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This is how I see it too. One of the functions of money comes as a store of value, and this is also tied into a Marxist view of value as being a real social relation at play. Beyond money simply having use because its used in taxes, money is an instrument for expressing and mediating value; and value also allows for the reallocation of labor in society - the source of value itself - through the law of value.
People want something that can hold on to its value across both time and space. Sometimes this store of value isn't money (think houses or famous paintings), but a form of money that acts as a reserve of value is always in need. And money which can serve as an expression of value thanks to the strength of the government (or an enforced tax) may not be seen as a safe storage when trust is shaky. Anwar Shaikh (though be mindful that he is rather anti-MMT) describes this as a flight from more virtual forms of money to forms closer to actual value in moments of crisis, where gold tends to be the (extreme) end-point of that flight.
There is historical trust that at least gold will be seen as something valuable in an unknowable future with unknowable governments and monetary systems. Some may go with beans though. But gold, or some other commodity with a level of acceptance, has value as it's a product of human labor. So when looking for a store of value some people go with it due to historical legacy and the real value embodied within it. There's a reason that even national banks are buying gold (amongst other commodities and baskets of currencies) as they dedollarize.
This isnt meant to be a goldbug argument for going back to the gold standard. It is instead a reminder of the existence of value and one of money's function of a store of value. I'm not (completely) against MMT and think there is a lot to it to learn and that is true and descriptive. But it can't mask nor cover up value as a real social relation. And most MMT'ers I've talked to seem to ignore value. I suspect it is a reflection of the academic training of economists, even MMT academics, to do away with value as a useful or necessary concept, but I cant back that up as I didn't go to school for economics lol. But even some academic Marxist economists fall for the bourgeoisie temptation of abandoning value.
Value and circulation. MMT is not completely wrong, it's just incomplete. And it's weird to see incomplete alternative economic theories pop up again and again who's main selling point is avoiding the term Marxism. Keynesianism is another example. And there was this weird phase in US anarchism, where a whole lot of anarcho-capitalists finally started becoming anti-capitalist (which is good of course) and they wrote a whole book about it like they just personally came up with the idea capitalism is bad for the first time ever. And it's weird every time because, like, Marx is right over there, way, way in the back of the economics departments library. Ready to be read whenever you decide to become a serious scientist.
Even David Harvey started out like this. He just started calling himself a Marxist after people had repeatedly pointed out to him that he had become one. And his response was something like like:"Oh, I guess I am a Marxist then. I didn't set out to become one, I was just looking for theory that makes sense for a change."
Of course, most economists would do everything to avoid being called a Marxist in order to keep their funding. And that's where things like MMT come in.
Can you give more details on these people and this book? I always found ancaps very ideologically incoherent, wondering how they got around to reinventing Marxism using their own theory
This was some years ago. I tried, but couldn't find it again. Crimethinc is a bit like this though. They were never anarcho-capitalist, but they changed from vaguely apolitical lifestyle individualism in the 90s to actual anti-capitalism around the time they wrote this book called "Work" in 2012.
Gotcha, seems like a similar trajectory to many comrades who were more liberal - when they figure out the end result of "free" market competition it's almost a straight line towards Marx