback

Added reviewer comment:
Since writing the review below I have been nearly overwhelmed with the volume of articles, e-mails, books and such on the general topic of MMT. Plus I have been going back into my library on the history and nature of money. I have added some references at the bottom of my review. One especially enlightening book is The Credit and State Theory of Money: The Contributions of A. Mitchell-Innes, edited by Dr. Wray that includes reprints of two of Mr. Mitchell-Innes' articles published in 1913 and 1914.
The often vituperative arguments and attacks by various opponents and proponents of MMT generally fall in one or the other of two categories: both political - one is supporters of very limited government and private creation of money; and the other is supporters of expanded government and 'state' creation of money. The two sides attempt to support their positions by theorizing on the history of the creation of money in ancient societies. As is typical they all cite and rely on 'authorities' - famous writers. But these 'authorities' mostly did not know much at all about the ancient societies. Some appeal to the idea that truth can only be developed by application of good theory, while others insist that reliable truth can only be based on historical evidence, however doubtful. But even those who study ancient societies include materialists who cannot understand that any rational person could believe in a transcendental reality.

Understanding of and analysis of all this current theorizing requires extensive study of not only the history of institutions and events but also the history of ideas and beliefs. Some references are added below.

Reviewer comment:

The author's objective in writing this book was the justify what he claims is the current monetary manipulation practiced by governments ( rulers ) through their central banks used to finance welfare 'states'. But with a careful analysis the reader can see that it is an intended explanation that reveals and supports what may actually be happening, and is being proposed as the basis for greatly expanded government control of the economy and consumption of the production of the private sector. This, he and other MMT advocates insist is necessary to eliminate unemployment and stabilize prices.

The reader may consider the author's purpose by noting that he is a professor in -The Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, Department of Economics, Univ. of Missouri). That the professor claims that the result of MMT is to enable government to achieve full employment and price stability might have something to do with his outlook. Some of the MMT supporters are egalitarians who hope to create an egalitarian society and claim that such an outcome is possible because prior to the invention of money and the hierarchial social structures that money makes possible societies were egalitarian. (False) While other supporters of MMT see it as the opportunity for the intelligentsia to regain their rightful place as the elite dispensers of what actions will benefit the masses.

The question the reader needs to answer is whether this is only the academic concept and theory of the author or is it believed by the Federal Reserve staff and directors and included as part of the theoretical base on which they decide on its monetary policy. I find no discussion of this theory in Mishkin's textbook on Money and Banking. But there are many books and articles written in support of what has generally been termed 'Chartalist theory of money'. I will provide links to some of these in the references.
Please go to the discussions of chapters 6 and 7 to learn what the book is all about and then return to the previous chapters to read how the author seeks to justify his recommendations.

From being a monetary theory, recently MMT has become a widely discussed justification for radical political policy and basis for specific political action under the name of "Green New Deal". And this very week the new Chairman of the FED, Jerome Powell, specifically disagreed with what he had heard about the MMT theory.

Also, other politicians and authors are advocating government policies based on MMT theories. It seems the subject is becoming more discussed in the media than it was back in 2012 when this book was published and I wrote my original comments. An Internet search now returns an amazing number of resources. It is widespread in the public fora today. In fact, MMT has generated a deluge of articles, blogs, tweets, published books and Internet essays criticizing the concept or defending it. The reader of items on the Internet will find a long stream of comments attached, in which the writers mostly denounce each other as ignoramuses. For this reason, I have added another 'comments' section on the recent developments after the detailed discussion of the book itself, so as not to disrupt the discussion of the book.

From reading the first pages of this book I felt something was missing or wrong. But this was not made clear until reading the final chapters. In those the author makes explicit his adherence to Keynesian economic theory but he does not write so explicitly that it is 'Chartalist' theory of the nature of money stemming from Georg Friedreich Knapp's book The State Theory of Money and related German Historical School authors - plus the follow-up text by Abba Lerner "Money as a Creature of the State", which he does reference and admire. This puts Wray's theory into the already contentious arguments over the very origin of money which in tern generate argument over the role of gold as money and the arguments supporting either central banks and 'fractional reserve' banking or 'free banks and strict limits on the creation of money.
Throughout, he ignores issues that S. Herbert Frankel stressed - especially the moral aspects of a monetary system and the history of the conflict between governments (rulers ) and societies over the proper role of money. He conveniently skips rapidly through the history of money during previous centuries, when the role of money and its creation was different than the situation he wants the reader to believe is the only reality. For this history one should read Reden, Davies, Martin,Whalen, Kwarteng, Graeber and others. And when his discussion comes to the central issue of 'value' he punts.

For the best and clearist discussion of the libertarian (Austrian School) theory on the nature of money, credit and value please read Ludwig von Mises - The Theory of Money and Creditand the wider treatment of related issues in his Human Action. The book on 'Theory' is just that, imaginative theory. But one simply cannot understand political/economy with out mastering Human Action.

Professor Wray's book is a theoretical justification for increased government spending and intervention in the national economy in order to reduce business cycles and also 'solve' unemployment. He describes the modern government process of creating money while exchanging it for its acquisition of goods and services, without his stating that it is real assets created by private individuals that the government is acquiring. He shows that governments issue credit as payments and then impose taxes to receive back the same credits to balance their financial accounts. In the past they mostly issued currency (coins mainly) and taxed them back, with the same result. He claims that this was always so, but it was not. Governments were not the only 'creators' of money. Actually, governments often defaulted by refusing to pay back the 'money' they had borrowed from private bankers.
But he also ignores the fact that governments tax different individuals than those who receive the credits - another method governments use to redistribute wealth. For instance, read Antony Davies' essay in FEE "Transferism, Not Socialism, is the Drug Americans are hooked On". So, MMT (Chartalist theory) is actually a disguised theoretical justification for expanding government control of every aspect of economic (hence political as well) activity through government creation and control of the money supply. The public is in this way taught to believe that this government manipulation is not only justified but also actually is simply the reality of how the world operates and always has operated. Georg Knapp was an advocate of the expanding role of the 'state' in Bismark's German Empire.

This is the central issue that Ingham and Frankel identified, that money is a component of a social system and has greater roles than that conceived of in materialistic economic thought. In the process of claiming that government manipulation of the money supply is simply reality, Wray also claims that the public - that is everyone - is a debtor since they live on credit supplied by the government. But in creating credit to exchange for goods it consumes it is the government, not the individual, who is the debtor. Wray at first denies that any private source can create credit, but later on gives examples of that very thing. But the history of money shows that his first opinion is false. According to Dr. Wray, all 'savings' that individuals may have were provided by government. Again, false. Real 'savings' are the unallocated surplus retained from the production process.

The MMT theory is outrageous. Among other things it promotes the concept that the public OWES debt to the government - the rulers. - In this way the coercive ruler's demand that the people pay TAXES is called 'debt'. It asserts that all 'money' is created by and belongs to the rulers and that the rulers establish its 'value' both as a 'standard of value' and as the 'medium of exchange'. Which results in the rulers being empowered to manipulate 'money' to suit their own purposes. Note that he uses the word 'policy' when he means 'politics'. This was described of the ancient "Oriental Despotism" (See Wittfogel), (including Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and China) but was fought for centuries after people became free with the collapse of the Roman Empire. For true discussion of ancient money see references below. Discussion of the origin, control of, and use of 'money' may be found in many references listed here but is beyond the limits of this review. For a completely different (really opposite) theory of money see Richard Salsman - Gold and Liberty , but Salsman's concepts about the history of money are also inaccurate.

From study of this theory that purports to justify the Federal Government's current monetary policy executed via the Federal Reserve it becomes clear why it was critical in 1913 to pass a Constitutional Amendment to enable assessment and collection of an income tax, essential, as described in this book, as one side of the government payment by credit system. The bankers who created the FED demanded a sure process by which they could count on the Government's ability to pay off debt generated by credit. History showed them clearly the frequency of sovereign default. And the history of the fact that governments were defaulting on 'debt' owed to private sector organizations itself shows who owes 'debt' to whom.
But the essential claim of the MMT cabal is that now, with the fundamental change of the monetary system from government issued 'money' (credit) being backed by something such as gold to the 'fiat' money system in which there is no backing for government issued money the government now can create as much money as it desires, and therefore can confiscate as much privately produced goods and services as it wants.
See Reinhart & Roghoff about this.

So the 'Progressives', who wanted expansion of the money supply so that they could then use it, agreed with this. But, note, the original act creating the FED prohibited it from buying Treasury bonds directly, the Congress people knew their apples. So now Bernanke and company came up with the round about system in which the Treasury sells (auctions) its bonds to selected investment or commercial banks and then the FED buys the bonds from them, Clever, yes, at least according to Dr. Wray. Another financial element that came with the creation of the FED is the so-called debt limit. The 'hard money' politicians realized that the purpose for the creation of the FED was to expand government credit=debt. Prior to this event it was the rule that Congress had to authorize EACH time the government proposed to create debt by issuing bonds - that is to exchange bonds for purchases. They hoped for a brake on debt expansion. So they set a legal limit. Unfortunately the demands of World War One immediately caused a need to exceed this new legal limit. Compare the Civil War and World War One government financing method. (See Gordon, Selgin, and Whalen) And once breached the debt then was easily breached over and over.

The author insists that the idea that the government debt is a problem is a 'myth'. But what is the real 'myth'? The government story that its 'money' is a 'store of value', when the author also insists that government can change the 'value' of its money whenever it chooses. Even more disturbing is the manner in which the author dismisses everyone who is concerned about expanding debt as 'hysterical' and disparages the well known record of medieval and early modern finance as 'stories'. This rhetoric is typical of the kind of 'advocacy' in which MMT supporters engage.

I include below a list of some important references on the history and role of money. The MMT theory and practice is Keynesian based - on his concepts about 'demand' and interest rates. ( But it is interesting that today's major Keynesian economists denounce the MMT concept.) This, in turn, is based on Keynes' outright dismissal of Say's Law of Markets, therefore I include some reference to this conflict as well. And more fundamental still is the question about from where and by whom money itself is created, what purposes it serves and how money is used by governments to further their political policies. The reader will note that much of my commentary is redundant, but that is because the author's propositions are redundant and my comments are linked to them.

But, also, what is different today about 'money' is that governments now habitually do 'create' what is termed 'money' out of 'thin air'. It is no longer even credit instruments backed by physical goods or the promises of their creators. It no longer is a 'token' temporary 'medium of exchange' that will disappear when the exchange is completed. This is why the MMT advocates can claim that governments can create as much of it as they want, since they will not have to redeem it.
This means that I do not doubt that governments can do what the MMT authors claim, but strongly disagree with their claim that this was always so from the beginning of the creation of money. Modern governments do not want to acknowledge that they really are taking goods and services from the private sector to consume, just as ancient and medieval governments did without exchanging real goods and services. They are leaving less such goods and services for the private sector to consume or invest. What is even worse, now, is that governments create and distribute credit not even as an exchange for production it takes and consumes. Rather, most government created credit is simply given to non-productive individuals including not only its own employees but also the much more numerous voters. Recently progressive politicians even advocate giving credit to illegal aliens.

What the economists term 'money' consists of government created currency and credit, which it provides through the banking system now rather then directly from its treasury. Government uses both as its side of the exchange with private producers for the real goods and services government receives and consumes, instead of exchanging equally valuable produced goods or services. Such an exchange is the central economic activity of society. Governments do not claim that their currency is exchangeable for anything else other than currency and has 'value' because the government will accept it back as tribute instead of corvee labor or real goods. All parties recognize that the 'value' of currency can and is likely to decrease over time. While government issued credit carries the claim that the government will exchange it for real goods or services at a future date to cancel the debt created by its failure to provide such goods or services in the exchange. And meanwhile it will pay 'interest' on the principal thus created. It recognizes this by entering its side of the transaction as 'debt' on its accounting balance ledger. But it has no actual intention to complete the initial exchange - thus eliminating the 'debt' by producing and exchanging anything.

Actually the entire discussion and argument over 'money' misses its real nature. Money was conceived of when it became necessary to have a metric by which the relative size of the 'value' of different things, including debts, was realized. Money stands in relation to value in the same way that meters and yards relate to length. Money is not credit or currency but a measure of the value of things or of the token that represents value of their exchange value. But the problem of such measurement is that while the length of something is fixed as a category of its existence so the size of the measure is also fixed as a standard. But the value of anything is not fixed - is not a fixed category of anything, and neither is the unit of its measurement - money - fixed.

Preface -

The author sets the stage for his discussion of how money functions when a government is the sovereign controller of its creation, distribution and especially 'value'. He proposes to describe the current 'modern money theory" (MMT), which he writes is not new but has not been adequately taught to the public.
He writes, "To put it simply, we have uncovered how money 'works' in the modern economy". ... "'Modern money theory' has spread the ideas around the world"... "'Modern Money Theory' is now widely recognized as a coherent alternative to conventional views."

But, he does not describe what the 'conventional view' of the nature of money is. He simply ignores whatever the 'conventional view' was as being irrelevant today. But, apparently, MMT is still NOT the 'conventional' view. Indeed, the 'war' between those believing in social creation of money and the champions of 'state' power has not ended. Yes, power, who controls money controls political power. It requires power to control money and it requires money to control power.

He continues, "This Primer seeks to fill the gap between formal presentations in the academic journals and the informal blogs." ... "In addition, it will explicitly address another gap: the case of developing nations."

Further, he adds, "Unlike my 1998 book, this Primer will not revisit the history of money or the history of thought. The exposition will remain largely theoretical." ... "In this Primer we will examine the macroeconomic theory that is the basis for analyzing the economy as it actually exists. We begin with simple macro accounting, starting from the recognition that at the aggregate level spending equals income"... "We then move to the sectorial balance approach showing that the deficits of one sector must be offset by surpluses of another. We conclude by arguing that it is necessary to ensure stock-flow consistency: deficits accumulate to financial debt: surpluses accumulate to financial assets."

Fortunately we have other references that discuss the history of money, especially those by Ingham, Davies, and Martin. The last sentence above is critical as explanation of the current public concern about the U.S. federal debt.

Wray continues his outline, "We next move to a discussion of currency regimes - ranging from fixed exchange rate systems (currency board arrangements and pegs), to managed float regimes, and finally to floating exchange rates". ... "We will examine how a government that issues its own currency spends. We first provide a general analysis that applies to all currency regimes, we then discuss the limitations placed on domestic policy as we move along the exchange rate regime continuum. It will be argued that the floating exchange rate regime provides more domestic policy space".

What does this mean? What is 'space' in domestic policy? It is an argument against such a constraint as a 'gold standard' or ANY international monetary standard of 'value'. The 'space' and the creation of 'floating exchange rate' are the ability of government rulers to manipulate their currency to achieve political goals. 'Money' cannot at the same time be both 'floating' in value and also a 'standard of value' that is reliable.

He explains, "The argument is related to the famous open economy 'trilemna' - a country can choose only two of three policies: maintaining an exchange rate peg, maintaining an interest rate peg, and allowing capital mobility (meaning capital movement across international borders). Here, however, it will be argued that a country that chooses an exchange rate target may not be able to pursue domestic policy devoted to achieving full employment with robust economic growth."

Bingo - here we see the full purpose of this book and its advocacy of a theory put into practice. The MMT (and actually all economic activity) is means and the end desired is political. Specifically here, it is to be claimed that by adhering to the MMT theory government can achieve sufficient control of the economy via manipulation of money to create 'full employment' without stifling 'economic growth'. After chapters devoted to monetary theory we come in the final chapters to the full elaboration of how this political policy can be achieved.

But what is this policy? Clearly it is to place 'achieving full employment' above maintaining a stable money value.

Then the author writes this remarkable comment. "This leads to discussion of monetary and fiscal policy - not only what policy can do but also what policy should do. Again, the discussion will be general because the most important goal of this Primer is to set out theory that can serve as the basis of policy formation. This Primer's purpose is not to push any particular policy agenda. It can be used by advocates of 'big government' as well as by those who favor 'small government'."

What is this? Double-speak? Yes, the chapters on 'pure' theory are couched in general language that claims to elucidate the reality of how money 'works', but the 'theory' is entirely based on a particular philosophy of money - championed by Keynes and other followers of Knapp - that money belongs to governments for their use. The alternate philosophy (conveniently ignored) is that money belongs to society, not governments. (See Frankel among others). There is much more here. But Dr. Wray continues with this, "Finally, we will explain the nature of money. We will see that logically money cannot be a commodity; rather, it must be an IOU. Even a country that operates with a gold standard is really operating with monetary IOUs, albeit with some of those IOUs convertible on demand to a precious metal. We will show why monetary economies typically operate below capacity, with unemployed resources including labor. We will also examine the nature of creditworthiness; that is, the reason why some monetary liabilities are more acceptable than others". ... "Understanding what money is provides the first step to an analysis of what went wrong in the events leading up to the global financial crisis of 2007. "

There is more discussion on the applicability of this MMT to developing nations, but the above provides the essence of the content and purpose. The main problem for 'developing nations' is that they frequently finance themselves by obtaining credit( that is buying bonds) denominated in the dollar, pound or Euro) and the policies this author champions leads to a 'flexible', that is unstable, 'value' of the dollar, Euro and others.

Box - Definitions: An excellent idea - to provide these definitions at the very beginning of the text. And they are quite revealing.
First are good definitions that separate 'money' as he will use it as 'measure of account' from what he will call 'money things' for what is used as 'medium of exchange' - A distinction long over due. But his purpose then is to be able, correctly, to consider "IOU's that is credit balances as money. Which is correct but not realized by many of the public.

Second is his definition of currency, also needed, but he includes in this treasury bonds. Bonds are NOT currency but they ARE money. The difference between currency and 'credit' shown as a 'bond' is that currency is created and issued with no promise to to retain 'value' or even be returned to the issuer - so does not pay interest - , but 'credit=bond' is promised, hence it commands an interest rate.
He has definitions for 'bank reserves', 'net financial assets', 'financial debt', and 'three sectors balance'.
This is an interesting one and it is critical to his theory.

He divides the economy into three sectors - domestic government sector, domestic private sector, and foreign sector. Separating government in this way is crucial to the MMT. He then establishes relationships. He states that 'we know' spending=equals income for the total economy. Well, this means that everyone's income comes from someone else's spending and all that is 'spent' goes into someone else's income. But then he divides both spending and income into that which occurs in each of the three sectors and writes that if spending in one sector exceeds the income of that sector then that means that the sector has created a 'deficit' or if it spends less than its income it has created a 'surplus'. He does not state where why or how either the spending or income is generated. So then he claims that these 'surplus' or 'debt' entities must be offset by the opposite condition in one of the other sectors or both. Ignoring the foreign balance for the moment - this means that private 'surplus' must be created by government 'debt'. How convenient!. But I disagree - credit money that is created can go into someone's income account without having been spent by anyone.
He creates a typical economist's equation to express this. E=spending; Y=income. So Government Y - E + Private Y - E + Foreign Y - E=0.
Or Government balance + Private balance + Foreign balance=0.

But this is a crucial, false division in categories since government is not separate from private - they are both parts of the same society's economy. Government is merely a group of individuals headed by the 'ruler'. All production is created in the private economy, while consumption is expended by all, private and government. But Government creates no production. So both Government income and spending come from the Private sector, neither are generated Within something that can be defined separately as a 'Government sector'.
He then cites the definition of GDP, itself controversial. In which 'consumption (C) - 'investment' (I), and 'government' (G) and net foreign import and export balance. But this is a definition of output, not input. But this defining of the Government sector as something external to and separate from the Private sector is the critical basis for his theory of how MMT functions, as we will see below. Moreover, as Mark Skousen demonstrates in his book, The Structure of Production, there is much economic activity involving exchange of real assets for financial assets (money) in the production process itself and this is not included in GDP.

A more appropriate categorization to make relationships clear is this: Consider consumption and production. Everything consumed must first be produced (created). Every live individual is a consumer ( and some dead people also) while only a fraction of the population in a society are producers. Consumption is mostly continuous, that is required daily. But production is episodic - some production requires a year, or more than one year. All producers are consumers but by no means all consumers are producers. Moreover, producers in general do not consume all that they produce - while they do consume much that they do not produce. Hence society survives by the continual redistribution of production among producers and consumers. All savings is the result of retained surplus production, not consumed, generally termed wealth. And the increase of society's wealth depends on at least a proportion of that retained production being 'invested' by being consumed in the process of increasing further production.

The next categorization to consider is 'rulers' versus 'ruled'. The 'rulers' are invariably consumers but not producers. All production is created by the 'ruled' who are of course also consumers. Hence all consumption by the 'rulers' comes from extraction of part of the production by the 'ruled' which reduces the quantity for the 'ruled' to consume. The concept of GDP with its categories, 'G' is actually consumption by government extracted from 'C' and a reduction in 'I'. Now, in Dr. Wray's categorization 'domestic government' is the 'rulers'. This is why his theory about sectors having 'surplus' and 'deficit' is designed to justify the 'rulers' exappropriation of production from the 'ruled' for its own consumption.

Let's consider the above in a different way. Dr. Wray is describing 'flow' of financial entities - currency and credit - between the government (rulers) sector he creates and the private (ruled) sector in financial exchange. But he ignores the real world exchange which is of physical and psychological goods and services.

Here is the description of his statement again: But then he divides both spending and income into that which occurs in each of the three sectors and writes that if spending in one sector exceeds the income of that sector then that means that the sector has created a 'deficit' or if it spends less than its income it has created a 'surplus'. He does not state where why or how either the spending or income is generated. So then he claims that these 'surplus' or 'debt' entities must be offset by the opposite condition in one of the other sectors or both. He is correct, but what does this mean" It is the result of government taking production from the private sector and for it exchanging only a financial entity - 'money'- currency and 'credit'. So it is true that to the extent that this financial entity is NOT taken back by government in the form of taxes, then the private sector DOES have a financial surplus on its 'books. But 'money' only has 'value' in terms of what production for which it can exchanged and as a result of the government taking there is less production available to the private sector.
The point is that by considering ONLY the flow of financial intermediate 'means of exchange' and NOT considering the opposite flow of real produced products Dr. Wray misses the real world situation. Spending 'financial instruments', in exchanging them for real goods and services, by the government sector does exceed the income of that sector coming from taxation, resulting in its 'deficit' creating a 'surplus' in the private sector, but while reducing the quantity of real production available to the private sector.

Chapter 1 The Basics of Macroeconomic Accounting

Dr. Wray condescends to inform the readers that his explanation of 'basic accounting' is critical. As he writes, "But you cannot possibly understand the debate about the government's budget and (critique the deficit hysteria that has recently gripped many nations) without understanding basic macro accounting. So be patient and pay attention, you ignorant peasants.
The 'hysteria' I feel is hysterical laughter, when I read this stuff.

"Section 1.1 The basics of accounting for stocks and flows".

One's financial asset is another's financial liability.

Indeed that is a crucial fact that can cause 'liquidity crises'. The stress is on financial, when one owns real assets there is no matching liability.

So far so good. This is indeed a truism that many people do not understand. In fact failure to understand this is a source of continual financial problems. So many individuals do not recognize that what they call financial 'assets' are also some other one (or organization's) 'liability'. And that what they recognize as their financial 'liabilities' (debts) are considered some one else's 'assets'. And the chain can be lengthy as 'assets' and 'liabilities' proliferate throughout the economy. This is why when some entity defaults on its 'liabilities' it can generate a cascade of failures as defaults on 'liabilities' destroy other's 'assets'.

Dr. Wray explains this in his discussion of bank deposits, financial institutions, and households all having both 'assets' and 'liabilities'.

" Inside wealth versus outside wealth".

This is where Dr. Wray's explanation based on his categorization and theory gets the readers into his mesh. Pay attention and think critically. Especially note he is writing about financial assets - not real assets. We have to quote this at length as it is critical.

The author writes, "It is often useful to distinguish among different types of sectors in the economy. The most basis distinction is between the public sector .... and the private sector". (I noted above that this is a false distinction) "If we were to take all of the privately issued financial assets and liabilities, it is a matter of logic that the sum of financial assets must equal the sum of financial liabilities. In other words, net private financial wealth would have to be zero, if we consider only private sector IOU's. This is sometimes called 'inside wealth' because it is 'inside' the private sector. In order for the private sector to accumulate net financial wealth it must be in the form of 'outside wealth', that is, financial claims on another sector. Given our basic division between the public sector and the private sector, the outside financial wealth takes the form of government IOU's. The private sector holds government currency (including coins and paper currency) as well as the full range of government bonds (short-term bills, longer maturity bonds) as net financial assets, a portion of its positive net wealth."

Wow, long but critical. But what does it mean? First, we can ignore this artificial separation of the government sector from the private sector. The net balance of financial 'assets' and 'liabilities' of the whole society is indeed zero. And remember all this 'wealth' is netted to zero, in other words exists only as accounting conventions. But by no means all of it has been created by the government sector. He claims that 'assets' and counter part 'liabilities' have been created by the public sector itself. Then why and how does the private sector come to have these government IOU's that the author claims add to the 'wealth' of the private sector.
The missing and inconvenient truth here is that the government (rulers) creates these IOU's (that is credit instruments) out of nothing and then exchanges them with the public (the ruled) for real assets (such as food, buildings, clothes and battleships). So the public (ruled) are receiving government IOU's (imaginary wealth) in exchange for giving up part of its own produced real wealth. The government of course adds 'liabilities' - that is debt - to its balance sheet. But to eventually balance its books it by laws (coercion) assesses the public with Taxes which return the IOU's to the Treasury and reduce this notational debt. Clever, no? But of course the Government in recent decades has NOT balanced its books but has continually issued more and more credit until it constitutes the great majority of the money supply itself, while expanding its debt on either its ledger or that of the FED.

Moreover, Dr. Wray ignores that for centuries in early modern Europe it was private sector actors who created 'money' and loaned it to governments (rulers) that frequently defaulted. And private sector banks and 'shadow banks' still create 'money'.

"A note on nonfinancial wealth a (real assets)".

The author here writes that real assets are one's actual wealth 'not offset by another's liabilities, hence at the aggregate level net wealth equals the value of real (nonfinancial) assets"

What he fails to mention is that the process he described above resulted in an amount of that total aggregate of real wealth being shifted from the private ownership to the government (rulers) for their consumption or retention as personal wealth (or consumption by their favored voter groups..

"Net private financial wealth equals public debt".

This section is an elaborate explanation of the transfer of this financial imaginary wealth 'assets' and 'liabilities' between government and private sectors. But the author continues to ignore that these transfers are the result of the government exchanging its created credit 'assets' for real wealth - assets - produced by the private sector. And by defining this "net private financial wealth" he makes the reader believe that he owes ALL of his financial wealth to the government. Actually private individuals have financial wealth created by other private individuals (or banks) even though financial assets and liabilities do net to zero. I discussed this above.

He writes misleadingly, "If the government always runs a balanced budget, with its spending always equal to its tax revenue, the private sector's net financial wealth will be zero".

True, indeed, (when considering ONLY government created financial instruments) when by his definition the government and private sectors are separate and have separately defined accounting balance sheets, but what is missing is that this exchange process results in the government having obtained real assets (food etcetera) expropriated from the private sector for 'free', having in net exchanged nothing for the real assets it has expropriated.. He here is trying to get the reader to believe that should the government ever actually balance its budget private individuals would have zero financial wealth. But private sector entities also create money to use as a 'medium of exchange'. In fact much of the financial instruments used during the extended production process was created by private sector lenders or was based on the retained earnings out of previous production.

The following topics are:
"Rest of world debts are domestic financial assets"

"Basics of sectorial accounting relations to stock and flow concepts"

Another note on real assets

"Conclusion: one sector's deficit equals another' surplus"

The author presents this in a convenient form: Domestic Private Balance + Domestic Government Balance + Foreign Balance=0

Again, this is only financial balances and it based on his fiction of there being separate Government and private sectors..

"Section 1.2 MMT, sectorial balances, and behavior"

In this section the author explains his theory based on his division of the society into a private and a government sector plus foreign. He wants to show that 'money', that is credit, 'flows' between these sectors.

He writes, "It is not sufficient to say that at the aggregate level, the private balance plus the government balance plus the foreign balance equals zero".

The 'balances' are debt=credit, or asset=liability. And he further states that, "the US private sector balance was negative during the Clinton Goldilocks years while the government balance was positive".
But this frequently stated claim is also false. The real situation was that during the Clinton years the total federal government debt INCREASED every year, one can read it right on the web site of the Bureau of the Public Debt. His point is that he believes understanding these sectorial conditions is necessary in order 'to formulate policy'. But his sectors are an illusion of his own creation. And the 'policy' he want government to 'formulate' is how to manipulate the flow of financial entities to 'solve' unemployment as we will learn below.

He continues, "it is not possible to say with certainty what causes a particular sector's balance. It is quite easy to say that if the government runs a surplus and if the foreign balance is positive then the domestic private sector must by accounting identity be negative (running a deficit)". "Explaining why the US private sector had a deficit during the Goldilocks years is harder; it is even more difficult to project if and for how long that deficit might continue." Then comes this admission. "Another way of stating this is to say that a good understanding of MMT does not give one a monopoly on explanations of causation. We must not be overly confident".

Perhaps the problem lies in the imaginary nature of MMT itself, just wondering. However Dr. Wray forges ahead undaunted. Next comes:
"Deficits-savings and debt-wealth"

Undaunted he writes, "We have established in our previous sections that the deficits of one sector must equal the surpluses of (at least) one of the other sectors." And, "We have also established that the debts of one sector must equal the financial wealth of at least one of the other sectors."

Here he is laying the ground work for a claim later on that the financial wealth of the private sector is generated by the financial debt of the government. He not only ignores but denies that the private sector can accumulate financial wealth on its own and actually does when it retains the surplus from production and converts that into financial instruments, without government deficits mounting into debt. Note also the term 'financial' - which ignores the role of the private sector in creating non-financial wealth which can be and is exchanged all the time during the production process for and from financial wealth.

Then come several dubious assertions that are central to Keynesian theory: a) Individual spending is mostly determined by income. And b) Deficits create financial wealth. And c(Aggregate spending creates aggregate income.And d) Deficits in one sector create surpluses of another.

All this was based on outright refusal to believe Say's Law.

"Conclusions"

Dr. Wray repeats his equation - Domestic Private Balance (he means assets versus liabilities) + Domestic Government Balance (again A vs L) + Foreign Balance=0 and he means ONLY in financial accounts He then includes a 'Technical note: in a side-bar box, with answers to several questions.

"1.3 Government budget deficits are largely nondiscretionary: the case of the Great Recession of 2007"

First off, lets get beyond this political mantra to reality. This huge category of government spending is only 'nondiscretionary' because the politicians, exercising their discretion, chose to create a category they could claim to the public is beyond their ability to control - no longer subject to their own discretion. They exempt it from the annual political budget process - and they frequently slip other expenditures into 'off budget' accounting to make the budget appear to be balanced.

Dr. Wray continues to claim he has proven the same thesis over again. Now he claims that while "household income largely determines spending at the individual level, at the total economy level it is the reverse - spending determines income."

This concept leads him to his theory and claim that individual income is determined by government spending. And he then cites and claims validity for Keynes' famous theory of the 'paradox of thrift' which supports the theory that there can be 'excess saving' and this is the problem that requires deficit spending by government. The following paragraph is worth study.

He writes. "However, there is an issue of immediate interest given the deficit hysteria that had gripped the United States ( as well as many other countries.) HYSTERIA indeed. Pity the ignorant public. Then there is more.

"The national conversation (in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, for example) presumes that government budget deficits are discretionary. If only the government were to try hard enough, it could slash its deficit .... However, anyone who proposes to cut government deficits must be prepared to project impacts on the other balances (private and foreign) because by identity the budget deficit cannot be reduced unless the private sector surplus or the foreign surplus is reduced."

Now pity the poor politicians who have no discretion and cannot reduce their budgets lest they injure the public. What a farce. We all, public and government, are locked in to a vicious treadmill. He continues by labeling those concerned as 'deficit hysterians'.
The more times I re-read this screed the more agitated I become.
But he continues, by claiming the US budget deficits generated during and after the so-called 'global financial crisis' (including graphs) were caused by 'automatic' rather than 'discretionary' spending. Sure, 'automatic' rather than 'discretionary' because politicians had previously used discretion to exonerate themselves from having even to discuss spending with the voters.
What a farce indeed! Actually both Bush and Obama administrations also created massive discretional expenses to 'stimulate' economic activity.
This section continues for several pages complete with more graphs linked to more fallacious excuses. Big blame is pointed at the 'public' for failure to save - spending more than their income. But he opts out with "The cause is beyond the scope of this section." The excuses become worse.

Then we have another side-bar box. "The paradox of thrift and other fallacies of composition". "One of the most important concepts in macroeconomics is the notion of the fallacy of composition: what might be true for individuals is probably not true for society as a whole."
Of course, society is not composed of individuals.??

"The most common example is the paradox of thrift: while an individual can save more by reducing spending (on consumption) society can save more only by spending more (for example, on investments)"
But this confuses 'saving', 'spending' and 'investment'. But investment is created from the retained earnings of producers, who are of course individual members of the private sector. Government does not and cannot 'invest' nor 'save'. Nor can other non-productive consumers.

"1.4 Accounting for real versus financial (or nominal)"

In this section Dr. Wray turns to explain the relationship of 'real' assets to 'financial' assets and 'liabilities'. He does get into reality.
"The states' monetary unit is a handy measuring device that we can use to measure credits, debts, and something fairly esoteric we might call 'value'.

Bingo. For so many economists 'value 'is indeed 'esoteric' perhaps even extraneous.

" 'Value' is more difficult. We need a measuring unit that is appropriate to measuring the heterogenous things. We cannot use color, weight, length, density, and so on. For reasons I will not go into right now, we usually use the states' money of account. otherwise, we can only measure value in terms of the thing itself."

He continues with some irrelevant examples. A full discussion of the fallacies in economists' theories (or avoiding) 'value' takes a lengthy discussion. But the first, and simple, point is that the 'states' (read government) money of account is not a stable measure of value because its value is always changing. One cannot obtain a valid 'measure' of changing 'value' by using a tool that itself is always changing. But fundamentally 'value' is not an attribute (like weight of length) that can be attached to any material or non-material thing, 'Value' is relative in time and space and in relation to the supply and demand for all other things. It exists ONLY in the mind of individuals. After lengthy discussion Dr. Wray turns to focus again on the 'monetary part of the economy'.

"Indeed, on what Keynes called 'monetary production' and Marx called M - C - M, in which production begins with money (M) to produce a commodity for sale (C), for 'more money' (M'). We focus on this because that is basically what capitalism is all about and we are mostly concerned with how' modern money' works in a capitalist economy".

This Marxist - Keynesian theory is false. And Dr. Wray is to be congratulated for noting some of the problems with theory. But he should describe the reasons it is false in detail and then not rely on it. But he proceeds to create more side bar boxes in which he explains in detail 'accounting through balance sheets'. All this is well and good. But his description includes his theory that all the 'credit' generated in the exchange process between financial and real assets comes from the government. It does not, now, nor did it during the 19th century when the American economy expanded greatly on the basis of privately generated credit. For that matter, the creation of the Bank of England in the last years of the 17th century and first of the 18th enabled Great Britain to financed its wars with France with private credit supplied primarily by the merchant class.

Next, Dr. Wray creates another side-bar box in which he clearly explains accounting via balance sheet displays that show how financial assets and liabilities - that is credits and debts - balance on the 'books' of banks and households. In this, 'net worth' is the difference between assets and liabilities. This is very clear. But he extends his balance sheets to claim that the relationships between assets and liabilities must also apply to a relationship between the total private sector and government. This refuses to admit that the private sector generates its own credit - debt relationships to fund investment. But what is really critical and not explicitly noted is that in these financial balances one entity's assets are another (or several) entity's liabilities and in reverse. And these relationships multiply into unseen chains. The result is the 'snowball' effect when one entity defaults on its liabilities that were the assets of another entity whose liabilities were in turn assets of another thus bringing down the whole edifice of credit finance.

"1.5 Recent US sector balances: Goldilocks and the global crash'

Here, Dr. Wray applies the theory to the actual financial crisis of 2008. He states that he will demonstrate the 'causes' of the crisis. Of course there are very many books and articles that also claim to 'demonstrate' 'causes' not surprisingly much different from each other. Naturally he has to throw in political commentary on the side. He claims that President Clinton inherited a period of 'substandard' national 'economic growth'. But economic expansion had been significant since President Reagan. He claims that this expansion began a rapid increase again with President Clinton only to crash again in the 1990's. He wants to apply his theory to 'explain' the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. He has to mention again 'Clinton's budget surpluses' which in reality were merely concealed by claiming expenses were 'off budget'. But the fundamental 'slight of hand' in his theory and the graph he provides is that it does NOT have anything to do with causation. It is all about results. He correctly demonstrates that the decade and more prior to 2008 was one in which private debt greatly expanded as people were spending more than they produced (as measured financially). And he shows the opposite balance that government deficits, (debt) also expanded. He makes it appear that the eventual collapse was the fault of the private sector's excessive spending. But he does not show that the government balance sheet debt was its offset to the government pouring credit into the private sector that enabled it to spend and accumulate debt. And of course he rightly shows that the collapse generated drastic reduction in private debt which collapsed the government credit based money supply requiring the emergency government creation of more credit. But all of this is results, not causes. The cause was the government demand that the private sector buy houses and pay for them with government backed or supplied credit. And that the financial industry aid and support this activity.

"1.6 Stocks, flows, and balance sheet: a bath tub analogy"

Complete with diagrams of water flowing into and out of a tub, Dr. Wray demonstrates the relation between flows - water going in and out - and stocks - the quantity in the tub. All of this is to again claim that there must be a financial net zero between private and government sector's assets and liabilities. The claim is that ALL private 'saving' is due to government 'deficit'. Well, this is true in a way, but not 'all, it is enabled by a false concept and definition of 'saving'. Real 'saving' is only the retained earning from investment. True, much of the credit balance on the individual's bank accounts in the private sector is credit supplied by the government, not generated from investment, and is shown on the government account as debt. If the government gives individuals credit in their bank account, which is not spent, that is not saving - it is not a part of real wealth even though the government calls it its own debt.

Dr. Wray recognizes public skepticism and tries to eliminate it in another side bar box.
- Objections to accounting identities.
His 'explanations' amount to sarcasm and slight of hand. But what all this 'analysis', which he admits excludes much of the real - material - world, is pure financial - that is theoretical - manipulation. But, again, what he demonstrates without mentioning it is that, indeed, very much of the financial wealth - on paper - that Forbes and others cite as the 'wealth' of billionaires is really only an accounting relationship to equal off setting and supplied government debt.

"Chapter 2 - Spending by Issuer of Domestic Currency'

Dr. Wray opens by noting that his explanation in Chapter 1 was the prepare to examine the nature of modern money. And "Further, a key distinguishing characteristic of MMT is its view on how government really spends, based on a theory of sovereign currency. "We will examine spending by government that issues its own domestic currency". This is indeed a reality the public should well understand. It is directly a part of the entire government budget process.

"2.1 What is a sovereign currency?"
"Domestic currency"

- The author begins with the concept of 'money of account'.

He begins by averring that through history it was a situation of 'one nation - one currency'. Well, that might cover the situation in, for instance, medieval France, Italy and Germany, and ancient Roman empire, where they were not each one nation and had multiple currencies, so the multiple currencies were not in one country. And he admits that there are plenty of examples of the use of foreign currencies within a nation (for instance early US). But he does not mention that even one country could have more than one currency of its own - for instance English pounds and guineas. But then comes a telling comment.

"We will argue that the government has much more leeway (called "domestic policy space") when it spends and taxes in its own currency than when it spends or taxes in a foreign currency."

Of course, but. This quiet remark is shown to be the author's real purpose in all this, when, in later chapters he shows how government manipulation of its currency (actually money including credit) enables it to pursue its political objectives (policies) despite political opposition. And there still are 'private currencies' in the US. He reveals here that his objective in his argument is to define the ability of government to have more "domestic policy space" meaning ability to do what it wants politically.

"Sovereignty and the currency"

The author states that one of the key and most defended prerogatives of sovereignty is its monopoly on the creation of its currency. It does this by determining what currency will be acceptable for payment of debts to the government itself. And in reverse it alone has the legal power to create that currency (including both physical things like coins and abstract things like credit accounts). Then, government decides itself with what currency it will use in exchange for the goods and services it demands.

The American colonies used many more than one currency and complained that Parliament continually siphoned off its own silver coin. Meanwhile the British exchequer accepted 'tally sticks' as well as metal coins. Even in the first quarter of 19th century Americans used Mexican pesos. Yet, more than one currency frequently circulates in a country. It was the norm in medieval times. And I personally have exchanged dollars for many goods in Russia at the delight of the vendors there.

Then another side bar box for 'frequently asked questions'. To answer he first returns to discuss the concept of money of account. And he holds the concept of medium of exchange for later. But he does mention the vexing situation in which our government in effect has authorized private banks to be a main engine in the creation of the medium of exchange linked to the money of account.

"2.2 What backs up currency and why would anyone accept it?"

" The dollar is not backed with gold."

Do reserves of metal or foreign exchange back the currency? His answer, no and in this he is correct.

But the dollar is the world reserve currency and even though its relative 'value' to other currencies continually changes on the FOREX it serves as 'backing' for other currencies in its role as bank reserve on which the 'fractional banking' credit expansion system relies. And the exchange of physical assets in many countries is based on dollars even when the country has its own currency.

"Legal tender laws"

Dr. Wray repeats his earlier point that some governments demand payment of taxes and other bills in their currency (legal tender laws) so people are stuck with it. But he also points out that there are also instances in which currencies are either used without such laws or not used even with them. Finally he punts and invites the student to 'ponder' why currencies are accepted as a medium of exchange.

He declines to answer, but it seems to me the ultimate answer is 'trust' but that is not his answer.

Another side bar box appears in which Dr. Wray discusses gold and fiat money.

"2.3 taxes drive money, Sovereignty and taxes"

Now Dr. Wray changes courses and insists that currency (he means money) acceptance rests squarely on the government demand for it. "All that is required is imposition of a tax liability to be paid in the government's currency. It is the tax liability (or other obligatory payments) that stands behind the curtain."

Well, yes and no. This is a fundamental precept of Keynesian economics, which tried to ignore the existence of money in its theories. There are other quantities of 'money' circulating in the country and accepted in payment or as reward besides the government's currency and they are not accepted for payment of tax or debts to the government. During the 19th century the US economy expanded rapidly on the basis of credit money that was not acceptable for paying taxes. But the author is determined to insist on his theory of the exclusive role for government debt to enable the private sector to function.

What does government promise? What does a government IOU owe you?

A wonderful statement is next. "The 'promise to pay' that is engraved on U.K. Pound notes is superfluous and really quite misleading... The UK treasury will not really pay anything (other than another note) when the five-Pound paper currency is presented." The same goes of course for the US Treasury. The author then deftly mentions the origin of the Bank of England after King Charles 'stopped the Exchequer' but then skips on.

"Conclusion"

He drops the hammer here. "We can conclude that taxes drive money. The government first creates a money of account ... and then imposes tax obligations in that national money of account. In all modern nations this is sufficient to ensure that many ... debts, assets, and prices will also be denominated in the national money of account."

Next another box in which the author attempts to support this 'conclusion'.

"2.4 What if the population refuses to accept the domestic currency?"

Dr. Wray repeats his key theory that making the sovereign's currency 'legal tender' is insufficient. Rather it is the law that this currency must be used to pay tax that is the critical requirement. And, then, since the public must have this currency to pay tax it then reasons that the currency will be useful for exchange with others. It is worth our repeating as well that this is the reason that the establishment of the Federal Reserve System as the engine for government expansion of credit as money, which necessitated simultaneously passing the Constitutional Amendment to authorize the Income Tax. During the 19th century the American economy did very well without either the Income Tax or the Federal Reserve credit is money regimes.

The author then makes this cryptic remark. "Later we'll see what bank reserves really are." He then devotes several pages to discussion of various situations in which the public has more or less government supplied currency to meet the government's ability to collect it back as tax. The onus is on the public to accept and use this government currency. But the entire system is designed to enable government to acquire more and more of the economy's production of real assets in exchange for its self-created currency (again read money including credit).

"The problem is not really one of government 'affordability' but rather of limited government ability to mobilize resources because it cannot impose and enforce taxes at a sufficient level to achieve the desired result. (more spending) Government can always 'afford' to spend more (in the sense that it can issue more currency), but if it cannot enforce and collect taxes it will not find sufficient willingness to accept its domestic currency in sales to government."

Wow, the public needs to study this expression of what government is doing. More to come in another box.

"2.5 Keeping track of stocks and flows: the money of account."

Stocks and flows are denominated in the national money of account

In this section the author elaborates on his previous description of stocks and flows. He discusses wages and other income and the results of wages being spent on consumption or saved. And he also brings in the banking system and the intermediate agency in processing the exchanges.

Here is the kicker. "Like all currency, reserves are the government's IOU".

This is a critical fact the public does not understand, according to this author. All that 'money' they see in their bank statements are actually IOU's created by the government - that means, government debt. And all those financial assets that Forbes, Fortune, and other commentators show as part of the vast 'wealth' of listed billionaires are government IOU's as well. But what about the millions of American dollars that form the actual reserves of dozens of governments around the world?
But the real problem is that the government issued those IOU's (credit) in exchange for real, produced, goods and services which it consumed. The IOU is a promise to create and then exchange an equal value in new - real, produced, goods and services - NOT in exchange for more 'money credit'. And it cannot do this.

"The financial system as electronic scoreboard"

Dr. Wray is clear and succinct. "The modern financial system is an elaborate one of record keeping, a sort of financial scoring of the game of life in a capitalist economy." And he elaborates on details.

This makes it very similar to the monetary systems of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in which very detailed accounts were kept by official scribes indicating every thing that entered and left the government warehouses..

Then we have: Question: "Is all money debt"? - Answer - "Yes, all money 'things' are debt. Again that is a topic for detailed treatment later."

For more read Graeber on Debt.

There is more: "Question"? What is the difference between money of account and the medium of exchange?" Answer: "Think of it this way: money of account is the measure (foot, yard, inch): medium of exchange is the thing being measured (shoe, car, earlobe). Domestic currency is the government's IOU and demand deposits are bank IOUs, but both of these are measured in the money of account... They are issued by quite different entities. An IOU is a debt, so government IOU's are debts, just as demand deposits are debts of the bank. We denominate these debts in the money of account, and both of these types of debts can be used as media of exchange."

This 'answer' reveals the fundamental fallacy that underlies economic theory and resulting financial practice. The author states, unfortunately correctly, that the financial system is 'measuring' assets whose value constantly changes with a 'measuring rod' that itself is also constantly changing, but at an unrelated rate. There is NO established standard for financial measurement similar to the international measures - (meter, kilogram, degree Celsius). And., I repeat, 'value' that which is being 'measured' is not an attribute of the real assets for which it is claimed.

"2.7 Sustainability conditions"

In this section Dr. Wray explains how and why the government can continue to function with an expanding debt. He provides the usual economic equations describing various relative relations between total debt and GDP and interest rates. His conclusion is that government can continue as long as the interest rate it pays is less than the rate of growth of national production as 'measured' in GDP.

"Chapter 3 -The Domestic Monetary System: Banking and Central Banking"

"3.1 IOU's denominated in the national currency: government and private"

He begins with his continually repeated theory, "All 'modern money' systems (which apply to those of the 'past 4000 years at least' as Keynes put it) are state money systems in which the sovereign chooses a money of account and then imposes tax liabilities in that unit" .

Well, Keynes to the contrary not withstanding, this is simply not true. This 'modern money' system is indeed 'modern' and did not exist for even 3-400 years let alone 4000. (See references listed below.) Actually NO money 'system' has existed anywhere for 4000 years. During many centuries there was not even a single 'money system'.

"IOU's denominated in national currency: government"

In this part the author discusses the issue of 'convertibility' of the government's designated currency (money)

"Private IOU's denominated in the domestic currency"

In this he notes that private issuers of IOU's (including banks) promise to accept there own liabilities - back as payment. This correct idea contradicts his view that 'money' is created by governments.

'Leveraging"

"Chapter 4 - Fiscal Operations in a Nation That Issues its Own Currency"

Dr. Wray describes his intended content: "we will begin to examine our next topic: government spending, taxing, interest rate setting, and bond issue - that is, we will examine fiscal policy for a government that issues its own currency".
And, significantly: "Note that it is not possible to completely separate fiscal policy from monetary policy, especially in the area of the issue of treasury debt."

Quite right. So the Treasury and FED do work together, despite the idea that the FED is independent.

"4.1 Introductory principles"

Please pay close attention to the author's statements in this section. According to Dr. Wray, everything you were taught to believe is false and what you thought was false is actually true. (Orwell?) I need to quote the author here at length in order for you patient readers to see through it.

"Statements that do not apply to a currency issuer"
"Let us begin with some common beliefs that actually are false, that is to say, the following statements do NOT apply to a sovereign
1. "Governments have a budget constraint (like households) and have to raise funds through taxing or borrowing".
2. "Budget deficits are evil, a burden on the economy except under some special circumstances (such as a deep recession)".
3. "Government deficits drive interest rates up, crowd out the private sector and lead to inflation".
4. "Government deficits take away savings that could be used for investment".
5. "Government deficits leave debt for future generations, government needs to cut spending or tax more today to diminish this burden".
6. "Higher government deficits today imply higher taxes tomorrow, to pay interest and principle on the debt that results from deficits".
"While these statements are consistent with the conventional wisdom, and while several of them are more-or-less accurate, if applied to the case of a government that does not issue its own currency, they do not apply to a currency issuer".

What does this mean? It is critical to understand this. By 'currency issuer' he means a currency-creating monopoly. It is the basis for both the creation of the FED and income taxes and for the government efforts to prevent any private source for the creation of credit=money. Prior to 1913 the U.S. government did not create the majority of the actual bank credit that financed American economic expansion. Nor did the Bank of England do so initially for a lengthy period. Nor did medieval and early governments, or ancient governments. The 6 statements are the center of the claim that government can take as it pleases and exchange for real goods and services promises to create and exchange other goods and services some time in the future. But the wording of the statements conceals their actual meaning.

"Principles that apply to a currency issuer".
"Let us replace these false statements with propositions that are true of any currency-issuing government, even one that operates with a fixed exchange rate regime".

Here the author exposes his approved version of current reality. It is the reality, the question is, should it be approved?

1. "The government names a unit of account and issues a currency denominated in that unit".
True - but both currency and credit

2. "the government ensures a demand for is currency by imposing a tax liability that can be fulfilled by payment of its currency". Partially true - there is some demand for the currency to pay taxes, but much more demand for it as a reserve in banks (including foreign ones that don't pay taxes) to enable the 'fractional bank money expansion that banks live by.

3. "government spends by crediting bank reserves and taxes by debiting bank reserves".
True - meanwhile those bank reserves accomplish quite a bit

4. "in this manner, banks act as intermediaries between government and the nongovernment sector, crediting depositors' accounts as government spends and debiting them when taxes are paid".
True - But depositors credit and debit their own accounts with funds NOT provided by government and not paid for taxes

5. "government deficits mean net credits to banking system reserves and also to deposits at banks".
True - the accounting counterpart of the credit is the bonds that accumulate

6. "the central bank sets the overnight interest rate target, it adds/drains reserves as needed to hit its target rate".
True - and it pays interest to the banks on both required and voluntary reserves so created. At the same time it returns to the Treasury most of the interest the Treasury officially pays as interest

7. "the overnight interest rate target is 'exogenous', set by the central bank, but the quantity of reserves is 'endogenous', determined by the needs and desires of private banks".
True - Actually the banks not only deposit required reserves but 'excess' reserves thanks to the FED paying interest on them as well.
8. "the 'deposit multiplier' - is simply an ex post ratio of reserves to deposits - it is best to think of deposits as expanding endogenously as they 'leverage' reserves, but with no predetermined leverage ratios".
Maybe - this refers to the ratio of bank loans backed by its reserves to the reserves - the fractional banking scheme - and the FED does or can set a maximum, but the banks decide for themselves how much to lend.

9. "the treasury coordinates operations with the central bank to ensure its checks don't bounce and that fiscal operations do not move the overnight interest rate away from the target".
True - an example showing that the FED is not entirely 'independent' of the Treasury.

10. "the treasury cooperates with the central bank, providing new bond issues to drain excess reserves or with the central bank buying treasuries when banks are short of reserves". True - another example that it is not 'independent'
/
11. "for this reason, bond sales are not a borrowing operation (in the usual sense of the term) used by the sovereign government, instead they are a tool that helps the central bank to hit interest rate targets".
Yes and no - 'bond sales are not a borrowing operation' - borrowing means planning to return and the Treasury does not plan to return anything it receives. But the annual deficit that accrues as the debt, created by issuing credit, has to show up somewhere. The treasury does not have to auction off its bonds to the FED and in fact does not do so. But it is the FED that exchanges created money with the banks for the bonds from the Treasury. All this is accomplished by the FED Open Market Operation.

12. "and the treasury can always 'afford' anything for sale in its own currency, although government always imposes constraints on its spending".
True - the government can always 'afford' to receive real goods and services to consume by exchanging currency, or Mostly, credit instruments (except when Congress does not legislate to increase the statutory debt limit)


Wow, so what does all this mean? Quite a few things. It shows that the creation of the FED accomplished the goals of the 'progressive' movement to fund a welfare state. It did this gradually. It brought the entire previously private banking industry in the U.S. under its control. In that process it made the banking system centered on the FED the executive arm of the treasury in creating the real money supply and manipulating monetary policy to favor government political objectives. In 19th century America the independent private banks issued credit and frequently became bankrupt in 'credit crisis' events. But there was no total, central banking 'system'. But creation of the FED created a national banking 'system' thus creating the possibility of a systematic credit failure. As is apparent from other sections of the book, the private banks that stand in the favored priority position in the bond sales process mentioned above are enabled to extract sizable fees and commissions from each transaction to fund themselves and enrich their officers. And they are also enabled as the 'house' to 'play' the secondary bond market to extract added fees.

Also, the author mentions that government is able to 'spend' and to 'buy'. This means the government is exchanging its self-created credit for real assets (goods and services) from the private sector which produces them. The government consumes real assets produced by the private sector and when it 'balances' its books by taking back all of the credit and currency it issued via taxes it has in essence obtained real assets for nothing. It is not 'crowding out' the private sector by 'borrowing' but simply confiscating assets from the private sector. It is not 'borrowing' because it is not 'repaying'.

The author hastens to add that he is not advocating that government 'buy' everything it can. And he further comments. "These principles also do not deny that too much spending by government would be inflationary". And he notes that there may be effects on exchange rates.

"4.2 Effects of sovereign government budget deficits on saving, reserves, and interest rates".

"Budget deficits and saving"

The author writes, "Recall from earlier discussions in the Primer that it is the deficit spending of one sector that generates the surplus (or saving) of the other: this is because the entities of the deficit sector can in some sense decide to spend more than their incomes, while the surplus entities can decide to spend less than their incomes only if those incomes are actually generated. In Keynesian terms this is simply another version of the two statements that 'spending generates income' and 'investment generates saving'. Here, however, the statement is that the government sector's deficit spending generates the nongovernment sector's surplus or saving."

But, Keynes' concepts here are false and Wray's use of these in his government - nongovernment categories is also false. Wray's purpose again is to convince the public - private sector - that their 'saving' is courtesy of government created deficit (debt) rather than the result of creating a surplus from the production process. This is a false manipulation of the concept of 'saving'. In reality 'saving' is ONLY created by producers -it is the retained earnings held out from the production process and not consumed. Keynes' idea that 'spending generates income' is false. Spending dissipates income. And income is created from the retained earnings from production. Likewise, Keynes' idea that 'investment generates saving' is misleading because only productive investment from which an amount of retained earnings is possible can create savings, if that earnings is not consumed. The government deficit is the accounting difference between the amount of credit-money it created and the amount of that which it confiscated back via taxes. So it is credit-money still circulating in the economy, but no one 'saved' it. But the real 'savings' in the economy was created by the private sector.

But Dr. Wray continues, "Obviously this reverses the orthodox (conventional wisdom) causal sequence because the government's deficit 'finances' the nongovernment's saving in the sense that the deficit spending by government provides the income that allows the nongovernment sector to run a surplus".

Bravo and kudos for our generous government! But this is so false it hurts. It is upside down. The nongovernment sector's income was created by its own production and its savings are what was retained and not consumed. It is the government's deficit spending that enables government to confiscate a significant proportion of the nongovernment's retained earnings from production (in the form of real assets) and consume it for its own purposes, while leaving some of those earnings to private owners. Consider Colbert's advice about leaving some feathers on the plucked bird.

Next, he writes, "All of this analysis is reversed in the case of a government surplus: the government surplus means the nongovernment sector runs a deficit, with net debts of bank accounts and of reserves." The destruction (net debiting) of nongovernment sector net financial assets of course equals the government budget surplus".

Again, this is upside down. A government surplus means it confiscated more financial and real assets than it created in its issuing of credit. So it is true that the nongovernment sector is left with even less than when the government runs a deficit. But a government financial surplus does mean a contraction of the credit based money supply, which may impact on financial liquidity if there has been considerable 'fractional banking' expansion of levered credit=debt.

"Effects of budget deficits on reserves and interest rates".

This section is a description of the inner working mechanisms for transferring credits and debts between treasury and the banking system. The author occasionally wonders why all this complex mechanism is needed when the treasury seemingly could simply act as its own bank and deal with private banks directly. He is correct, actually President Jackson and others wanted this. And the answer is that the fiscal conservatives recognized when the FED was established what the inflationary results of the direct link would be and wrote into the law that the FED cannot 'buy' treasury bonds directly from the treasury. And at the same time they created a legal maximum for the total federal debt (a limit). But the clever progressives and bankers soon created a way around this by establishing the intermediate process in which the treasury 'sells' its bonds to the select private banks and the FED then buys them from those banks. Of course the treasury pays fees and the bankers reap a nice profit. Read Calomirisfor detailed description of the political nature of all banking systems.

"Complications and private preferences"

The author answers several common questions about how and why the system functions. The answers repeat his descriptions. One of these is "what if the central bank refused to cooperate with the treasury? The - His - answer is that the central bank would miss its overnight interest rate target (and eventually would endanger the payments system because checks would start bouncing). "
Nice answer, in other words the central bank is NOT independent of the treasury.

"4.3 Government budget deficits and the 'two-step' process of saving"

This is more elaboration of the same theory about the relations between government deficits or surpluses and the nongovernment sector.
"To put it as simply as possible, government deficit spending creates nongovernment sector saving in the form of domestic currency (cash, reserves, and treasuries). This is because government deficits necessarily mean that government has credited more accounts through its spending than it debited through its taxes."

True - But what this really means is that the government exchanged its credit IOU for real assets created by the nongovernment sector and then took back in the form of taxes less of those credit IOU's than it gave. So the nongovernment sector is left holding government credit IOU's worth less than the value of the real assets it exchanged.

Then the author continues with this. "And some members of the nongovernment sector can save in the form of claims on other members of the domestic nongovernment sector, but that all nets to zero (as we said, that is 'inside wealth''.

Not quite. First, it is these 'claims', that is privately created credit, that finances the production cycle. Second, if and when there is a default between the private (nongovernment) debtor and creditor the net is less than zero - negative. And thanks to the bargain between government and investors back to the creation of the Bank of England the government steps in to balance the financial system. And third, the government created credit IOU's remaining with the nongovernment sector are not 'savings'

But the author continues, "as argued above, the nongovernment savings in the domestic currency cannot preexist the budget deficit, so we should not imagine that a government that deficit spends must first approach the nongovernment sector to borrow its savings. Rather, we should recognize that government spending conceptually comes first, it is accomplished by credits to bank accounts. Further, we recognize that both the resulting budget deficit as well as the nongovernment's savings of net financial assets (budget surplus) are in this sense residuals and are equal."

First we have to ask how did economies even function - how did the US manage to become the world leader - without all this government deficit spending, without a central bank, without government flooding the market with credit and without the government extracting more and more real production from the private sector? Again, Dr. Wray totally ignores that there is an exchange of real assets taking place in this process. Real assets created by the nongovernment sector (in his terms). Government spending does not come first. First comes the creation of real assets by the nongovernment (private) sector. Production always comes before consumption. The government is NOT borrowing the nongovernment sector's savings, it is confiscating real assets that not only won't be returned but also won't be replaced by new production. True, the government IOU's left with the private sector were created by government in its process of deficit spending while exchanging them for real assets worth more than the residual IOU's.

The author then relies on Keynes again for that writer's concept of saving. The story becomes really deep. This is the 'two -step idea. He writes, "it is best to think of the net saving of the nongovernment sector as a consequence of the government's deficit spending, which creates income and savings. These savings cannot preexist the deficits, since the net credits by government create the savings. Hence the savings do not really 'finance' the deficits, but rather the deficits create an equal amount of savings".

No and again no. This is a pure effort to make the public believe they are beholden to government and to mislead everyone on the reality of the production process and real savings. Again, the author has it backwards. First comes production by the nongovernment 'sector' out of which the private owners retain some earnings - that is, do not consume everything. Meanwhile the government exchanges (takes) a significant portion of the production (25% or more) and consumes it, thus reducing the quantity of retained earnings and in the exchange gives the private sector credit IOU's. Then the government takes back the major proportion of its own IOU's by taxation, leaving the private sector with some of the credit IOU's that it has the nerve to call 'savings'. But that was but a part of the real savings generated by the private producers in the form of retained earnings. Result is that there is less available for investment to create increased future production.

"Bond sales provide an interest -earning alternative to reserves."

Dr. Wray descries the process in terms of the use of treasuries in manipulation of interest rates. And he includes some comments about the Chinese in this process.

"4.4 What if foreigners hold government bonds?"

The author describes the process by which foreign governments come to own US cash and treasury bonds. They likely will hold more in treasuries because those pay some interest. And he notes the impact of this on exchange rates. It can lead to currency depreciation. But his discussion relates to only the holding resulting from the balance in export- import. There are other causes of foreign accumulation of dollars. And he does not discuss what the foreign banks do with the dollars. Actually, the dollars are used by foreign banks as reserves against loans just as our domestic banks use them. And foreign banks need dollars because many exchanges of goods and services between two foreign countries are calculated in dollars. And foreign investors or banks who consider that world interest rates (or world national security issues) indicate they should sell their own currency and buy US dollars either to gain profit from the exchange or to provide security against loss.

"4.5 Currency solvency and the special case of the US Dollar"

In this section the author discusses some of the other reasons for foreign holding of US currency and bonds.

"4.6 Sovereign currency and government policy in the open economy".

This section treats on the impact of government deficits on the country's current account deficits with respect to foreign countries. The main point is that the current account deficit or surplus must balance with the capital account surplus or deficit. There are different results for countries that have 'pegged' or otherwise fixed their currency and those who operate a floating rate currency. This gets into the question of trade balances and dollar depreciation.

"4.7 What about a country that adopts a foreign currency?"

This is a special case but the analysis of results is the same. One conclusion follows: 'A nation that adopts a foreign currency cedes a significant degree of its sovereign power. The discussion extends into the next chapter.

"Chapter 5 - Modern Monetary Theory and Alternatives"

This chapter is about governments that create various types of currency in terms of their exchangeability and convertibility with foreign currencies. The author dispels many myths, such as the real role of gold, but indulges in others. The sections titles are:
" 5.1 The gold standard and fixed exchange rates".

"5.2 Floating exchange rates".

"5.3 Commodity money coins? metalism versus nominalism, from Mesopotamia to Rome".

This section includes a diversionary description of the origin of coined money -the author makes typical mistakes about barter, and confusion about the money of account in Mesopotamia. Temple economies were central economic as well as political structures that set wage and price controls. For classical Greece and Rome read von Redenand for Mesopotamia read Landes. Or read the many books based on Cicero or his own accounts.

"5.4 Commodity money coins? metalism versus nominalism after Rome".

This section is full of mistakes and confusion about money during the 'middle ages' and the role of kings ( rulers). There were hundreds of mints and kings did not control them all nor of course the creation of credit. Kings and other rulers were owners of private property themselves and derived their personal incomes from rents or sale of the production of their serfs or tenants, not only from coining money or issuing credit as Dr. Wray indicates. And they generated much income from court and other fees, licences, custom duties on both exports and imports, granting charters or monopolies and more. And they borrowed heavily from private banks and from international merchants. Only for extraordinary costs - mainly waging war - did they need extra funds from taxation and extensive borrowing from foreign bankers. And especially for the republican cities the taxation systems were different from today. For medieval economy read Spufford. For much specific detail on this read Cheyney.

"5.5 Exchange rate regimes and sovereign defaults".

"5.6 The Euro: the set-up of a non-sovereign currency."

The author here is on more solid ground in his discussion of the creation of the Euro and its fundamental problem.

"5.7 The Crisis of the Euro".

"5.8 Endgame for the Euro?"

He speculates about the future.

"5.9 Currency regimes and policy space: conclusion".

"Chapter 6 - Monetary and Fiscal Policy for Sovereign Currencies: What Should Government Do?"

Now we get to the purpose of the book in this and the next chapter, please note the key word 'should'.
As Dr. Wray puts it, "In this chapter we will turn to what government ought to do. This chapter will specifically treat only sovereign government - one that issues its own currency. From the chapters above, that will make it clear that we are addressing only a government that does not face an affordability constraint.. In this chapter we will examine alternative views about the proper role for government - given that it can 'afford' anything for sale in its own currency."

The point being that he is advocating for US government political policies. Yes, we by now should be convinced that the American government can spend as much as it wants in order to buy whatever it likes by exchanging electronic credit accounts for real assets. But the author asks the question - should it?

"6.1 Just because government can afford to spend does not mean government ought to spend."

He claims, "Understanding how government spends leads to the conclusion that affordability is not really the issue - government can always afford the 'key strokes' necessary to make expenditures as desired" Some 'legitimate' reasons for constraint include.
"1. too much spending can cause inflation
2. too much spending could pressure the exchange rate
3. too much spending by government might leave too few resources for private interests
4. government should not do everything - impacts on incentives could be perverse
5. budgeting provides a lever to manage and evaluate government projects".

He continues, noting, that even if these considerations are met there still is a constraint from 'opportunity costs'. And he mentions other possible reasons to constrain government spending.

"6.2 The 'free' market and the public purpose'

Dr. Wray shows correctly that in reality the 'free market' does not exist due to multiple influences and interferences. But from this he claims, "there is no scientific basis for the claim that 'free markets' are best".

Indeed yes, since a real 'free market' in the utopian vision of Adam Smith has never existed it has never been 'scientifically' tested. But that is no excuse for failing to note 'why?' and attempting to eliminate the known causes for this condition. But he continues by, instead of advocating corrective changes, acquiescing in acceptance of the situation since 'free markets' are "irrelevant for the modern capitalist economies that actually exist".

Is this as 'cop out' or what?

But this argument brings the author to discussion of 'public purpose'. Well, he admits that the public purpose "is not easy to define or to identify". What his concept in his theory amounts to is manipulating the conditions that have prevented existence of a real 'free market' to accomplish more political purposes. His discussion is balanced and forthright. He boldly states,

"The public purpose is inherently a progressive (liberal in US terminology) agenda that strives to continually improve the material, social, physical, and psychological well-being of all members of society. It is inherently 'aspirational' in the sense that there is no endpoint as the frontiers of the public purpose will continually expand."

Note that individual 'moral', 'cultural' and 'political' freedom categories of well- being are not mentioned. Note that this and subsequent comments claim that 'conservatives' are opposed to this agenda. And note that this completely ignores the historically based exposition of the nature of 'public choice' (best described by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock). Namely that the individuals who claim to impose government policies on society have their own private agendas in mind. Note that the 'public purpose' agenda is infinite in time and 'aspiration' and can never be satisfied even with more and more government control and manipulation of all aspects of social and individual behavior. But, having dispensed with the notion that governments cannot 'afford' to undertake unlimited 'progressive' agendas, the author claims that any restraints are a matter of judgment.

He sums this up clearly, "When we add MMT to the more liberal vision of the pubic purpose, or when we add to the public purpose considerations such as 'full employment' and 'price stability' or even just 'economic stability' then MMT helps us to find a way to achieve that public purpose by quickly disposing of the notion that government cannot 'afford' such policies."

QED.

Never mind that application of the MMT theory by governments already has shown that 'full employment' - 'price stability' and 'economic stability' have been lost in the process. It is a blueprint for dictatorship limited only by 'judgment'.

"6.3 Functional finance"

The author cites Abba Lerner, for creating the theory that is mainly what he has been citing - about government ability to solve problems such as unemployment by spending more. Indeed, he notes, that Lerner rejected the very idea that government should 'balance' its accounts and not create an expanding debt. Dr. Wray then discusses the monetarist theory of Milton Friedman, claiming that it is quite close to how the actual system functions. But he claims that the problem is that government spending has not been enough.
"And, indeed, that is how modern government budgets do operate: deficits increase in recessions and shrink in expansions."

I pointed out above that Lerner was expounding on the 'Chartalist' theory of money. But 'shrink' does not mean surplus to reduce the size of the debt created during even 'normal' times let alone the expansions during recessions. Currently federal government deficits - in theoretically economic expansionary time - are nearly half a trillion dollars a year - adding another trillion to the deficit in less than three years. This is called 'functional finance'.

"6.4 - Functional finance versus the government budget constraint"

This section is more of the same. It is the author's insistence that the public (and many economists) have the wrong idea about money and government spending. Throughout the book the author derides anyone with alternate views.

His theory is expressed concisely. "Taxpayers pay taxes using government's own IOUs: banks use government's own IOU's to buy bonds from government." "There is no recognition that all spending by government is actually done by crediting bank accounts - keystrokes that are more akin to 'printing money' than to 'spending out of income'".

This is true, and it is worth our reading to find that he admits it, the popular idea that the government 'sells' bonds to the public is wrong, actually the government issues credit via bank accounts. But in addition there is no real difference between the government paying for goods and services by minting coins, printing dollar bills, and paying for same by exchanging bonds - except that the bonds include a promise to pay some interest (which the government tries hard to keep smaller than the annual depreciation of all currency value via inflation. But the author neglects to mention two critical (vital) facts.
One is that government is not the ONLY creator of credit (much as it wishes it were). Credit is also created by many private entities. If it were not, the process of wealth creation via a surplus in retained earnings by producers would by much smaller or non-existent. But expansion and contraction of privately generated credit is now a serious problem that interferes with government policies. The author ignores history. The economic expansion of the United States during the 19th century was financed by credit generated by private sources, there was no FED or central bank after the Second Bank of the United States was not renewed.
Two is that the taxes that the author claims are merely the essential return to government of the credit it previously issued are by far not collected (confiscated) from the same individuals to which the credit was issued. This planned policy is an essential component of the 'welfare state' progressive purpose to shift - reallocate - wealth from producers to non-productive consumers.

Nevertheless, the author continues for several pages with such as this, "This confusion by economists then leads to the views propagated by the media and by policymakers: a government that continually spends more than its tax revenue is 'living beyond its means'.. And "a sovereign government cannot really become insolvent it its own currency . " No doubt English King Charles II and French King Louis XVII wish that this were true. The author claims further that the alternative view is a 'myth' and that budget balancing is a 'religion'. And, "that indicates just how dysfunctional the myth that government, like a household, must balance its budget has become." This comment is followed by another side bar in which the author cites Paul Samuelson and Ben Bernanke in support of his MMT theory.


Real experts there.

"6.5 The debate about debt limits (US case)"

This section is an analysis of the political struggle in 2011 over the statutory 'limit' on the size of the US Federal debt. The author does not tell us when and why this statutory debt limit was established or when and why it was then that Congress authorized it be exceeded, and why has it been repeatedly exceeded since 1917 (sometimes with no political struggle and sometimes with considerable struggle). I have long believed Congress could save itself considerable wasted time and argument by simply abolishing it. It never served the purpose for which it was enacted.

But Dr. Wray provides several very ingenious methods, manipulation of fiscal and monetary actions, that would enable government to spend without exceeding the legal limit - in fact without making the official public statement of debt size greater. His suggestions involve various slight of hand maneuvers in which quantities in the Treasury and FED balance sheets are exchanged. A surprise is his statement that Treasuries held by anyone are what is counted as the government debt (for which there is a legal limit). But that currency and bank reserves - that is the money supply -is not counted in the government debt. It is true that currency is not counted as government debt, but the Treasury debt which forms the financial reserve on which the banking system's fractional reserve operation rests IS counted as the government debt. This is the method used by FED Chairman Bernanke when buying up Treasuries and other securities onto the FED balance sheet. Another idea he springs is for the Treasury to give the FED non-marketable securities - similar to the securities in the so-called Social Security Trust fund. This would enable the government to spend and show its debt without it being in the category of the legal debt.

He continues, "The second method is to return to Treasury creation of currency- on a massive scale." Again, currency is not counted as federal debt although it really is. "Currently the US Treasury has the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination, so it could, for example, make large payments for military weapons by stamping large denomination platinum coins. The coins would be Treasury IOU's but would not be counted among the bills and bonds that total the government debt."

Paul Krugman suggested this in print. I don't know who thought of it first. But it is silly. Why use platinum? Only because the establishment mantra is never to touch gold. But platinum has more industrial uses than does gold and it non-monetary 'value' is more volatile than gold. And it would be just as easy to mint a huge coin out of gold as out of platinum with the same face value. The only difference between a Treasury created currency (such as a coin) and a government bond is that the latter carries a promise to pay some interest and is promised to be redeemed at face value, but both are government IOU's.

"6.6 A Budget stance for economic stability and growth"

This section is all about increasing the role of the government in the economy via additional manipulation of the money supply. The presumption is the validity of the political policy that government is responsible for preventing unemployment, among other conditions of 'welfare'.

The author forthrightly states, "First, government spending needs to be counter-cyclical. One way is to make spending automatically" by having a "generous social safety net." "Second, government needs to be relatively large". And it needs to be as large as total private investment and 'swing' counter cyclically. That is increase when private investment declines. This whole section is based on the author's notion that credit is only created by government spending and that saving is only the result of not spending some of what government has created. But real saving is ONLY created by private investment in production and is the 'retained earnings' from that investment. But again he repeats the claim that there was a real budget 'surplus' during the Clinton presidency.

Then his ideas get worse when he writes "We conclude that at least some governments will have to run persistent deficits to provide the net financial assets desired by the world's savers."

"6.7 Functional finance and exchange rate regimes"

In this section the author creates another side-bar in which he discusses the effect of the US trade deficit and resulting effects in the capital account. The Chinese and others accumulate dollar assets that they mostly trade into US Treasury bonds and notes that generate interest. He does show the interesting fact (an generally overlooked in public discussion) that this trade deficit generated by US consumers buying from foreign producers is financed by the credit money given by the FED-Treasury process. What he does not mention is that the US Treasury bond as an asset on the books of a foreign central bank serves it in the same way as a similar asset on the books of a domestic US bank. The foreign banks are then able to create new quantities of lending and to finance investment and trade by their own industries. And they loan dollars to 3rd world countries to generate political influence. He also discusses the possible future in which the US dollar is no longer the world reserve currency.

"6.8 Functional finance and developing nations."

This short section is about how the MMT theory functions in a developing nation depending on whether or not it also relies on its own sovereign currency - generally without currency controls - or if it relies also on borrowing in a foreign currency. The whole issue is about the government's presumed desire to prevent unemployment.

"6.9 Exports are a cost, imports are a benefit: a functional finance approach"

In this section the author continues to discuss and evaluate exporting versus importing in terms of the net effect on employment and unemployment, again, revealing one of his central concerns.

Dr. Wray writes, "In real terms, exports are a cost and imports are a benefit from the perspective of a nation as a whole. When resources, including labor, are used to produce output that is shipped to foreigners, the domestic population does not get to consume that output, or use it for further production. The nation bears the cost of producing the output, but does not get the benefit. On the other hand, the importing nation gets the output but did not have to produce it".

I believe Adam Smith, F. B. Say and David Ricardo had something to say about this concept.

"Chapter 7 - Policy for Full Employment and Price Stability"

Dr. Wray, again clearly describes his objectives. "In this chapter we will examine policy that will promote full employment with price stability. Most economists believe that full employment and price stability are inconsistent".

Of course he does not believe this and has structured his argument for MMT as a way of proving this is false. He insists that full employment can and should be achieved by proper government application of MMT theory.

"7.1 Functional finance and full employment'

Dr. Wray believes that,
"A government that issues its own currency can always afford to hire unemployed labor. However, achieving full employment might affect inflation rates and the exchange rate."

Gee, whoda thought.

"In recent years, a number of economists have returned to the idea of a government program to operate an 'employer of last resort' (ELR) program, also called the 'job guarantee' (JG)".

"Program design"

"A JG or ELR guarantee program is one in which government promises to make a job available to any qualifying individual who is ready and willing to work. The national government provides funding for a universal program that would offer a uniform hourly wage with a package of benefits."

"Program advantages"

The author describes some he claims.

"Macroeconomic stability issues'

He writes that with flexible parameters including the compensation the program will be counter -cyclical.

"What about exchange rate effects?"

He poses some questions and offers solutions.

"Affordability issues"

"As we have seen, a sovereign nation operating with its own currency in a floating exchange rate regime can always financially afford an JG/ELR program."

Here, we are back to the author's theory espoused in this book, that the government can 'afford' to pay for anything and everything it wants. Well, of course it can, as long as the public is willing to exchange government credit for real assets.

Employment swings The author estimates that this amounts to about 4 million workers between 'full' employment and maximum unemployment. His scheme is designed to offer temporary employment as needed, but can the employment be temporary?

"7.2 The JG-ELR for a developing nation"

The author applies his concept to such countries and I will skip comment.

"7.3 Program manageability"

He describes some of the critical objections being stated and offers his objections or solutions. In this section he again includes a side bar in which he states, "John Maynard Keynes was arguably the greatest economist of the twentieth century, and is commonly called the father of modern macroeconomics".

Well, I have to disagree with this appraisal - Keynes was a mountebank.

"7.4 The JG/ELR and real world experience"

In this section the author describes some government job creation programs tried in the 20th century.

"7.5 Conclusions on full employment policy"

The author again relies on Lerner. "Lerner proposed to use monetary and fiscal policy to achieve full employment. he argued that unemployment is evidence that government spending is too low, and thus that 'functional finance' dictates it is government's responsibility to increase spending to eliminate unemployment."

It seems to me that one main cause of unemployment is that wages are being artificially kept to high as prices decline in a deflation. At any rate, it is clear that government cannot know better than private markets which jobs should be created. Events of the last several years would indicate that unemployment declined without Dr. Wray's prescription.

But he continues with this, "The other issue is the exchange rate, and a possible outcome of full employment is that imports might rise and put pressure on the exchange rate. And, again ,we conclude that some combination of floating exchange rate and or capital controls usually will be required to resolve the 'triemma' problem; if government wants policy space for domestic programs, it needs to float the currency and/or control capital flows. In addition, a discussed, government can design the program to minimize imports and to encourage exports".

Indeed it can do all of this, by seizing control of the economy and trashing the 'value' of money.

"7.6 MMT for Austrians: can a Libertarian support the JG?"

In this section the author distorts some of the 'Austrian School' concepts and mixes others with 'Libertarian' ideas, but the two are not the same. Moreover, throughout he has distorted the whole concept of what money is and from where it comes. In this section he throws in other topics such as gold and Social Security funding.

Remarkably, he also claims that, "from inception imposition of taxes creates unemployment. It is sheer folly to then force the private sector to solve the unemployment problem created by the government's tax."

What this actually says is that the JG program will increase the national money supply by inserting via credit methods more money than the government taxes extract. What it amounts to is a requirement of people to work to obtain the government credit rather than simply receiving 'welfare' benefits.

And he recognizes this, "How can the belief that all ought to work (to the best of their ability) and contribute to society, rather than lay about and collect welfare by called socialism?"

But being forced to work at relatively low wages was an essential feature of communism.

"7.7 Inflation and the Consumer Price Index"

In this section the author discusses the CPI as a measure of inflation. He considers that some inflation is necessary. One very interesting concept he offers is called the "Baumol disease' the term describes the fact that while productivity in manufacturing and agriculture has been huge, in the service sectors such productivity lags or does not exist. A barber cannot accomplish more hair cuts in an hour now than in 1700. A symphony orchestra cannot 'produce' a rendition of music any better than in 1700 or before. In as much as the service sector is larger and larger its impact is greater. Thus nominal wages grow faster than productivity because we have those low productivity sectors that get the same wage increases. He includes a disdainful commentary on the foolish 'gold bugs'. But has, himself, commented on the use of platinum as a way to defeat statutory debt limits.

"7.8 Alternative explanations of hyperinflation"

In this section the author seeks to dispel the notion that the MMT policy will create 'hyperinflation'. This gets into countering the 'monetarist' theories about a link between quantity of money and price levels. And this then focuses on the 'gold bug's concepts. Much of this repeats his description of money in previous chapters. I agree with his point that the 'gold bugs' are wrong. But I disagree with his repeated views on money creation itself.

He repeats, "That brings us back to 'how governments really spend', Any government that issues its own currency spends by 'keystrokes' crediting the account of the recipient and simultaneously crediting reserves to the recipient's bank. It could print currency and make payments that way, but the effect will be the same because recipients would make deposits in banks, which would receive credits to their reserves. "

Agreed. But then he writes,

"You cannot print up Dollars in your basement: government has to keystroke them into existence before you can pay your taxes or buy treasuries".

This is what he has claimed throughout the book and it is false. From the 'great monetary agreement' between the British sovereign, the Bank of England, and the merchant public, credit has been created by private sources. Today, there are many private sector entities that create credit which is used as money in daily exchange. See Coggan and Martin among others in the list below.

But, he continues, "On a floating exchange rate that is the end of the story. Banks can use their reserves to buy Treasuries, and depositors can demand cash in which case the central bank ships it to the banks while debiting the banks' reserves. But no one can return government IOU's to demand gold or foreign currency at a fixed exchange rate".

But, this is not the issue. He digresses into the difference between a 'floating' and a 'fixed' exchange rate in international monetary practice. And this does have significant effects on government monetary policy because is involves the responses of foreign governments and individuals to our domestic monetary policy.

As he notes, "The floating rate provides policy space that can be used by prudent governments to pursue domestic policy goals with a greater degree of freedom".

What he means by this is that with floating exchange rates a government can conduct a domestic policy (especially welfare spending) without being constrained by an international fixed standard for the 'value' of money - such as a gold standard. This was recognized by W. J. Bryan the 'progressives' back in the 1880's and led to the creation of the FED and federal income tax. Like Bryan Dr. Wray is much against policy restraint due to maintenance of international standards for money.

The real issue is that, while the government now can create credit to exchange for real assets via 'key strokes', it is not the only source of credit-created money. The credit- money that financed the great economic expansion of the United States in the 19th century was created by private sources. One purpose of the creation of the FED was to consolidate all credit creation under the government control via the FED. This was achieved for a time but eventually was lost with the expansion of 'vendor financing' and other private sources of credit.

"7.9 Real world hyperinflation"

In this section the author describes in more detail several historical examples of hyperinflation His narrative is clear. But this phenomena is not the issue.

"7.10 Conclusions on hyperinflation"

He writes, "This is not the simple Monetarist story in which government 'prints too much money' that causes high inflation, but rather a more complicated causal sequence in which high inflation helps to create deficits, that by identity equal net credits to balance sheets."

I agree that Monetarism is not a correct theory. But it is not the real issue.

"7.11 Conclusion: MMT and policy"

"Chapter 8 - What Is Money? Conclusions on the Nature of Money"

This is a clear summary. What is remarkable is the author's hubris in explaining to the readers the confidence game being played on the public by governments and central banks.

He writes, "In an important sense our task throughout this monograph has been to develop a theory of the nature of money. When asked "What is money?", most people respond - quite reasonably - that money is used to buy something. This gets at money's use as a medium of exchange, which is of course the most familiar use. If pressed further, most would also say that money is something one can hold as a store of value. Indeed, economists recognize money as the safest and most liquid store of value available, at least outside situations with high inflation when money's value falls rapidly".

But in reality 'money' is changing in 'value' constantly and governments like for its 'value' to decline over time, not to mention that they can and do arbitrarily change its value (devalue) their money when they want to.

He continues, "Some people will also mention the use of money to pay down debt, with money used as a means of payment, or means of final settlement of contractual obligations.

These are specific types of use as 'medium of exchange'.

Further, "a common response would be to evaluate worth in terms of money, this time acting as the unit of account used to measure wealth, debt, prices, economic value".

Indeed, true. But misleading. Because both this 'unit of account' and the assets being evaluating are changing continually. Their 'values' are changing even as they are being 'measured'. But governments like to teach the public to think in this way.

Now the author explains further. "These answers take us quite far in understanding what money is, each focusing on a different but widely recognized function or use of money, identifying money with what money does, But we might try to dig deeper, and ask what is the nature of that 'thing' that serves these functions?"

Actually the 'recognized' functions mentioned here confuse and conceal rather than enhance understanding. For one thing the several functions are not performed by the same actual 'thing' even though they are all called 'money'.

"8.1 Is money a physical thing?"

Here the author disparages anyone who questions what he claims money is or its relation to 'value'.

He writes, "...many people rather instinctively believe that money must have some real physical existence, or at least it must be 'backed up' by hoards of precious metals kept safely in government vaults. Some who know that is not true fear that the money we use today is somehow illegitimate, a 'false' money precisely because it is 'worthless' pieces of paper or electronic entries down at the bank. That is a typical response by Austrian-leaning 'goldbugs', often followers of Ron Paul ....."

This bit of tendentious disparagement is false. Those who question the official view promoted by this author are actually concerned that the government (and this author) knows that it can and does change the real value of this 'money' as it pleases while simultaneously claiming to the public that it is maintaining the 'money' as a standard 'store of value'.

But he continues, "What we have tried to do in this monograph is to present a careful and coherent exposition on the nature of money."
And he has succeeded in this beyond his own expectations, by revealing (between the lines) what that nature actually is, not what he claims it is.

Further, " we have consistently distinguished between the money of account and money things denominated in that money of account. We have argued that all those money things , in turn, are liabilities, obligations, IOU's, of their issuer, At the same time, they are assets of the holder. The nature of the obligation of the issuer is this: one must always accept one's IOU in payment to oneself. The bank that issues demand deposits as its liabilities must accept its demand deposits in payment on the loans it holds as assets. The government that issues currency as IOU's in its payments must accept its currency in payments to itself... So there really is something standing behind the money things: the promise of the issuer to take them back. "

All well and true. The fact that currency (coins and paper) are but the same IOU's of the government as its 'bonds' is a very important concept the public should understand. But there is a critical factor that is ignored in this explanation. Namely, the real and relative 'value' of the IOU when paid back to the issuer will NOT be the same 'value' that it had when it was exchanged to the individual for a real asset. And the government knows this. The process in which it exchanges its IOU to a private party in payment for a real asset and then demands the IOU back in payment of taxes at a lower relative 'value' results in the government 'profiting' from the exchange in a way that the public hardly notices. But critics such as Congressman Paul do notice and understand this subterfuge.

The author dismisses the desire of 'gold bugs' to base the 'money' on gold. It is true that gold is not 'money' as its proponents claim. And gold (like everything else) HAS no intrinsic 'value' as they claim. But the purpose for insisting that the 'gold - money' be used as a 'medium of exchange' is because of its limited supply - to prevent government from creating more 'money' as it suits itself. But he is correct in his description of how gold became seen as the basis of 'money'. The governments, beginning with John Locke's insistence, set the value of a measure of gold in terms of its defined money value, not the value of the money being set in terms of gold.

Dr. Wray has this correct "The 'gold bugs' have mostly got it backwards: it was not gold that gave money its value but rather gold had its money value because its price (when used for money) was pegged in terms of money by the government authorities."

But gold had a different and changing 'value' as a desirable, ostentatious display of wealth and power. In some societies that display 'value' was much too great for gold to be used as money. The same goes for silver when it is denominated in money values. This results in typical discussions of the movement of prices in late middle ages being backwards as well. But neither gold nor silver has any more 'intrinsic' value than does any other object.

But then the author misfires when he writes, "We have seen that there is no automatic reason to fear use of money things that are not backed by precious metals (or foreign currencies".

On the contrary, we have seen great fear is justified in government control of 'money' whether it claims it is 'backed' by metal or not. Or at least to base one's understanding of 'money' in terms of what 'value' really means and what government is doing with the 'money'. Then the author hits the nail precisely.

"In any case, this monograph has tried to analyze the economy we've got, with the monetary system we actually have. And that is one that is based on a money of account chosen by government, and almost everywhere subject to the 'one country, one currency' rule. The currency (meaning including credit ) is issued by a sovereign government when it spends, and received by government in payment of taxes and other payments to the government".

Actually, today governments issue credit not only when they 'spend' but also to non-productive consumers via a plethora of 'welfare' programs.

"8.2 Propositions on the nature of money"

Now the author writes more detail and explicitly notes that he is relying more on Keynes's theory. He focuses on three propositions which he writes will "provide structure to dig a bit deeper into our theory of money"..
"1. money buys goods and goods buy money, but goods do not buy goods". (This excludes gift giving, reciprocal exchange and barter.)
"2. Money is always debt; it cannot be a commodity from the first proposition because if it were that would mean that a particular good is buying goods". (Again this excludes barter).

"3. Default on debt is possible, which means that credit worthiness matters. Not all money things are created equal." (The possibility and result of debt is a topic of much controversy in economic modeling.)

So this is a theory, unfortunately it is much of the real monetary situation as well.

"Goods don't buy goods"

The author recalls the standard economics text books' descriptions of the origins of 'money'. He is referring to the idea promoted by Adam Smith and subsequently that exchange of goods initially was by barter. Of course Adam Smith and others had no real knowledge of ancient societies, let alone their economies. But anthropologists today are sure there never was such activity as 'barter' within primitive or other societies. Dr. Wray writes, further on, that this idea is false, but also that the veracity of this story - true of false - does not matter anyway. But it tends to support the theory that 'money' is 'neutral' that is not essential to the analysis of economic behavior. He extrapolates this concept to claim that there never could have been 'commodity money'. "Further", he writes , "money is not something that is produced, it is not a commodity that is produced by labor (otherwise it would be a 'good buying a good'". Nor do people seek 'money' for itself. "At most we can say that we seek money because it provides access to the commodities that satisfy those desires".

That is an excellent point over looked by those who accuse wealthy people of greed in seeking to amass money. But the Marx equation of M - C - M does claim that people seek 'money' for itself and this is a major leftist complaint even today.

For several paragraphs the author quotes and comments on statements by Keynes. But the thought shifts. "Maintaining relative scarcity of money keeps it valuable, but that at the same time means that it should not be something produced by labor." And then, "But there is a more important point to be made. Keynes explicitly presumed that the purpose of production in a monetary economy is to accumulate money." This desire to accumulate money but at the same time the inability to use labor to produce it that prevents labor from being diverted to its production".

This is opposite to Dr. Wray's previous comment.

Well, Keynes was wrong about the 'desire', that is motivation, for production of goods and service, it is mostly NOT to accumulate money. Then we read this, "that money is not a commodity produced by labor, must underlie Keynes's view. And that is why unemployment develops when people want the 'moon' (money" but cannot produce it with labor".

A clever (3 shell switch kind of move). Of course individuals don't 'produce' money (unless working at a mint) but they Acquire money by producing a good or service that has sufficient 'value' to be exchanged for 'money' as an intermediate step toward obtaining another good or service..

The author continues for several pages with the convoluted extrapolation on the Marx-Veblen-Keynes monetary theory of production in which the concept of 'value' is twisted around including the misleading Marxist idea expressed as M-C-C'-M'. (That production begins and ends with 'money'. He boils this down to, "Indeed it is the necessity of producing commodities and then selling them for money that underlies capitalism". Indeed, it underlay many societies' exchange systems other than capitalism.
Capitalism as a concept was originally and still today is the idea that instead of consuming all capital expended in the production a 'surplus' part of the capital (profit) should be considered as 'retained earnings' and allocated to the specific goal of producing more capital. - Build factories rather than pyramids and temples.

But the Marxist idea is false.
1 - Someone with M does not need to invest, to produce anything - C - in order to obtain more money. The equation is M - M. Actually that was Aristotle's major complaint, that people were using money to obtain more money without producing anything. And it is the basis for Jewish, Christian and Islamic prohibitions on lending at usury, which is using money to obtain more money without producing any thing. And it is the central premise of hedge funds today.

2. But if someone does invest money to produce something - C - it often is not with the motive of obtaining more money, rather it is to solve some problem such as pumping water from a coal mine, or curing some disease.

3 - And the final M - obtaining more money is not an end in itself, but a means to obtain ends that are not economic, if its immediate motive is to obtain more money, nevertheless its objective is then to exchange that money for something else. (See Ingham)

Then Dr. Wray continues, "Indeed, if you think about it, if you exchange one commodity for another there is no need for money, even as a measuring unit".

That does not mean 'money' has never been a commodity.

Certainly, read the Journals of Lewis and Clark to learn that they traveled from St. Louis to the Pacific and back during 2 years, meeting and passing numerous different Indian societies and lived without spending a penny in currency. But they were very astute in their assessments of relative 'value' as they exchanged goods and services along the way. They vividly demonstrated both that barter was not practiced Within each social group, but was the typical method of exchange Between separate social groups. And such exchanges were always based on each party believing they were giving up something of less value than what they were acquiring. Many other descriptions of American Indian trade, for instance at Bent's Fort, indicate a similar process.

So Dr. Wray's comment here is irrelevant.

"8.3 Money is debt"

The author repeats, "Throughout this monograph, we have argued that money is not a commodity, rather it is a unit of account. A unit of measurement is not something that can ever be obtained through a sale. No one can touch or hold a centimeter of length or a centigrade of temperature."

An excellent point that the public, indeed, needs to understand. One problem is, however, that economic theorists then equate 'money' as this unit of measurement with international fixed standards such as meters and liters as in the above analogy. But he continues at length. A better analogy would be the 'money' used in a Monopoly Game. According to the game rules the players are issued paper 'money' at the beginning and more as the game progresses, and this 'money' is used for exchanging property. But the game would be identical if instead of the paper money a 'banker' would be given the role of keeping the accounts on paper such as in many card games. Or better now in a spread sheet in his phone or tablet. He tries to describe this idea, but not clearly. However, the author describes the central role of banks in the creation of the credit 'money' that the entrepreneur uses to initiate his production process with the role that such banks do play in Europe. But in the US, banks have played a lesser role, as much credit 'money' is generated in the commercial paper markets. Nevertheless, his description of the 'circular' process is valid. But, more fundamentally, here he indulges in the common description of three quite functional activities all being called 'money' when this creates confusion. - 'a standard measure of 'value'' - a 'medium of exchange' - a 'measure of account' are three functions that would be better given separate names rather than all of them called 'money'.

The author then shifts to an alternate theory of production - credit - and money. This is Schumpeter's description of the production process in social terms - its role in society. For a more detailed and valid description of the production process read Skousen.

Money is debt (again!)
The author sums up, "We conclude: money is debt. It need not have any physical existence other than as some form of record, mostly an electronic entry in a computer. Money always involves at least two entries: debt of the issuer and asset of the creditor".
Not exactly: When money is being used as the 'medium of exchange' of production in a specific transaction and it is acting as the temporary debt of the issuer and asset of the creditor that enables both parties to achieve the transaction - that is- exchange the physical goods or services being exchanged, the only remaining money would be to the amount of the difference between the 'values' ascribed by both parties to the goods involved. For instance, party A values his object being exchanged at $100 while party B values his object being given at $110. To reconcile the differences in value only $10 is given by party A to party B. The remaining 'money' disappears. But when the exchange is between one party's production and the other party's credit instrument the money is itself being exchanged, not only acting as a 'medium of exchange' and continues to exist on the ledgers of both parties - on one as a debit (liability) and the other as a credit (asset).

This shorthand is a bit confusing,
The author expands the concept. "In practice, creation of money usually required four entries: a prospective producer issues (that is exchanges) an IOU to a bank and receives a demand deposit as an offsetting asset; the bank holds the producer's IOU as its asset and issues the demand deposit as its liability."

The author continues with the thought that 'anyone' can create credit by accepting an IOU from whom he granted credit. Exactly, And that is the source of much financial fragility and problems in the US. So why does he elsewhere in his book claim that credit comes from the government.

The author next digresses with a 'box' in which he discusses Schumpeter's ideas and answers the question "Where do profits come from? We skip this detail.

"8-4 Liquidity and default risks on money IOUs"

The author begins by citing Charles Goodhart, whose theories are controversial. But this point seems incontrovertible. Dr. Wray notes that Goodhart claims that a problem with standard economic models is that they dismiss by assumption the fact that defaults on debt can and do occur. This means that in their theoretical models the borrowing - credit creating - process is risk free and there never is a 'liquidity' constraint.. Dr. Wray, correctly writes, "obviously almost all interesting questions about money, financial institutions, and monetary policy are left out if we ignore liquidity and default risk'.

Conclusions

In this single page the author summarizes his concept, claiming that it identifies 'the macro identities as well as the stock flow implications that are necessary to formulate policy for any sovereign nation, including developing nations."

It is a theoretical justification for his 'policy' meaning political agenda that is the purpose of the book.

Additional comments:

The current adoption of the political policies that claim MMT as justification by the politicians advocating the "Green New Deal' and socialist programs, despite Dr. Wray writing that his book is about theory, has generated a new outpouring of support and opposition to MMT itself. And, since the MMT aficionados claim the concept has been developed from Knapp and Chartalism, we need to discuss what that is all about as well.

Antony Mueller (see below) writes that the fundamental idea that deficits do not matter was developed by Polish economist Michal Kalecki (see Wikipedia entry). Wray includes one Kalecki reference in his bibliography but does not mention or credit him in the text. Please read Mueller's explanation of the fallacy and destructive results of Kalecki's role in MMT to see why Wray does not cite him.

The argument between Knapp's Chartalists and Menger's market based theories about the very origin of 'money' has been carried out in the professional economics literature and via blogs and tweets for many years. Reading through all this 'traffic' it turns out that by 'money' all supporters of both sides are really focused on the creation of coined currency. And specifically on the appearance of coins made of electrum in 7th century BC Lydia. The discussion has devolved into arcane analysis of archeological issues over the dates and specific metallic character of individual coins. I list a few of the general articles below. The issue is simple - were these coins (and hence money) created by Lydian kings (the state theory of the origin of "money") or by independent merchants and wealthy traders (the market based theory of the origin of "money".) This obscure trading of citations back and forth has become significant because the MMT believers claim that 'money' (now expanded from coins to all forms) has Always been a creation of the 'state' meaning rulers meaning governments. Hence to claim governments create 'money' today is simply obvious.
The historical facts that, for instance, 'money' (coins and credit) was created independently in India and China and Meso-America is either ignored or discounted. The fact that for centuries 'money' consisted of credit instruments created and exchanged by independent merchants in 'medieval' Europe does not count. The fact that early societies such as in Egypt and Mesopotamia created and used 'money' not containing coins for thousands of years is overlooked. Some references about that are included here as well.

Entries in Wikipedia - these are excellent and they provide links to many related subjects. And type the same titles into Google and you will find many more entries. The blue button are the links here.

Chartalism

Modern Monetary Theory

The History of Money

History of Macroeconomic thought

George Fredrich Knapp

Georg Simmel

Carl Menger

Michal Kalecki

Alfred Mitchell-Innes

Lawrence H. White

Bill Mitchell

Robert P. Murphy

Say's Law

Jean-Baptiste Say

Richard Cantillon

Fritz Machlup

Murray Rothbard

Frederick Hayek

Ludwig von Mises

Praxeology

Methodenstreit

Ceteris paribus

Logical Positivism

Paradigm Shift

Personal Knowledge

Philosophical Analysis

Utilitarianism

Subjective theory of value

Subjectivism

Credit theory of money

Commodity money

Quantity Theory of money

Expected Utility Hypothesis

Prospect Theory

Metalism

Liquidity Preference

Time Preference

Fiat Money

Money Creation

Monetary Policy

Prospect Theory

The Philosophy of Money

Demand for Money

Pigovian Tax

Pareto efficiency

Pareto-optimality

Theory of Knowledge

Expected utility hypothesis

Philosophy of Science

Pragmatism

Epistemology

Economic Methodology

Austrian School (of economic theory)

Category - Monetary Economics

Charles Sanders Pierce

Karl Polanyi

The Great Transformation - Karl Polanyi

Michael Polanyi

Pareto

L. Randall Wray

Warren Mosler

Karl Popper

The Open Society and its Enemies - Karl Popper

Jeremy Bentham

These are some of the books or essays in my library generally related to the theory of money. They are offered as some additional reading - I am writing reviews and commentary on these books - but you will note, if you look, that I have not yet completed many of them.

Thomas S. Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

David Hackett Fischer - The Great Wave

Kwasi Kwarteng - War and Gold: A 500-year history of Empires, Adventures, and Debt

S. Herbert Frankel - Two Philosophies of Money: The Conflict of Trust and Authority

Georg Simmel - The Philosophy of Money

G. L. S. Shackle - Epistemics and Economics: A Critique of Economic Doctrines

Geoffrey Ingham - The Nature of Money

Geoffrey Ingham - Capitalism

Frederic S. Mishkin - The Economics of Money, Banking & Financial Markets ,Fifth and Ninth Editions.

Felix Martin- Money, The Unauthorized Biography

Perry Mehrling - The New Lombard Street: How the Fed Became the Dealer of Last Resort

Nicholas Wapshott - Keynes - Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics

Hunter Lewis -Where Keynes Went Wrong

Jerry Z. Muller - The Mind and the Market - Capitalism in Western Thought

Charles A. E. Goodhart and Dimirius P Tsomocos - "The Role of Default in Macroeconomics"

Charles A. E. Goodhart - "The Continuing Muddles of Monetary Theory: A Steadfast Refusal to face Facts'

Philip Coggan - Paper Promises: Debt, Money and the New World Order

David Graeber - Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Michael Hudson - ...and forgive them their debts

Michael Hudson -Finance as Warfare

Michael Hudson - A Travesty Of Financial History Which Bank Lobbyists Will Applaud

Karl A. Wittfogel - Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power

John Kay -Other People's Money: Masters of the Universe or Servants of the People?

Henry Kaufman - Techtonic Shifts in Financial Markets

Glyn Davies - History of Money: From Ancient Times to the Present Day

Peter J. Wallison - Hidden in Plain Sight

Peter Bernholz - Monetary Regimes and Inflation

Richard M. Salsman - Gold and Liberty

Frank Shostak - The Problem With Modern Monetary Theory

Lawrence H. White - The Clash of Economic Ideas

Charles W. Calomiris and Stephen Haber - Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit

Anat Admiati & Martin Hellwig - The Banker's New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It

Peter Conti-Brown - The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve

Stephen D. King - When the Money Runs Out

Rana Foroohar - Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and The Fall of American Business

John Tamny - Who Needs the Fed?:

Danielle DiMartino Booth - FED UP: An insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America

Paul Krugman - The Return of Depression Economics

Barry Ritholtz -Bailout Nation

R. Christopher Whalen -Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream

Bernard Bailyn - The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century

Sitta von Reden - Money in Classical Antiquity

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff - This Time is Different

Peter Spufford - The Merchant in Medieval Europe - Power and Profit

Edward Cheyney - The Dawn of a New Era

Mark Skousen - The Structure of Production

Bernard DeVoto, ed. - The Journals of Lewis and Clark

David Lavender - Bent's Fort

Myron P. Gilmore - The World of Humanism 1453 - 1515

Paul Mantoux - The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century

Ludwig von Mises - Human Action

Ludwig von Mises - The Theory of Money and Credit

Ludwig von Mises -Socialism

Ludwig von Mises - The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality

Ludwig von Mises - Theory and History

Ludwig von Mises - The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science

Ludwig von Mises - Lord Keynes and Say's Law

F. A. Hayek - The Road to Serfdom

F. A Hayek - The Constitution of Liberty

George Melloan - The Great Money Binge

Murray Rothbard - A History of Money and Banking in the United States from the Colonial Era to World War II

Murray Rothbard - An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought Vol., I

Murray Rothbard - An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought Vol. II

Murray Rothbard - What Has Government Done To Our Money?

George Selgin - Money Free and Unfree

George Selgin - The Theory of Free Banking

George Selgin - The Modern New Deal Thats too Good to be True

George Selgin - "Lord Keynes" Contra White on the Beginnings of Coinage

Amanda H. Podany - Ancient Mesopotamia

Amanda H. Podany - Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East

Michael Hudson. "Entrepreneurs: From the Near Eastern Takeoff to the Roman Collapse" in Landes, David, Joel Mokyr &William Baumol ed - The Invention of Enterprise

Cornellia Wunsch, "Neo_Babylonian Entrepreneurs" in Landes, David, Joel Mokyr &William Baumol ed - The Invention of Enterprise

James C. Scott - Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States

George Cooper - The Origin of Financial Crises

George Cooper - Money, Blood and Revolution

Fritz Machlup - The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation

Pavlina Tcherneva - The Nature, Origins, and Role of Money: Broad and Specific Propositions and Their Implications for Policy

Stephanie Kelton & Randall Wray - Answers From the MMTERS

Stephanie Bell, John Henry, L. Randall Wray - 'A Chartalist Critique Of John Locke's Theory Of Property, Accumulation, And Money'

L. Randall Wray ed.-Credit and State Theories of Money: The Contributions of A. Mitchell Innes

L. Randall Wray -Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability

Eric Tymoigne & L. Randall Wray - Money: An Alternative Story

A. Mitchell Innes - What Is Money? in L. Randall Wray Credit and State and in Alex Kampa's Money, credit conversion and legacy of Mitchell-Innes

A Mitchell Innes - The Credit Theory of Money in L. Randal Wray Credit and State and in Alex Kampa's Money, credit conversion and legacy of Mitchell-Innes

More recommended Readings

Charles Gave - The Velocity of Money In the Time of Covid-19

Charles Gave - Velocity in Asset Allocation

Charles Gave & Louis-Vincent Gave - Clash of Empires: Currencies and power in a Multipolar World

Larry White - Why the "State Theory of Money" Doesn't Explain the Coinage of Precious Metals.

James Buchanan and Robert Tollison, ed. - The Theory of Public Choice II

James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock - The Calculus of Consent

Randall G. Holcombe - The Austrian School of Economics

James A. Dorn, ed. Monetary Alternatives: Rethinking Government Fiat Money

Philip W. Magness - Postmodern Monetary Theory

Richard A. Epstein - The Farcical "Green New Deal"

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Dan Bosch, et al. The Green New Deal: Scope, Scale, and Implications

Dan Bosch - The Regulatory Impact of the Green New Deal

Max Gulker - How Modern Monetary Theory Could Become the Left's Worst Nightmare

Antony Mueller - Where Does the Idea That Deficits Don't Matter Come From?

George Minack - "MMT Can kill Secular Stagnation"

Hans Bader - "Green dreams wither in the face of political realities

Kenneth Rogoff - Modern Monetary "Nonsense"

Wynne Godley & Marc Lavoie - Monetary Economics: An Integrated Approach to Credit

James A Dorn - Monetary Alternatives

J. M Keynes - A Treatise on Money: Vol. I and II

Georg Fredrich Knapp - The State Theory of Money

Leslie Kurke - Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold

Robert Wright - MMT Is A Recipe For Revolution

Sebastian Edwards - Modern Monetary Theory: Cautionary Tales from Latin America

Ray Dalio - Principles For Navigating Big Debt Crises

Ray Dalio - It's Time to Look More Carefully at 'Monetary Policy 3 (MP3) and 'Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)'.

Michael K. Salemi - Money and Banking: What Everyone Should Know

Richard Salsman - Say's Law versus Keynesian Economics

Joakim Book - What Is Money? It's All About Liquidity

Sebastian Edwards - Modern Money Theory: Cautionary Tales from Latin America

Seth B. Carpenter and Selva Demiralp - Money, Reserves, and the Transmission of Monetary Policy: Does the Money Multiplier Exist?

John Cochrane - A Fiscal Theory of Monetary Policy with Partially-Repaid Long-Term Debt

John Cochrane - The Fiscal Roots of Inflation

Alex Kampa - Newmoneyhub - Economics - Kampa's assessment

Alex Kampa - Newmoneyhub - Alfred Mitchell-Innes and the Credit Theory of Money Kampa's comments

Alex Kampa - Newmoneyhub - Money, credit conversion and legacy of Mitchell-Innes Mr. Kampa's reprint of three essays.

Alex Kampa - Newmoneyhub - Can Interest ever be repaid? Mr. Kampa correctly distinguishes between private sector borrowers whose borrowing creates a temporary debt and credit which is eliminated when the loan is paid and a government that exchanges production for credit - its debt will not be repaid but the credit will remain.

Alex Kampa - Newmoneyhub - What is Money? Kampa's reprint of one Mitchell-Innes essay

Alex Kampa - Newmoneyhub - Debunking the three functions of money

Fritz Machlup - The Stock Market, Credit, and Capital Formation