It’s a very good book. (Doughnut Economics) But it still lacks the key policy insight we need.

What’s more re-orienting than

1) a monetary paradigm change from scarcity to abundance,

2) the baulkiness of systemic austerity to free flowingness via primary factor and tool,

3) near crazed over production due to fear of commercial ruin and/or an unbalanced ethic of greed and power to a re-juvenated profit making economics guided philosophically and policy-wise by the concept and ethic of grace and

4) international far flung energy intensive supply chains due to the warped dreams of financial monopolistic and paradigmatic dominance to local and national production and finally

5) what’s more re-orienting than a new insight about the power and significance of a direct and reciprocal monetary policy at the point of retail sale that would accomplish the above inversions of reality and primary signatures of every historical paradigm change? (inversion of temporal reality and new insight and/or tool)

If we guaranteed every adult 18 years of age and older $24k of purchasing power with a $1000/mo. universal dividend and a 50% discount/rebate monetary policy at the point of retail sale, and also implemented a job guarantee of 35/hrs/wk at $10/hr that would give them a total of $57.6k/yr worth of purchasing power per individual or $115.2k per 2 adult household. And if we had a national non-profit financial and monetary system that gave a second 50% discount/rebate policy at the point of 0% note signing for electric autos, solar panels, green homes and every other green technology….we could end individual monetary scarcity, systemic austerity, chronic price and asset inflation and actually rapidly do something about climate change….instead of forever chattering about all of the junk economics and seemingly unsolvable problems….enforced by ignoring the power and significance of a direct and reciprocal monetary policy at retail sale.

Velocity of money is really just an indicator of “good economic times” even though that state is ephemeral and such description exists only within the rigged nature of the current monetary and financial paradigm. Money does NOT sprout a mind and decide to make prices rise. The two primary reasons for the economic vice of price and asset inflation are

1) individual income scarcity and hence systemic business revenue scarcity that tempts commercial decision makers to raise prices in hopes of garnering more business revenue in that austere system and

2) confusing freedom with chaos (which every economic perspective from ultra libertarian to MMT is guilty of) and thus not searching and finding a better, more beneficial alternative for all agents individual and commercial…to that rigged, austere and chaotic system.

Hyperinflations do not occur without several disastrous prior circumstances have taken place and finally a compliant central bank simply prints and/or leverages up speculators who short the currency. Normal garden variety inflation has always been a smallish single digit percentage except during and after wars or cost inflation due to a major commodity’s price rise…which isn’t “monetary inflation” anyway.

Retail sale is the end of the legitimate economic/actually productive process where production becomes consumption. That by definition also makes it the ending and summing point for any and all economic factors including of course price and asset inflation. Thus a high percentage, say 50%, discount/rebate price and monetary policy at that point and time will not only eliminate inflation it will beneficially integrate price and asset deflation into profit making economic systems, and accomplishes everything the leading reforms say they want which is more money/purchasing power for everyone and a system which does not get de-stabilized by inflation.

Popping out of the abstract thrice removed fugue of economic theorizing and coming into present time to recognize the incredible significance and power of such a policy shatters the orthodoxies and confusions described above and enables us to cognite on the new paradigm we all are seeking. Discovering genuine ending, summing, factor expression and pivoting points is incredibly powerful both mentally and temporally.

So what is everyone’s conclusions from all of this likely disinformationally laced geo-political goggledegook?

Me:  The intention of this post is excellent and a correct mental strategy because memes are (hopefully) concise and conceptually pungent thoughts that taken together (hopefully) result in a new cognition…..like a new paradigm for instance. My paraphrased meme of “It’s the monetary paradigm, stupid” is a meme attempt to focus economists on the deepest and most potent problem of all economics, namely the money system and its monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only. Even the best economists have this integrative focus problem.

Shortly after Steve Keen successfully de-bunked DSGE and concluded that we live in a monetary economy not “a veil over barter” he stated in a video: “Neo-classical economists ignore money, debt and banks because if they didn’t they’d have to acknowledge that the money system de-stabilizes the economy.” That was a nascent recognition of the need for a new monetary, financial and thus economic paradigm and Keen and other economists even shortly there after attended an event where they all emphasized the need for a new paradigm in economics. Unfortunately, and in no small degree due to the fact that the present paradigm for inquiry is Science Only, he never followed through with a study of paradigm changes and their signatures.

Since then he’s taken up the very real and existential problem of trying to quantify energy and its effects on the economy and the ecology. No criticism of that particular line of research, but it perfectly dramatizes the intellectual sterility and lack of integrative pragmatism of the above monopolistic paradigm for inquiry of Science Only. Of course if he had consulted the signatures of all historical paradigm changes he may have cognited on the wisdom of the new monetary paradigm of direct and reciprocal monetary gifting, and the incredibly powerful point in the economic/productive process to implement a monetary policy that would immediately invert individual and systemic monetary realities…..and thus changed the entire pattern of economics.

Keen and everyone else here is actually wanting a new paradigm in economics. The problem is they don’t focus and think integratively enough on the paradigmatic level about the most potent and relevant factor in economics, namely the money system and its monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only. So here’s the meme for the day:

“Study the signatures of historical paradigm changes, stupid.”

MJ:  Changing a paradigm is notoriously difficult. Keynes succeeded. The combination of Friedman, Lucas, Sargent and Prescott succeeded, even if only in theory and not regarding measurement. Keen however is changing the conversation.

Me:  “Changing a paradigm is notoriously difficult.”

Correct. At least up until one finds the correct single concept that transforms the pattern. Then its a relatively easy and straightforwardly rational process of aligning policy with the new paradigm changing concept.

I’m sorry, while somewhat helpful, the changes you refer to are merely separate reforms within the paradigm/pattern of economics. Genuine paradigm changes are changes in the nature of the ENTIRE pattern.

JV:  I think there is an important analytical distinction to be made what money is in the subjective eyes of its beholders, and what it objectively has to be for the system as a whole to function; so as _not be subject to_ systemic crashes. The fact that money is endogenous goes deeper than generally assumed in heterodox circles. Money is and remains the economy’s money and never becomes an unencumbered property of individuals to be withdrawn at will from the debt resolution process the economic system constitutes in its very being. The assumption that an economy exists, (statically) at any present, as accumulated and thus depletable positives that includes liquidity values, is incoherent in the face of every economic initiation being a booked debit entry to be dynamically resolved through credits and endogenously netting to zero, in order to fulfill the economy’s objective and thus exogenously located purpose. For a coherent analysis, any functional attribute of money therefore has to be in conformation with the latter.

Me:  Not that monetary gifts won’t be accounted for, they will be, but the deep problem resolving nature of the paradigm changing 50% Discount/Rebate monetary policy at retail sale essentially takes the conventionally orthodox sting out of the necessity to “balance the accounts/books” which itself is a lingering mental attachment to now de-bunked general equilibrium theory. Just another transformational aspect of the new monetary paradigm.

DT:  John, I’m with you on what you are trying to say in this, and it’s worth highlighting, but surely this is a subjective view of ‘money’? Love the “debt resolution” definition, though.

“Money is and remains the economy’s money and never becomes an unencumbered property of individuals to be withdrawn at will from the debt resolution process the economic system constitutes in its very being.”

Suppose the debt resolution to be resolved by transfers not of money but of credit, what, then, is to be the objective view of the money we physically see? If we restrict it to a withdrawal from our credit obtained from a cash machine, then the withdrawal will appear in our accounts but there can be no record of what we spend it on until we spend it. This can be automatically corrected however, when the vendor accepts it (as he would a discount voucher, Craig) in lieu of credit deductions for the items we indebted ourselves for when we bought them. No double accounting involved, just completion of a blank space in our own account.

Money, then, would be objectively an advance of credit, representing a credit limit. I can’t see a neat way of saying this, but if you are advanced a £10 note then that limits how much you can buy with it. I must insist, however, that the real economy is not just the money side of it.

Me:  Dave,

As I said monetary gifts will be accounted for by enterprise as they are now without them…as sales….and after that is presented to the monetary authority they rebate the 50% discount amount back to the enterprise so they can be made whole on their overheads and profit margins. Simple, elegant and a benevolent and gigantic assist to both individual and commercial agents. The only difference perhaps will be that a new account will also be created to reflect the amounts rebated entitled….Rebates.

The beauty of the 50% Discount/Rebate policy IS its strategic implementation AT the terminal ending point of the entire economic/productive process for every consumer product from a package of chewing gum to autos, homes etc.

Monetary gifts still retain their debt nature as in legal tender making them perfectly accountable, but it enables twice as much money to enter the economy while simultaneously not only remedying inflation but implementing beneficial price and asset deflation. It’s a simple operation, a basic inversion the same as the inversion of the positions of the earth and the sun was the actual operation of the Copernican cosmological paradigm change, the inversion of nomadic wandering about the land to staying in one place and having a direct relationship with the land and one’s stock and having a direct relationship with god instead of being forced to participate in the church’s sacraments for absolution.

Signatures, signatures. Heed them.

G:  The creation or generation of money as the medium that fulfils each of the three functions mentioned above is a process with real implications for resource allocation and income distribution. The “neutrality” of money a property of very simple economic models does not apply in reality. That means there are real issues to be addressed in the management of the monetary and credit system. I’m not sure that any of them are illuminated by agonising over the definition of money.

Me:   That’s quite right. What we need to do is take the fact that money is a damned good tool, and then use it to resolve monetary problems that will bring abundance and monetary freedom to all….and as a not so insignificant side effect enable us to rapidly begin both a bottom up consumer green product resolution to climate change, but also to fund the massive projects also necessary.

Awaken to the new monetary paradigm of Gifting….and then get schooled in its possibilities.

There is a third thing necessary to resolve the monetary and economic problem and that is to ask ourselves if the current monetary, financial and thus economic paradigm of Debt Only needs to be changed to Abundantly Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting at the point of retail sale with a monetary policy of a 50% discount to consumers that is reciprocally rebated back to enterprise gifting it to the consumer.

MMT and all of the other leading edge heterodox reforms surround and analyze the current monetary paradigm, but lacking the new but centuries long hiding in plain sight insight of the significance and power of such a monetary policy at retail sale/the terminal ending point of the entire economic/productive process….fail to comprehend the above paradigm changing policy and the singular concept that characterizes any and every new paradigm. Strategically integrate sufficient direct and reciprocal monetary gifting into the economy at its terminal ending, summing and factor expressing point and you solve the economy’s deepest and most long standing problems of 1) individual income and systemic monetary austerity and 2) chronic price and asset inflation….and you resolve it for all economic agents individual and commercial.

A paradigm is a SINGLE concept that transforms and creates an entirely new PATTERN. Thus it, itself, is the phenomenon of the integration of the opposites of singular and plaural, part and whole. Think integratively/paradigmatically and study the signatures of all historical paradigm changes.

Yes, scientists (hopefully) change ientsie-tientsie data points or try to make partial theoretical conclusions. Paradigm perceivers take the truths, the most relevant datums, the most applicable aspects and the highest ethical considerations of scientists, and finding the integrative essence of that agglomeration discern the new paradigm concept in that body of knowledge/area of human endeavor that will transform and create an entire new pattern.

The difference between science and paradigm perception-wisdom is the difference between small and big, partial and full, depth and surface level, reform and permanent
progression.

The whole middle east thing is another problem/distraction to obsess over while finance consolidates the integration of its monopolistic paradigm internationally. In view of that I would prefer the relative stand off alliances recently accomplished in Syria. Trump being a merchant of chaos of “The Fourth Turning” variety believes otherwise.

Capitalism is not the correct target. Not because it doesn’t have multiple stupidities and ethical shortcomings, it does, but because it is used by finance to invoke the false dualism of capitalism vs socialism and so endlessly distract everyone from the REAL problem, namely finance’s monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only as the sole form and vehicle for the distribution of credit and/or money.

We need to focus on the real, the deepest, the broadest problem….the monetary and financial paradigm which will transform the economy by resolving the long standing problems of monetary scarcity and chronic price and asset inflation, increase our survivability by immediately enabling us to begin a bottom up consumer move toward ecological sanity and equally enable the fiscal projects necessary for our ecological survival.

Me:  MMT is an excellent reform that aligns with but does not rise to the level of paradigmatic thinking about money and finance….the same as several other reforms surrounding money and finance.

JD:  Craig. MMT IS the paradigm change we need. It’s the only complete description of the construction of an economy totally based on fact. It doesn’t mean it will solve every issue because we as humans will always be seeking leverage somewhere. But if we see it become dominant it will revitalise economies everywhere. Killing off the false lament that the government cannot afford spending on things they use as excuses for poverty and inequality, which today are blamed on the poor for being poor etc. will be refused acceptance. Even if we are heading to hell in a hand basket, at least let’s sort out the mess beforehand.

Me:  I’m sorry, it is good and accurate research on the money mechanics of the current paradigm and a very good attempt at reform.

Paradigms are the essence concepts of patterns and a new paradigm is a new concept whose essence, enlightened by a new insight and/or tool, resolves the major long term problems of an old/current pattern and expresses and creates the new one.

S:  Yes that’s why it creates a consistent, coherent post-keynesian logic throughout. It moves away from taxpayer dollars to the public purse. If that’s not a paradigm shift, I don’t know what is.

Me:  @Senexx

It’s a very good reform that is aligned with the concept of the new paradigm. The problem is not just government or private money creation. That is indeed a part of the problem. It is about the nature of money distributed. Presently it is in the form of Debt Only. Even money created and distributed by governments are Debt Only. Money in the form of Gifts, completely free of any need to repay it is the new paradigm. That fulfills one of the essential signatures of a new paradigm/paradigm change and that is conceptual and temporal opposition to the old/current paradigm. In Hunting & Gathering it was nomadic relative austere survival to much more abundant agriculture, homesteading and urbanization.

I’m not saying all money should be in the form of Gifts. Loans will still be issued, but true paradigms/paradigm changes are new ESSENTIAL concepts that create new TEMPORAL patterns. MMT is about who creates and distributes money…which is a temporal PART of the new paradigm. Abundantly Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting….by a sovereign monetary authority is the FULL paradigm qualifying concept AND temporal universe pattern change.