I guess from my point of view, it's about boosting confidence in the world that lies on the other side of the revolution. As Marx predicted and the USSR and PRC showed, you can't just completely rearrange society at the snap of a finger, you need some practical economic program to keep everything running until the transition to full communism can be worked out.

Capitalist theory is that money is a mysterious unknowable etheric substance that dances at the whim of the invisible hand, whereas MMT shows that money is simply an organizing tool that a government can consciously control and use to shape and grow the economy intentionally, and actually has been since its invention. And that ultimately, the only 'real' things in an economy are workers, tools and resources.

But, I can see why it would be considered a distraction from outright class struggle if it's presented as a technocratic solution to capitalism's problems, but then again it's incompatible with finance capitalism which needs money to be a scarce resource to squeeze arbitrage from. So even implementing MMT under present capitalism would require such a radical change in economic structure, like the complete abolishment of all private lending institutions, that (to someone with political awareness) it's obviously impossible in the face of financial capital's political power to just 'vote it in'. Anyone still believing in bourgeoise democracy has bigger brainworms to fry, and whichever technocratic solution they happen to cling to is just a matter of aesthetics. Conversely, someone who sees the total futility of electoral politics, even the necessity of revolution, may be disheartened by a lack of a solid theory on how the world afterwards could be constructed from the materials actually available today.

China makes use of MMT ideas, and has full state control of all its banks. Also, one user on here was looking into similarities between MMT and the economic system that Stalin set up during and after WW2 - which was later dismantled by Krushchev to disastrous results - but I never saw the results of their research. It's also similar to how Marx saw capitalism tending to socialism*, through the industrialisation of finance (bank managers becoming industrial engineers), rather than what actually happened in the imperial core, the financialisation of industry (industrial engineers focusing entirely on profit for the next quarter). So, one could reasonably present it as a proletarian economic theory [of the transition phase to communism], in contrast to the provably inferior neoliberalism - which developed inevitably from imperialism, which developed inevitably from monopoly capitalism, which developed inevitably from the "pure and noble" competitive industrial capitalism that bourgeoise apologists always refer back to.

(*or gaining features of socialism that it nevertheless could not use to their full extent, such as nationalized infrastructure and the welfare state)

I fully understand the concern that talking about MMT might create a negative pressure against class consciousness, but I personally think the positive pressure from a greater understanding of economic systems outweighs that. At least, it's something that a revolutionary organisation should take firmly in hand, putting it in its proper place as a useful tool subsumed under the banner of class war. I don't think it should be discarded, and I think that would be more of a problem than talking about it too much, even vulgarly in the context of current capitalist crises.

I think RD is being a bit too debatebroish with this. I just watched JTs video and didn't really see anything wrong with it, I don't think he's presenting it as this end all be all solution, just as a tool to get us to communism. He also made it clear he's aware that MMT would have severe limitations in a capitalist state.

He's right, but JT's role is selling baby leftists on Marxist topics. A big part of that is convincing people a better world is possible. Roderic is just an overzealous dick. Should save his energy for radlibs.

This reads far more like an attack than a critique though.

Presumably you believe Marx shouldn't have written The Poverty of Philosophy.

The MMTers are wrong and their ideas largely come from Keynes, a diehard anti-communist. MMT has a fundamentally anti-communist and anti-planning character which should be criticized.

It's not marxism for a start. There are no marxist MMTers: Michael Hudson, Roberts, Wollff, etc. are not MMTers.

From what I understand, MMTers generally posit the problem as primarily ideological rather than class interest which prevents the state from using it's power to help working people. Marxist of course see the state as a tool of class warfare.

For example (again, from what I understand), the Marxist sees the state not having universal employment and states this is to undermine the working class's power. The MMTer see the same phenomenon and says it is because the state doesn't believe it can simply create the currency/capacity to employ everyone.

Therefore, for the Marxist, the MMTer is engaged in a kind of idealism that denies the classed nature of society.

This is probably an oversimplification.

I mean its cool when Lenin does it to Kautsky. Revisionism is dangerous.

There is a huge difference between "public debate" and "defend your position in public [by writing what you think I'm wrong about or why you're right]". Day writes a ton of theory and is outspoken about his views and wants people to either take them seriously by challenging or engaging with them. The bullshit of "agree to disagree" gets us nowhere. I think publicly posting is fine as a medium for such

Debate shit is when you wanna do a quick fire bullshit thing. Day wants JT to write out where he disagrees so they can resolve or one be shown to be in error. That is good. Resolving differences has to happen.

You would call Poverty of Philosophy debatebro shit if it was published today. I recommend logging off to attempt to see things in the lens of public discussion and not the circus performances people have on Twitch and Jordan Peterson's patreon.