Government spending is currently growing at an unprecedented rate to deal with the effects of the global pandemic. Many people worry that this could burden future generations with a crippling debt to repay.
However, economist Stephanie Kelton, author of The Deficit Myth, argues that we need to rethink our attitudes towards government spending. Could the principles of Modern Monetary Theory help us not only navigate our way out of this crisis but also to build a fairer economy?
0:00
It's lovely to see everybody. Um at a time when we on this uh tiny blue spot
0:07
traveling through an almost infinite universe um see um the whole of what um as far as
0:15
we know is life dependent on the whims of a 5-year-old. It's it's lovely to
0:21
spend some time with friends. So it's particularly lovely to chat with one of our adjunct professors Stephanie Kelton.
0:29
Many of us, if not all of us, have read the deficit myth, uh, watch Finding the Money and followed Stephanie's career
0:35
for a long time. You might not know, I suppose, that this has included a period
0:41
as chief economist on the US Senate Budget Committee and a close association
0:46
with Bernie Sanders. Um, alongside a fund manager called Con Mitchellis, it
0:52
was the prompting of Stephanie that motivated us to put our M's degree together in the first place. So, we have
0:57
a lot to thank her for. So, hello Stephanie. Hello everyone.
1:06
I was wondering where to start and then by chance I listened a couple of days ago to a BBC World Service program
1:13
called Business Daily which had several contributors, one of whom was you. Uh the narrative was that rich countries
1:20
are all sinking under a huge burden of debt that we have a burden of debt interest we can't afford and no less a
1:27
luminary than a financial times columnist and head of King's College Cambridge Jillian Tet um basically said
1:35
that governments have got away with it so far that sometime soon there'll be a major default. Um she asked just I've
1:41
got this written down to read read her her words. How on earth is the world going to get out of this debt bur? Um,
1:47
there was someone who Americans might know, James Carville, who implied it's
1:53
the biggest problem in the world. And bond trader called Luke Hickmore said
1:58
that um if we're not going to get into severe difficulties soon, then countries have to start being sensible about their
2:04
spending. you got on about 30 seconds to respond to or well not even to respond
2:11
but to contribute to the program because you wouldn't have heard what they said before uh you were talking. You've got
2:17
rather longer now. Um what's wrong with all that narrative?
2:24
Well, okay. First, let me say thank you Stephen and Gabby. I always am amazed at
2:32
just the [clears throat] indeigable nature of these two individuals. U
2:37
unparalleled. I've never seen anything like it. Um thank everybody for joining
2:42
and and taking time to u be part of this conversation tonight. Stephen, it will
2:47
surprise you, I guess, to learn that in fact I had about as much time as I'm
2:53
going to have with you tonight to answer questions with the BBC. I recorded that interview. In fact, I'd
3:00
forgotten about it. And they emailed me what, two days ago, and said, "Here's the link. It's it's live." And I
3:05
thought, "Wow, I've sort of forgot that we even did it." Um, I guess we recorded
3:10
it [clears throat] a month and a half ago, something like that. I used the podcast Jim. Sorry, I'm getting over a
3:17
illness, so I'm a little uh raspier than usual. Um, I used [clears throat] the podcast studio on campus and we went at
3:25
least an hour and so you can imagine how much juicy stuff got left on the cutting room
3:32
floor, so to speak, right? Uh, they they chose, I thought, reasonably well. You
3:37
never know how they're going to piece things together, and I uh I did I don't normally listen to things after the
3:43
fact, but I was curious about what the others said and how they would put it together. So, I did listen. Uh, and I
3:49
thought that, you know, given the challenge of trying to bring three different voices and perspectives
3:56
together, they chose reasonably well. Um, but you know, look,
4:02
you always want to back these people up and and you said, Jillian Tet said at one point, how is the world going to get
4:10
out of the debt? You know, how how is the world going to get out of this problem? Who does the world owe? I mean,
4:16
it doesn't even really occur to them to take that step back and ask, you know,
4:22
what is the purpose of issuing bonds in the first place? What are these? And and when you try to force the person doing
4:29
the interview off of the, you know, um terrain where
4:36
they want to have the debate and shift them into a a different lane, it's very
4:42
tough because they want to have the conventional debate. what ratio of debt
4:47
to GDP is too big? When does it become a problem? You know, and you keep pushing
4:52
them in a different direction and trying to get them to take that one step back and you know, we would say in MMT, where
4:59
do the funds to pay taxes and buy government bonds come from in the first place? And and if you can rewind to a
5:07
different starting point, you can have a different conversation. But if that person on the other side doesn't want to
5:12
allow you to do that, then you're constantly trying to navigate the conventional boundaries of the of the
5:19
debate. So, um I can't remember what you asked me, but that's my answer.
5:25
That's a good answer. Um I never know whether to
5:30
stick within um you know what everyone takes for granted the current institutional setup
5:37
or to suggest something different. And we had a talk from Scott Scott Fullweiler the other day where he explained what happened with Liz Truss
5:45
and uh the bond market in 2022 and it was uh of course it was because
5:53
Scott was doing the talk. It was uh very illuminating. Um uh it was it was a
6:00
discussion though within the current framework and I wonder whether given the
6:06
current institutional framework I mean if people like very intelligent people like Jillian Tet have not learned after
6:13
all these years whether people will ever learn.
6:18
Yeah I know you did a talk to bond or not to bond a year or two ago.
6:25
I don't know, Stephen. I I wrestle with this all the time. Is it really that
6:31
there's some kind of a barrier that we need to overcome in terms of the learning? Is it that if we just
6:37
articulated more clearly, if we were somehow haven't been compelling in the
6:42
past and if if we just put forward that one silver bullet killer set of
6:48
arguments with the right framing and the right bullet points and the right
6:53
visuals and you know I see people all the time they send me things. Do you think this does it? Will this ch if I
7:01
put this out there? Will everyone wake up tomorrow and and agree that the MMT
7:07
uh narrative on these things is is the correct way to understand them like there's some magic recipe we just
7:14
haven't discovered. I don't unfortunately I don't think that's it. Um after 30 years I think we have tried
7:21
it in every format that I can imagine. You know, we started off really just a
7:27
small number of academics trying to convince other academics mostly um
7:33
peer-reviewed journal articles, books, edited volumes, chapter, all that kind of stuff and made little headway within
7:40
the discipline. And then with the financial crisis, you know, after
7:45
2007208, uh, Bill Mitchell was already blogging, but a handful of us in Kansas City
7:52
decided, well, maybe we're trying to communicate with the wrong group of people. Maybe we should, you know, have
7:58
a more popular discourse and try to reach different audiences. So, we launched that blog, uh, which was the
8:05
new economic perspectives blog. And that writing style then changes, right? It's
8:10
more pathy. Um, it's it's not that um well, unless it's Scott Fulweiler, in
8:16
which case it was always pretty high level academic stuff. But the rest of us tried, I think, to to communicate in
8:24
ways that were easier for for the lay person to grab on to. And you know, where we had the earliest success was
8:32
really with journalists in the financial who were covering finan financial
8:37
markets and the economy. And there were just I can say I think the names of three people who were just
8:44
intellectually curious, you know, and they saw us putting out this stuff and
8:49
it sounded so different from what, you know, Ken Rogoff was writing, but even
8:55
different from what people like Paul Krugman were writing. I mean, we were occupying a very different lane. And
9:02
that got us some attention. And I think over the years, not just attention, but
9:08
we began to develop some respect um from folks, you know, who cover financial
9:13
markets where they started reaching out to call us to get quotes for articles and insights on our thinking. And um so
9:21
I I think you just have to try, you know, you try podcasts, you try videos, you try giving
9:28
a TED talk, you try working with lawmakers directly, you you just have a
9:34
um you know, full full frontal attack uh and and hope that in little ways you're
9:41
going to make headway with different groups and over time it becomes, you know, something like what you see here
9:48
right Wow. So, um, a lot was left on the cutting room floor then for, um, well, it always
9:54
is. I mean, I've done radio interviews and they go on for ages and ages and ages and there's a couple of sentences,
10:00
uh, sometimes that you get in a in a program. Um, what did you leave on the cutting room floor
10:07
or what what all the stuff that you teach when you cover this stuff, you know, the
10:14
sequencing. um they didn't they didn't get up. So that's what I said about backing up,
10:19
you know. Um you I know have been lately reminding people that if there's anxiety
10:27
about whether uh bond markets are uh have sufficient appetite to take up
10:34
issuance and you know there's all this hand ringing about how many more treasuries or guilts or you know JGBs
10:42
are going to be issued and what is what is going to happen when markets have you know reached their capacity they say oh
10:47
I don't want to buy anymore and you remind people that for a for a very long
10:52
time uh in the UK the auctions weren't handled the way that they're handled
10:58
today. there was a tax system. And so if people are really nervous about the um
11:04
you know the aggregate appetite for purchasing guilts or treasuries or something then we could always choose to
11:11
return to a tap system where you know governments can issue make an offer of a
11:18
quantity of securities and let financial uh investors and others take up that
11:25
which they wish to purchase and no more. Right. Yeah, absolutely. That's uh and
11:31
for any Australians listening, that's exactly how it worked until 1982. Uh if
11:36
um if the bond market didn't want to buy Australian Treasury securities, they just didn't sell any.
11:42
It's a sensible um halfway house between what we do now and a sort of cold turkey
11:48
approach that some other, you know, MMT folks might have um suggested in the past. Well, then just stop issuing them.
11:55
You know, as if you can, you know, uh just make the proclamation tomorrow
12:01
hereto for there shall be no further issuance of these securities when you got a collateralized
12:07
uh system, you know, a global financial system that is in a sense set up
12:13
institutionally to have a a desire and a need for these
12:19
things. You don't just go cold turkey. Um, so we could phase them out over time. We could do something Warren's
12:25
talked about over the years, which is just, you know, don't issue anything with a duration longer than 3 months,
12:33
uh, and anchor the overnight rate somewhere very close to zero and be done
12:38
with it. Um, so there are a lot of different ways that, you know, we could think about making adjustments,
12:44
modifications to the way we currently do things, but I think the tap system is a
12:49
is a nice one because it's a reminder that we did do it this way for a very long time, right? Um, yeah.
12:57
Well, they they what they usually say, of course, if you make that suggestion is uh well, that's going to involve
13:03
printing money and that's going to be inflationary. And the way that we control inflation is to uh have
13:10
governments not run deficits that are too big, to be disciplined by uh the
13:16
bond market. Um uh to uh then leave uh
13:21
inflation management to the central bank to have monetary policy in charge. And
13:27
if if uh we expect the inflation rate to go up, then the central bank will nudge interest rates up and keep things under
13:33
control. Um if we're not going to manage inflation that way, then how are we
13:39
going to manage inflation? Well, I think you need to develop a much
13:47
richer and more sophisticated toolkit for managing inflationary
13:53
pressures. recognizing, you know, my husband said when we saw inflation begin
13:58
to pick up in 2022 and of course then it became increasingly a problem and then there
14:05
was all sorts of discourse and I remember my husband saying if you've seen one inflation you've seen one
14:11
inflation and I thought it was you know made me laugh at the time because it was sort of
14:16
he's a historian he's a history professor and so he's thinking about this through a sort of historical lens
14:24
where you know take an inflationary episode and drill down and say you know
14:30
what gave rise to the inflation and the sustained increases in prices. Um, and
14:37
yeah, there are dynamics and you could find similar characteristics sometimes, but to know how to address inflationary
14:45
pressures when they're presenting themselves, it's a rather good idea to
14:51
figure out what the drivers of the inflationary pressures are. So, this one-sizefits-all
14:57
knee-jerk response, which is just raise interest rates to deal with any and all inflation that might present itself, has
15:03
not served us well at all. Uh I have made the case I think in
15:10
maybe an interview with the FT about a year ago that my argument is basically
15:18
that and I think the evidence bears this out the inflation that we experienced
15:23
most recently 2022 and into 2023 was overwhelmingly driven by supply side
15:31
factors. the COVID pandemic itself changing nature and the composition of
15:37
aggregate demand uh different waves of the pandemic hitting different parts of the world straining you know bottlenecks
15:44
and you've you know all of this and then a war and food and energy prices and
15:49
compounding iterative uh impacts on prices not to forget the work of
15:56
Isabella Vber and her colleagues and the opportunistic um price increases that uh also drove
16:05
inflationary pressures during that time. So, you know, you you think about what
16:11
could we do in the future, not in a crisis moment like that. Let's set that
16:17
one aside, but just in the normal course of business. You mentioned deficits and
16:23
the fear that government deficits will be inflationary. Well, the government's been running fiscal deficits for
16:29
basically my entire lifetime. I think that part was included in the BBC interview. So with the exception of four years
16:36
during the Clinton administration, the US government has run budget deficits. The UK is mostly running deficits. Japan
16:44
has run large fiscal deficits for well over the better part of three decades
16:50
with no inflation to show for it in any of these places. It was only when we got the pandemic, we finally got inflation
16:57
to even get to the Fed's 2% target here after the last decade of struggling to
17:03
hit that. So, what would you do in normal times to guard against inflation
17:11
becoming a problem? If you got a bunch of lawmakers who are sitting around writing legislation and they have these,
17:18
you know, ambitions to spend hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars
17:23
on infrastructure investment, climate resilience, health care, education, all that sort of stuff. And if those folks
17:31
are thinking now, as long as I pay for my spending,
17:37
I don't have to worry about anything, right? The only thing that matters is keeping it deficit neutral. And the MMT
17:45
lens is applied. And you say, "Oh, hold on. deficit neutral and inflation
17:52
neutral are not the same thing. You see, and that I'll tell you a story because I
17:58
was doing an event with Ken Rogoff maybe a couple of years ago and I was on
18:05
stage. were doing a little dog and pony thing uh for an investment group or something and I made this argument made
18:11
this point on stage and after I finished he got up and had an opportunity to
18:17
respond to some of the things I said and he said you know Stephanie raised a really good point right there and he
18:22
repeated it back. She said that had never occurred to me and I thought wow you were at the IMF advising countries
18:31
on how to structure you know fiscal policy and the like and it hadn't occurred to a Harvard leading economist
18:39
that you're not mitigating inflation risk just because you offset
18:46
proposed spending with some increase in taxes. I'll give you an example in case the point is not clear to everyone.
18:54
Let's just do something really crazy hypothetical. Let's say that we went back to the days of when people like
19:00
Congresswoman Alexandria Casiocortez was talking about a $10 trillion spend on a
19:08
build back better green new deal kind of massive investments in the social safety
19:14
net, infrastructure, education, jobs, the whole thing. and you say, "I want to spend$10 trillion dollars, but I want to
19:21
be really fiscally responsible when I do it, and so I'm not going to add to the deficit, and I'm not going to increase
19:27
the debt. I'm going to get the rich to pay for everything. And so I'm only going to level tax
19:34
increases on people, as uh Senator Elizabeth Warren called them, at the very tippy top, the tippy toppers. The
19:41
tippy toppers will pay for it all and we'll get the 10 trillion from a tiny sliver of folks at the top and we'll
19:48
plow 10 trillion dollars into the hands of people in the broader economy. And it
19:54
sounds great, right? If you're someone who cares about inequality, social
20:01
justice, you say, "Wow, this is the way to go." But if you apply the MMT lens,
20:08
you might say, "I don't know that it's a good idea to
20:16
start pushing 10 trillion dollars into the broader economy whilst removing 10
20:22
trillion from the tippy toppers who are mostly not going to spend that money in
20:28
the first place. They're saving it, right? So ask yourself if you're mitigating any inflationary pressure
20:36
when you push 10 in and take 10 out from the very top. And I would suggest that the answer is rather obvious that it
20:43
will have a dimminimous impact on their spending and therefore not serve as a
20:51
very good inflationary um anti-inflationary
20:56
mechanism. Right? that tax is not going to do that part of the job well. It will
21:02
do the other job quite well, which is addressing disparities in income or
21:08
wealth, depending on what kind of tax we're talking about. And so when I say something like that, it sometimes
21:14
ruffles the feathers of progressives who view themselves as, you know, really
21:21
ardent Robin Hood type warriors who think they have a very clean, compelling
21:28
narrative. Politicians can repeat it. The population will eat it up because why shouldn't the rich pay for
21:34
everything? They have all the money. Um and then as an economist your job is to
21:40
to be better than that and to give better guidance to to lawmakers on
21:46
behalf of it's very difficult for them to because I mean you used to talk to Bernie and
21:51
that was his narrative really and and uh uh and despite the fact he was at our
21:57
conference and understands things better than this it sometimes sounds that like that's the narrative that Zach Palansky
22:04
over in the UK to it's so easy to to to sell that message, isn't isn't it?
22:10
It is easy to sell it. And you know, he's not uh the only one. There are some high-profile names over there. And look,
22:17
they work with some people who I consider uh good friends and allies. You
22:23
know, we have an organization over here um called the Patriotic Millionaires,
22:29
and it was founded by uh a man named Morris Pearl, and he's great. He's
22:35
super. And you know, he started this organization with some like-minded
22:41
individuals who at the time thought, you know what,
22:46
we really need to step up and and pay our fair share. And there the tax code
22:52
is riddled with loopholes and guys like us are, you know, taking advantage of them and it isn't fair and and our
22:59
infrastructure struggles and our health system and our educational system. and you ought to we ought to be patriotic,
23:05
raise our hands and say take more from us so we can have a better world. And
23:10
it's admirable. And um I will say since
23:15
launching the patriotic millionaires, Morris has come around to a different
23:21
way of understanding the purpose of tax at the federal level. So he can still
23:27
make the same sets of arguments if he's working with the, you know, governor of California or uh something like that or
23:33
the new mayor of um of New York City. Those arguments uh really do make sense.
23:40
You know, they they're revenue constrained and um it's a helpful frame
23:46
to bring to those sort of people. But for the UK government where I know the patriotic millionaires have worked with
23:52
candidates and have influenced um I don't know how many names but you know
23:58
who they are. I mean uh there are a couple of high-profile YouTubers or podcasters who push this line as well.
24:06
And yeah it what could be easier than just saying Robin Hood you know tax the
24:12
rich. you you you put it on a bumper sticker and and zoom away. You know,
24:19
that's your whole slogan. Yeah. And just to repeat what you were saying before, we're not saying don't tax tax the rich, especially in the US
24:26
where I mean the inequality is through the roof compared even to other
24:33
because so many people think that that's what MMT folks are saying. Don't tax the
24:40
rich. I want to if if you don't mind press on that point for one more minute
24:46
because no that is definitely not the point. So another story
24:53
I think about how much of this I want to share. I guess it's okay.
24:58
Um well maybe I'll be a little koi. I I was
25:04
working with uh advisors to a different senator on the question of a wealth tax and that
25:12
sort of thing and I was asked about you know what if we came in with this
25:17
percent tax on net worth of this much and an extra this much percent once you
25:23
get to a higher number. And I said and the percentages were really low. And I
25:30
said, 'Well, what's the purpose of the wealth tax? And the advisor said, um,
25:37
well, it's we're paying for the child care and some student debt forgiveness.
25:42
You're all going to figure out who this is anyway. Um, this is, you know, to pay for these things, but also, you know,
25:48
address the concentration of wealth inequality. And I said, "Well, as a pay
25:55
for on paper to satisfy the scorekeeper, the CBO, fine if that's the way you
26:02
insist on going, but as a way of addressing concentrations of wealth,
26:07
you're going to have no effectively no impact." And this particular senator
26:13
went on to acknowledge on television and and elsewhere that the wealth tax was so
26:19
small, so trivial that wealth will accumulate at a much faster clip,
26:26
meaning they will continue to get richer and richer and richer every year and still be the wealthiest people in the
26:32
world. To which I say, then what is the point of a wealth tax? Right? And and it becomes clear at that moment that the
26:39
point of the wealth tax is really just to peel off just enough. You don't really touch them or hurt them that
26:46
you're you're just peeling off just enough to slap it on a piece of legislation to be able to say to the
26:53
scorekeeper, "Haven't I done a good job? My proposed spending on debt
26:59
cancellation and child care and all the rest of it is fiscally responsible. It
27:04
won't increase the deficit." So, I just think it's the wrong way to draft legislation and I think it puts all of
27:11
us at risk when you structure your bill that way because you're not thinking
27:16
about the inflation risk. And if the last election taught us anything, it's that people really do hate inflation.
27:23
They did not we did not like it. People do not want to go back to a world where
27:30
prices are up 22 24% over you know three four years
27:36
and that's really the main reason for being tough on inflation. I mean it's just
27:42
it's politically it's it is unpopular. people don't like it and and you know we
27:47
could have a an extended conversation about tradeoffs and about you know the
27:54
whether you you heard a lot of people during the inflationary phase uh the
28:00
post-pandemic period you heard a lot of people say things like well inflation is bad because it hurts everyone and
28:07
unemployment is is bad but it only hurts the people who are without jobs. I think
28:14
that is absolutely untrue. Absolutely untrue. But I heard it said
28:20
over and over and over mostly on, you know, shows like CNBC's financial, you
28:27
know, that the Wall Street Network. Um, that's their line, you know, that the reason you must be really tough and get
28:33
inflation all the way back down to two and you can't stop and you can't settle until it's back down to two is because
28:39
inflation, boy, it's really the roughest on the little guy. But it hurts everyone the same. Oh, it doesn't, right?
28:48
No. Well, there's this uh there's, you know, I don't know about as many gainers, but there are gainers from inflation as well as losers. And there
28:54
are economists that I uh respect a great deal who who um right that um
29:03
some inflations are good. um you in John Harvey's I mean that's an
29:10
argument that's in John Harvey's excellent new book on US business cycles that uh
29:16
I was just reading reading another uh rereading a chapter yesterday
29:22
yeah no but I mean look when you know people make the the joke when it's it's
29:28
a recession when your neighbor loses his job it's a depression when you lose yours and all that kind of stuff but you
29:34
have to think about and Pavina does a really good job talking about unemployment in this way, right? Um
29:41
unemployment is socially destructive. It isn't a caa the case that it is only
29:47
impacting the individual who is without work. It hurts families and communities
29:53
and um just I I never understood how people make that argument that it's it's
30:00
so localized that well it's a shame when 7 million people don't have jobs but it's a crisis when 300 million pay more
30:08
for milk you know. Well there's all sorts of other things I'd like to ask you about but maybe
30:15
Gabby we ought to open up to questions now. What do you think? Um, sure. Uh,
30:21
there's a question in the chat a little bit further up from Tom, um, asking you to talk about, uh, funding and climate
30:28
action from an MMT lens.
30:34
Okay. Um, funding and climate action. So, do we know who do we know where the
30:40
question came from? Uh, yeah. From Tom. like it's a I can
30:46
give a a quick and dirty answer which seems like you would expect me to say that. So I'm wondering if there's more
30:53
nuance because the last chapter of my book deals I found the actual question. Perhaps
30:58
I'll read it. Um could Stephanie talk about how MMT can assist progressing action on climate
31:04
change? Mnt understanding I guess.
31:09
Yeah. I I guess I have to say that the the
31:15
biggest impact I think that we can and have had on this is knocking down the
31:22
myth that there isn't enough money to be able to deal with climate. I did a World
31:28
Economic Forum panel or something. I years ago I seem to remember John Kerry um saying and I
31:37
you know Janet Yellen they've all said comments like this. It's got to be mostly the private sector. The public
31:42
sector could they don't have the money. So we're going to have to rely ultimately it's going to have to be
31:48
incentives and we're gonna have to get the private sector to to pick up the tab
31:53
because there simply isn't enough money. And I think that's where MMT has uh
31:59
provided the the greatest made the greatest contribution which is just you know whether it's 5 trillion 11 trillion
32:08
trintility trillion I mean it you know that that can't be the barrier to entry
32:15
on climate action. It can't be the hurdle can't be there isn't enough money to pay for it. Um, and that's when I
32:23
think MMT had its real kind of blowout moment was when Congresswoman
32:28
Okaziocortez released that little blueprint and um, you know, there in the
32:35
footnotes were links to some of the MMT literature on the and how will you pay for 16 trillion or 10 trillion in a
32:42
Green New Deal. And that's when it it really started to shift the paradigm
32:47
around, you know, who and how we pay for
32:52
bold action. Thank you. Um, there's another question
32:59
uh here. Could Stephanie talk about a future of what happens when we reduce government
33:06
service, increase privatation, privatization and uh a kind of what
33:12
happens under author authoritarian governments? What how is that supposed to um improve life
33:18
for ordinary people? That's what's happened, isn't it? Yeah,
33:25
it's rather a I mean I think the person who posed the question I suspect knows
33:32
the answer to the question. [laughter] I think so. And I think probably most of us sitting here together right now know the answer
33:39
to the question. It's not to say that you can't privatize some services that
33:44
have been delivered uh through the public sector and all hell goes, you
33:50
know, everything goes to hell. I'm not taking that position, but I think you can find lots and lots of examples where
33:58
that has been the case. Um, water, rail, electricity. I mean, you just go down
34:04
the list, right? Um, not that it can't be done, but when you couple it with an
34:09
authoritarian shift to authoritarian regime and a wholesale hollowing out of public
34:17
sector, which I think if Doge had been permitted to carry on with what it was
34:23
trying to do and what project 2025 is frankly about is the hollowing out of
34:28
the public sector and turning as much as we can. I think we just had released today apparently some proposal for I'm
34:37
not going to call it health care. It's not a health care proposal. It's a u a
34:42
plan to you know finally once and for all get rid of um the Affordable Care
34:48
Act. And I haven't had a chance to look at it. I've been at work all day. But what I saw in terms of headlines was
34:54
something like, you know, give people $2,000 and let them go shopping for health
35:01
insurance coverage, which, you know, is what, $28,000 for a family of four, something like
35:07
that. Good luck. Um, but
35:14
yeah, it's scary times, I think. I don't I don't really know what to say about it.
35:20
[laughter] It's a smash and grab. That's what it is. That's what's going on. It's a smash and grab.
35:27
Um, could shall we open it up to questions from the audience?
35:32
Uh, uh, Paul, uh, did I see something from Paul in Fremantle?
35:39
I'm seeking better explanations of terms like deficit. Eg. Is there a link between GDP and
35:46
deficit? What? Um, I'm involved. Well, let me That's good. See, that's a
35:52
that's a good reminder that you should define your terms and never assume that your audience is, you
35:59
know, all equipped to have Yeah, let's let's do that. So, the word itself is
36:05
carries all sorts of negative connotation, right? You hear the word deficit, nobody wants to be in that
36:11
position. Um, if you're watching, I I often go on radio or TV or whatever and
36:17
say you turn on the tube and you hear the announcer say, uh, if what's give me the the local team
36:24
favorite, who who do you all follow? Some rugby team.
36:29
Uh, give me a team. Port Power. Okay. If Port Power is going to come
36:36
back and win this game, they're going to have to overcome a three-point deficit or a two whatever it is. I I don't you
36:43
know, um you don't want to be in deficit. Everybody sort of inherently
36:48
has that reaction. So, when you hear the government is running its budget in
36:54
deficit, it sounds like something's gone wrong. You're on the wrong side of that uh arrangement.
37:00
But what is the government deficit? What does it really tell you? It tells you the difference between two numbers.
37:07
That's literally all it is. One number is outlays. So, think of it as how much
37:12
the government is doing this, putting dollars into your hands or pounds or yen
37:19
or pesos or whatever it is. So the difference between outlays, how much
37:24
they're putting out and receipts, right? How much they're collecting from the
37:30
rest of us mostly in the form of of taxes, right? We're collecting a lot of tariffs now with tariffs tax. So if the
37:38
I'll use the US case and keep the numbers simple. Right now the federal government is spending roughly 7
37:45
trillion annually. That's outlays. Boom. and collecting about five trillion,
37:52
right? So that's receipts. So if they put seven in your hands and then take
37:57
five away from you, we label it a government deficit because spending the
38:02
outlays exceed what they're collecting back. So we call it a deficit. But if
38:08
someone hands you $7 and then takes $5 back from you, what
38:14
have they actually done? Given you $2. They've given you $2.
38:19
They've added $2 to your pocket, to your account. So, this is why MMT is is
38:26
really insistent that we pay attention to both sides of the ledger. So, if the
38:31
government is is running a $2 trillion deficit, it means the non-government
38:37
part of the economy has a surplus equal to exactly two
38:42
trillion. Right? That two trillion goes somewhere. So what I always try to do is
38:48
say every deficit is good for someone. Period. Full stop. Every deficit is good
38:54
for someone. The question is or the questions are for whom? They're good for
39:00
someone. For whom and for what? For what? Are those deficits being used to
39:07
accomplish things in the economy that improve health and well-being, safety,
39:13
security? Do you get better roads, more efficient infrastructure, better educational system, better health
39:20
outcomes, or are you running deficits that primarily send a windfall to the
39:27
people who are already doing phenomenally well? Maybe all you did was cut taxes on people at the top, big
39:33
corporations, whatever. Those deficits are good for someone, too. They serve a very deliberate small
39:41
constituency. So deficit is just difference between two numbers. It's how many uh dollars or pounds or yen the
39:48
government is adding to someone's pocket on an annual right each year measured
39:54
annually. It's a it's a financial contribution to some part of the economy.
40:02
I have an excellent question here from Jacob. Um hello Stephanie. I'm just reading your book and I'm curious
40:08
whether there are some major issues or topics that you've shifted your opinion on or position on since writing it.
40:17
Um I don't think so. I think that I would say that there are definitely um
40:26
areas that I would emphasize in you know uh give more attention to
40:33
develop more fully. You know, some people read the book and said, "Where's the private credit system? What about,
40:40
you know, banks and how banks create money and all that?" So, that's fine. That was explained really well.
40:47
That's a that's a different But my book was about public money and that's explained in the movie, not so
40:52
much. The the book though, I mean, if you if you'd added those things to the book, it would have got too long. Oh, yeah. And
40:58
yeah, it was a bit of a distraction and it wasn't the purpose of the book was to help people understand how public money
41:05
works and the misunderstandings we have around right uh public currency. But the
41:11
inflation chapter obviously um I think in that chapter I said no one
41:16
knows when or if inflation might uh present itself again as a problem. And
41:24
but I did title the second chapter of the book think of inflation. So even you
41:29
know then I was trying to stress that this needs to be the focus. It's not how
41:35
big is the deficit, what is the trajectory of debt and so forth. It's you know
41:41
inflation risk. And I I was so bothered by the fact that I worked in the Senate and I was surrounded by all of these
41:48
staffers and lawmakers writing trillion dollar, you know, pieces of legislation,
41:53
hundred billion, whatever, and never pausing once to think about the inflationary
41:59
uh implications of the bills. And so anyway, I'm working on a new book and it
42:05
is lots of questions about that. People very excited. The theme that runs through the book is
42:10
inflation. So now it's uh busting a whole new set of myths and misunderstandings around how we think
42:18
about inflation, how we respond to inflationary pressure, how we understand it, whether it is indeed behind us and
42:24
all the rest of it. Um there's somebody who's been waving at us. Uh Netty, would you like to unmute?
42:33
You have to unmute.
42:40
Okay, we'll come back to you. Um, you could or you could type your question in. Happy to do that.
42:47
Question from Jeremy as well. Yeah, question from Jeremy. Uh, coming back to Steven's question about discussing issues in the context of the
42:54
current paradigm versus the context of new ideas. I'm interested in your thoughts on central bank independence in
43:00
the current international central bank consensus versus what the new regimes
43:07
uh we what new regimes we could put forward for the future.
43:13
Um well I am of the strong opinion that
43:20
Congress is the boss of the Fed. Federal Reserve is a creature of Congress. Okay.
43:26
Created in 1913 in the Federal Reserve Act.
43:31
Congress has can and has uh modified the
43:36
mandate for the Fed over the years. 1978 Humphrey Hawkins
43:44
broadens and makes responsibility for a variety of things including full
43:50
employment. um the responsibility not just of the Fed but of the government which means it
43:57
is in concert working together with Congress and the fiscal authority to
44:04
pursue macroeconomic objectives uh price stability and um full employment and the
44:13
you know maintaining the payment system and uh financial market functioning and
44:18
all the rest of it right low and stable stable interest rates supposed to be an
44:24
objective. So, this is going about it very much the wrong way um through the
44:30
executive branch. That's not the way to put pressure on the Fed. But, you know,
44:36
presidents past and present have tried to influence the Fed. This is not unique
44:42
with Donald Trump. There's a long history of trying to, you know, lean on the Fed to get the interest rate
44:48
environment that you think best complements your economic agenda, but it
44:54
really ought to be Congress. And we have for a very long time advocated Congress
45:00
um taking more control over its budget because when the Fed took interest rates
45:06
from zero to 5 and a4% it very quickly turned the fastest
45:12
growing line item in the government's budget which is interest on the national
45:17
debt. Yeah, there's a question about that too in the chat. Right. Yeah. So, so why should the Fed
45:24
effectively be running fiscal policy, which is what happened um when the
45:30
fastest growing part of your budget is out of your control because it's a function of what's happening with
45:35
monetary policy. I think it's entirely reasonable to to think that Congress
45:41
would want to reclaim u that sort of budgetary authority and
45:47
say, you know, we we want interest rates maintained at
45:53
a lower level. But but that ought to be Congress, not not the White House.
45:58
It's strange that this always comes from the right-wing of politics and never the progress progressive side. We don't seem
46:05
to be able to Almost never. Yeah.
46:12
Okay. I think we're ready for you, Netty. Go ahead. Um, except I'm not Netty. My sister's name is on here. I'm Deborah Harrington. Hi,
46:18
Steve. Hi, Stephanie. Um, I wanted to go back really to what you touched on earlier on, which is about shifting the
46:24
dial politically, which we've had very little success in the UK, um, the
46:30
States, Australia, whatever. And I'm just really really aware that you know the way that the way that this is done
46:36
at the moment the way that's influenced is there are lots of institutes there are lots of think tanks who are pumping
46:42
out constantly what is effectively propaganda giving reports and analysis of the e economic situation and they
46:48
send those reports all the time to MPs to the press association to uh the new you know to the mass media to everybody
46:56
they just they just kind of pump out these things all the time and we don't have an equivalent we work a lot of the
47:01
work that we do is about grassroots. It's about getting like sort of membership and spreading it locally and
47:07
you know to you know to to ordinary people if you like. um we don't seem to have organized any kind of concerted
47:16
political kind of pressure and the one point where we the one place where we seem to have it is Zach Glansky um uh
47:23
who I know went to Steven's modern money lab thing in Bristol which was was really good and he's and the green uh
47:30
party uh England and Wales have got a really good economic policy group who are very MMT influenced I mean they that
47:38
is the main driver of the way that they're setting out their policy. When they presented it to conference, it got
47:43
referred back. In other words, it can't be raised again until next year. Um and um and in the meantime, you've got
47:50
people like well, you've got certain people who've moved into the party who represent an entirely different view,
47:55
some of whom are very sort of against MMT. Um and could could you just summarize for your
48:01
question? No, it's just this is the thing. It's like it's like you know how how how far to what you two are very very high
48:07
profile. You're very active. You've got a very you've got very good connections. How to what extent do you think you can
48:14
help to influence those particular things to drive those particular things to have that kind of to start setting up
48:20
those kind of organizations or institutions or to make contact with Zach or to do anything else that might
48:26
actually drive an in through the you know into the the political scene because it's missing.
48:35
Um, I mean, I [clears throat] I've done uh these kind of webinar things with
48:43
British lawmakers, MPs. I've had I think at one time I did one that had 60 uh MPs
48:51
and they were cross party, you know, most I think probably at the time were Labor. There were some Greens and some
48:57
SNP and and a handful of uh Tories on that one if I remember. Look, I I saw
49:04
somebody pushed into my timeline yesterday a clip that I happened to watch. It was it intrigued me and it was
49:11
Zach, I think, at uh an event at University College London and I listened
49:18
to him say, you know, I'm rereading Stephanie Kelton's book, which is a good sign. You go back to it the second time.
49:24
That it suggests you're really trying to take on board, right, the content. He
49:30
had seen the film. he mentioned that they had watched the movie and so forth. So, I I know that he has uh I have not
49:38
sat down personally with him, but I know that he's done podcast conversations
49:43
with people like Richard Murphy. And so I I gather that some of this is seeping
49:51
in and he is at the moment anyway I think
49:56
um you know leader of a party that is maybe
50:02
going from strength to strength rapidly growing most rapidly I think so
50:07
I I don't know you know what what happens on the ground and in the UK I hear from people like Susan Bordon and
50:13
and others here connected with this group. There are all kinds of smart,
50:19
engaged, passionate people out there in their own ways building and maybe Susan
50:24
wants to talk about this. She shared with me something somebody is working on that's connected with your this group um
50:32
ways to to transform um Susan help me. you know, people who
50:40
want to be involved but maybe don't have the bandwidth. And maybe there's a sort of uh platform being built where you can
50:47
go and say, "Help me um kick out, I don't know, a letter to the editor or
50:54
help me voice, help me, you know, demonstrate my my interest and and have
51:01
a voice that pushes these ideas forward in a way that's not so taxing on the individual because it's kind of curated
51:08
in a a new platform." I don't fully know but
51:14
uh some of you do know uh certainly all of you in the UK know that Chris Bland has been working on a kind of um
51:22
learning modality I guess you we might call it that uh is for people who uh
51:28
don't have the fantastic privilege of being part of this program but also for the rest of us too who are uh burdened
51:35
with time and um and just could use an assist. So the controversial bit I
51:41
suppose if there is one is that um he's trained a which this isn't controversial at all. He's trained an AI bot really on
51:49
Christian Riley and Patricia Pino's 350 hours of of podcasts
51:56
uh replete with all of the papers that they always cite also in their show
52:01
notes and things like that. So, it's a pretty terrific repository of good thinking and good questions. Uh, and
52:10
remarkably consistent over many many years of the program. Yeah, it's it's the standards been very
52:16
high. So, I encourage you all if you want to to sign up um maybe Gabby we
52:22
could post it but to the UK Discord because then you have access to this and can can fool with it and see what you
52:28
think. I have posted a link to that further up. This is exactly the kind of thing I
52:34
think Deborah that answers the question which is all of the people Christian and
52:40
Patricia are perfect examples of people who came to this and then wanted to do
52:46
in their own way make a contribution to you know spreading ideas elevating you
52:54
know these ideas in the public discourse whether it's through YouTubes or podcasts or building you new platforms.
53:03
I I have been amazed over 20 years at the energy that people have shown, you
53:10
know, the US, the UK, Austral all over the world, people have leaned into this
53:16
and that's why, you know, it so often gets described as a movement. I I've never seen anything like it in in
53:22
economics. Warren will joke you know who who joins the movement for the real
53:28
business cycle theorists you know there isn't one u but somehow this resonates
53:34
with people and they do see it as containing you know seeds of wisdom that
53:42
if better understood could lead us to a place where we get better public policy
53:49
a better world and I I think that's what motiv motivate so many people to give up
53:55
huge portions of their time. Steve Grumbine in the US, my god, I mean, people doing this kind of stuff, you
54:01
know, uh, on their own time, carving out parts of their life for years
54:07
to to dedicate it to to trying to spread these ideas. So, I applaud everyone who
54:15
who has done that. I it's remarkable and it brings us such joy to see the
54:22
amazing excellent things that our students get up to all over the world. There's groups popping up everywhere.
54:28
People are putting on talks and weekends. People are getting together.
54:34
People are building websites. People are uh making content. It's just so
54:42
heartening really. I mean, it's easy to be depressed when you when you look at the Guardian app and see all the
54:47
dreadful things that are happening and you know um it is
54:53
probably the worst it's ever been uh in in many ways, but um we feel like we
55:00
have a growing and thriving and welcoming community here in the master's
55:07
degree and that has branched out into so many other things. Um, we're going to be
55:13
traveling again to Europe and the UK and hopefully Canada and we're trying to get around to meet people in person which is
55:20
always such a joy and yeah um
55:26
we're doing things outside of the degree too like this lecture series and we have
55:31
talks throughout the year that you can be involved in. There is plenty of things to do and plenty of networks to
55:36
join and like-minded people out there. Gabby, that you said the word that I
55:42
think is the key to all of this and that's community. When people get involved, when they sign up for these
55:49
courses and they start interacting, what I've heard from folks over and over
55:54
again is that they've they've found a community to be part of. That's what we've
56:00
you're all online, but then you have these uh opportunities for people to gather and meet in person for the first
56:06
time, people that they've interacted with in little boxes like these and to bring all of the collective energy and
56:14
um and heart. I mean, these you're it's a community of good people trying to do
56:20
good things for the world. And so and you and Stephen, I mean, you can't you
56:26
can't mention the people who sacrifice and give without putting the two of you at the very top.
56:31
Oh, thank you so much. Um, we seem to have lost Steven to um
56:37
his computer seems to have died. He's obviously left me a voicemail, but I haven't listened to it. So, [laughter]
56:45
he's not on the call anymore. So, I think he has actually um had to drop off due to tech issues. Um
56:53
but well, we're right on the hour. Um perhaps I'll just open it up to a few more questions if you don't mind an
56:59
extra couple of minutes and then we can wrap. I can do I can do an extra couple of minutes and I'm going to go pick Mr.
57:04
Kelton up from the ferry here in just a little bit. Um there's pro probably plenty of
57:11
questions in the chat. Oh, here's one from James uh about bond markets. Uh
57:16
should we end on bonds? My favorite topic uh MMT um
57:25
uh uh sorry I not quite sure about that question. I will read it. Um question
57:31
for Stephanie. Is MMT implying the end of bond markets because governments don't need to fund expenditure or an
57:37
expansion because they will no longer seek to reduce avoid a deficit? I think Phil has also typed some answers there
57:44
and other folks as well. But do you want to comment on that? When you say the bond market, I again it
57:52
depends who you ask. Some of us might feel differently. I think maybe Bill
57:58
Mitchell has written um over many years, many times that his preference would be
58:05
to suspend issuance of all securities of any duration. Right. No. government.
58:12
There's no purpose for it. Warren might sometimes he's of one he's in one side.
58:18
Sometimes I think he says something a little different. He might say no bonds but just do tea bills so keep it short.
58:24
Uh I've heard him make the other argument as well which is just get rid of it all. It's more trouble than it's
58:30
worth. So um depends who you ask but at a very minimum
58:35
um you know re reduce the interest income channel to something very close
58:42
to zero. Thank you. Um
58:48
let's perhaps go with this one. Uh question for Stephanie. Do you have an
58:53
opinion on the most important and or interesting topics? uh what the most important and or interesting topics are
58:59
for MMT informed economists to be researching at the moment. That's a good
59:04
question. Yeah, it's a great question. Um I think that inflation is going to be uh a big
59:13
one for a long time to come. I think if you think about um the geopolitical
59:22
uh world, I think if you think about it in terms of climate, I think um ongoing
59:29
persistent disruptions of one kind or another with
59:34
respect to whether it's droughts and um you know, supply chain issues, uh god
59:43
forbid war. Um but let's just stay stay on climate to make it kind of
59:48
straightforward. I think there is uh a lot of important work to be done on how
59:56
to mitigate inflationary pressures in a world of you know Isabella Vber might
1:00:01
say overlapping emergencies. So
1:00:08
um I see Steven's back with us. Excellent. Um
1:00:13
found for being in the remote Adelaide Hills. I found the perfect quote to end on from
1:00:20
Nick who's written it in the chat. If you can read the chat, you'll agree with me. Um
1:00:25
uh um and Isabella has asked if there's
1:00:30
anyone from Latin America. She's going to be in Manila and would like to meet. So please um reach out if you can see
1:00:38
that comment and you there was somebody who who is from the Philippines but he I
1:00:43
think he had to go um so maybe Isabella we can put you in touch with that
1:00:48
person. Uh Scott, one of Scott Jesus Philip. Yes.
1:00:53
Yes. We have a student from the Philippines Gabby. We do Nathaniel. Yeah. Yes.
1:01:00
Um uh anybody else? Uh, somebody written in the chat, Owen has a has a question.
1:01:07
Owen, are you with us? Yes. Hello. Hello. Hello. Go ahead. Hi, Gabby. Hi, Steve. Hi, Stephanie.
1:01:14
Anyone else? Um, Stephanie, we met briefly at the uh MMT UK
1:01:21
um conference and um I asked a cheeky question, but I
1:01:27
didn't get an answer because I didn't got interrupted, but it was like when you when you spoke to Jared, what did he
1:01:32
you said? I said, was he embarrassed? And you I don't know if you want to answer this on this. So, I am so glad
1:01:37
that you asked this question because I've known Jared for many years, but I
1:01:43
did not speak to Jared on camera. That was not my voice. That was the director.
1:01:50
Yes. Yes. But I mean like you spoke to him about that interview
1:01:56
and you said I said to him like it was I never did. No,
1:02:02
no, no, no. I So, this is a really interesting. It It made me sad, you
1:02:08
know, in a lot of ways. Um, both because I know Jared and I like Jared and I've known him for years and that was not his
1:02:15
best moment. Um, he's a really bright guy. Um, people and that was obviously not
1:02:23
his finest moment and I I would not have wanted to be in his shoes when that
1:02:30
clip, you know, sort of went viral. But people lashed out at me thinking
1:02:36
that I set him up and they thought that the voice on film was my voice because
1:02:42
you see me saying I'm waiting for somebody to ask, you know, why do we issue bonds? Well, that was recorded a
1:02:48
gazillion years ago in a conversation with the director who then apparently,
1:02:54
you know, found him and got him on camera and posed the question. Then it's put together in a way that I guess led a
1:03:01
lot of people to think that I um you know set him up with this question.
1:03:06
That's not me. I didn't ask that question. I saw it for the first time in a movie theater with everybody else in
1:03:13
Woodstock uh New York many years ago. So I I never spoke with him after. you
1:03:20
know, I just felt really bad that I knew, you know, that's when you want a doover
1:03:26
cuz it it just didn't come out the right. Yeah. Yeah. Um Steven has a thought on that. Do you
1:03:32
want to No, I'm just going to Does everyone know what what Owen's referring to there? the
1:03:39
the clip of the film where um Jared Bernstein is asked about uh the well the
1:03:45
question that Stephanie had raised with the director previously um uh
1:03:52
essentially um what's the purpose of issuing bonds in the first place
1:04:00
and um just on the sp and to be fair I I I've had a I've not had this freeze but
1:04:06
I have had a sort of freeze in an interview before now where I thought I'm making a fool of myself. Um so it is
1:04:14
easy to do if you feel under pressure. Um and uh but um I mean on the other
1:04:20
hand uh he's he's obviously I don't know him and and I I do think that it is a
1:04:28
serious issue if the if the person advising the president on economic
1:04:34
policy could possibly get in such a muddle over such a basic issue as that.
1:04:41
I'm sure he's a delightful man and highly intelligent but he really didn't understand public finance.
1:04:47
And let's also be fair to the filmmaker. He did sign the release after
1:04:53
that's wrong. That had been recorded. Doesn't mean we don't think he's a very able man. Um but it was shocking.
1:05:02
It's like when Warren writes in his book, The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds, that he would have these conversations
1:05:08
about monetary operations with a former Treasury Secretary
1:05:13
and and Warren is explaining the mechanics of of the monetary system and
1:05:19
and the person who should know these things says, "Well, I can't really speak about it at that level. I don't really
1:05:25
understand, you know, reserve accounting or or the V." Yikes, you know.
1:05:35
Um, okay. We should probably wrap up uh soon. Is there anybody else who'd like
1:05:40
to ask a short question and then I'll finish with that beautiful quote from
1:05:45
Nick. [cough]
1:05:52
I hope you get hope you feel better soon. Sorry. I usually mute myself. No, no, no. It's it's uh it's tough
1:05:59
doing something like we're so grateful. We are. We must say with Stephanie's done lots
1:06:04
of these events with us and um she has so many other um calls on her time.
1:06:10
We're very very grateful every time she does it. And there are lots of questions that we didn't get to in the in the chat
1:06:15
including some good ones from uh Jason, one of our our students who's recently moved to the UK. Sorry Jason. Um let me
1:06:24
just read what Nick posted. Change is slow until it's not. I'm confident the
1:06:29
tide will turn eventually. The dinosaurs will be gone soon. In the meantime, we learn, create, and share.
1:06:40
If you if you're able um Gabby Stephen if you're able to I don't know
1:06:46
um copy paste or screen grab or any of the what's in the chat it could make good fodder for me for a future substack
1:06:53
or maybe some question to address in the book or something. I'd love to see the
1:06:58
questions anyway. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. I hear somebody
1:07:04
Hello. I have company now. So, oh,
1:07:10
oh, you can't see him because [laughter] I've got the screen background on. Well, anyway, Aussie is here.
1:07:16
Aussie very eager for a a walk. The most photogenic dog.
1:07:23
We can't see. No, you can't see. But you can see him in the movie. If you
1:07:28
haven't watched Finding the Money, watch Finding the Money and you'll see Aussie. Wait a minute. Can you see Aussie? Come here.
1:07:35
Zoom a little bit. Oh, we can see some ears. [laughter] All right. Well, everybody, thank you.
1:07:40
This was lots of fun. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Superstar. Get well soon.
1:07:47
All right. Take care, everybody. Thank you. Thanks for joining us, everyone. Really appreciate it.
1:07:54
You can catch the recording if you missed any of it. You can catch the recording on our YouTube channel. And don't forget our other talks coming up
1:08:00
next week and the week after. um check the um
1:08:07
uh registration emails that you got or the website for when those are including one by Phil who's been
1:08:13
commenting a lot um very helpfully in the chat. Yes, he has been writing some excellent
1:08:21
long explanations and I can probably stop the recording
1:08:26
there.
熱心党員:「私は、キリストの『カエサルのものはカエサルに、神のものは神に』という言葉に対する聖職者の解釈に、常に驚き、正直に言って、深い憤りさえ感じてきました。この解釈には、対抗宗教改革期の教会を特徴づけていた偽善と逸脱のすべてが凝縮されているからです。それは、いかに恐るべきものであろうとも、明らかに過激で極端で、完全に宗教的なキリストの言葉を、穏健で、皮肉的で、現実的なものとして通用させてしまったのです。実際、キリストは決して、皆を喜ばせ、政治を気にせず、社会生活の利点と宗教生活の絶対性を調和させ、ヤギとキャベツの世話をしなさい、などと言おうとしたわけではありません。[…] この極端な二分法を提示することによって、キリストは、たとえそれが(熱心党員のそれとは異なり)非暴力的なものでなければならないとしても、カエサルに対する永遠の反対を促し、招いているのです。」 (「歴史的視点のヌーベル: l'Église est inutile au Pouvoir」、1974 年 10 月 6 日)
The magazine Ballast regularly gathers together citations of authors under the generic designation of an abécédaire. We share below, in translation, their most recent “alphabet text”, from the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini.
His assassination in 1975 made the poet a myth; let us pass over this. What did Pasolini the man desire? “Throw your body into the fight,” he said a decade earlier. He who thought that “only communism was able to provide a new true culture”, capable of interpreting “the of whole existence”, bequeaths us a most dense literary, poetic and cinematographic work. Pasolini, a good client of the courts (for “obscenity” or “outrage to religion”), thus stepped forward as a fierce and melancholy critic of mercantile, productivist and capitalist modernity. Looking back, in twenty-six letters, on the thought of the Italian artist.
Abattre [to strike down]: “I have the nostalgia for the poor and true people who fight to bring down this boss, without becoming that boss. (Interview with Furio Colombo, La Stampa, November 8, 1975)
Bourgeoisie: “I harbor a visceral, deep, irreducible, hatred against the bourgeoisie, against its sufficiency, its vulgarity; a mythical hatred, or, if you prefer, religious.” (Interviews with Pier Paolo Pasolini, with Jean Duflot, Pierre Belfond Publishing, 1970)
Consolation: “When I was a child, the bourgeoisie, at the most delicate moment of my existence, excluded me: it put me on the list of reprobates,of other people [allusion to his homosexuality, ed]: and I can not forget it anymore. It left me with a feeling of offense, precisely, the perception of an evil: the same that a black man must have when he walks on Fifth Avenue. It is not a pure coincidence that, driven out of the center of the cities, I found consolation in their suburbs.”(Heretical Empiricism, Garzanti, 1972)
Division: “For: as long as man exploits man, as long as mankind is divided into masters and slaves, there will be neither normality nor peace. This is the reason for all the evil of our time. […] From this division comes tragedy and death. (The Rage, Nous, 2014)
Église [The Church]: “The Church can only be reactionary; the Church can only be on the side of power; the Church can only accept the authoritarian and formal rules of society; the Church can only accept hierarchical societies in which the ruling class guarantees order; the Church can only hate every form of thought that is even only timidly free; the Church can only be opposed to any anti-repressive innovation […]; the Church can only act completely outside the teachings of the Gospel; the Church can only make practical decisions by formally referring to the name of God, and sometimes even forgetting to do so; the Church can only impose hope verbally, because her own experience of human actions forbids her to nourish every kind of hope; the Church can only (to refer to current issues) consider as eternally valid and paradigmatic its concordat with fascism.” (Écrits corsaires, Flammarion, 1976/2009)
Fin [End]: “I love life fiercely, desperately. And I believe that this ferocity, this despair, will bring me to my end. I love the sun, the grass, youth. The love of life has become a vice in me more tenacious than cocaine. I devour my existence with an insatiable appetite. How will all of this end? I do not know. (“Tete-a-tete with Pier Paolo Pasolini”, Louis Valentin, Lui, April 1970)
Gigolos: “Upon my comrades of the underworld / upon my comrade gigolos / upon my unemployed comrades / upon my comrades of maneuvers / I write your name / freedom!” (The Rage, Nous, 2014)
Harlem: “In the United States, during my very brief stay, I lived for several hours in the clandestine climate of struggle, of revolutionary urgency, of hope that was that of Europe in 1944 and 1945. […] I followed a young black trade unionist who led me to the section of his movement, a small movement that only counts in Harlem a few hundred members – and who fights black unemployment; I followed him to one of his comrades, a mason who had had an accident at work and who welcomed us lying on his poor bed, with the smile of friend, accomplice and full of the love our resisters had and that we have forgotten. “(Heretical Empiricism, Garzanti, 1972)
Independence of Algeria: “Ah, France, / hatred! / Ah France, / the plague! / Ah, France, / cowardice! / The hatred, the plague, the cowardice / of the one who wants, who is master, who owns! […] People of color, / Algeria returns to its history! (The Rage, Nous, 2014)
Jeunesse [Youth]: “[…] At that time, young people, hardly freed from their uniforms and setting out on the road towards their country and their fields, that they became again the Italians of fifty or a hundred years ago, as before fascism. Fascism had in reality made them puppets, servants, perhaps partly convinced, but it had not really reached them in the depths of their souls, in their way of being. On the other hand, the new fascism, the consumer society, profoundly transformed young people; she touched them in their intimacy, she gave them other feelings, other ways of thinking, of living, other cultural models. It is no longer, as in Mussolini’s period, a superficial regimentation, scenography, but a real regimentation, that stole and changed their soul. Which means, ultimately, that this “consumer civilization” is a dictatorial civilization.”(Article published in L’Europeo, December 26, 1974)
Kibbutz: “These were gods, or the sons of gods,/ who mysteriously fired, /with a hatred that would have caused them to melt chalk mountains, like blood-thirsty husbands, on the invading Kibbutz, / on the other side of Jerusalem … / These beggars, who go away to sleep now, / without shelter, at the end of some suburban meadow. / With their older brothers, soldiers / armed with an old rifle and a pair of mustaches / mercenaries resigned to death forever. / These are the Jordanians, terror of Israel, / those who, in front of me, cry / the ancient pain of the proscribed.” (“The southern dawn”, Poesies, 1953-1964, Gallimard, 1980)
Lucioles [Fireflies]: “At the beginning of the sixties, because of the air pollution and, especially, in the countryside, because of the water pollution (blue rivers and limpid channels), the fireflies began to disappear. It was a violent and rapid phenomenon. After a few years, there were no more fireflies. (“The emptiness of power in Italy”, Corriere della Sera, February 1, 1975)
Monde [World]: “A new problem explodes in the world. Its name is Color. / It’s called Color, the new enlargement of the world. We must integrate the idea of thousands of black or brown children, children with with black eyes and curly hair. / […] Other voices, other looks, other loves, other dances: / everything will have to become familiar and enlarge the earth!” (The Rage, Nous, 2014)
No: “Refusal has always been essential. Saints, hermits, but also intellectuals. The small number of men who made History are those who said no, and not the courtiers and valets of the cardinals. To be effective, the refusal must be great, and not small, total, and not focus on one point or another, an absurd and contrary to common sense point. Eichmann, my dear, had a lot of good sense. What was he lacking? The ability to say no loudly, to the hierarchy, from the beginning, while performing a purely and ordinary administrative, bureaucratic task. Perhaps he told his friends that he did not fancy this Himmler very much. He murmured, as one murmurs in publishing houses, newspapers, in the homes of lower level political leaders and on television. Or he will have protested because this or that train stopped once a day to let the deportees fulfill their needs and take in a little bread and water, while it would have been more functional or economical to plan for two stops . He never stopped the machine.” (Interview with Furio Colombo, La Stampa, November 8, 1975)
Official: “However, I want to say that if I am a Marxist, this Marxism has always been extremely critical of official Communists, especially with regard to the PCI; I have always been a minority outside the Party since my first book of poetry, The Ashes of Gramsci.”(Interviews with Pier Paolo Pasolini, with Jean Duflot, Pierre Belfond Publishing, 1970)
Poetry: “In football, there are exclusively poetic moments: these are the moments when the action leads to the goal. Each goal is always an invention, it is always a disturbance of the code: it always has something of the inevitable, the dazzling, the stupefying, the irreversible. This is precisely what happens with the poetic word as well. The top scorer of a championship is always the best poet of the year.” (“Il calcio “è” in linguaggio coni suoi poeti e prosatori”, Il Giorno, 3 January 1971)
Quand [When]: “When there is nothing left of the classical world, when all of the peasants and craftsmen are dead, when industry has made the cycle of production and consumption turn relentlessly, then our story will be over.” (La Rabbia, 1963)
Reason: “I am not Catholic ideologically and I am not a believer, so I do not see why my rationalization of the irrational must be Catholic, my rationalization is Marxist.” (Cited by René de Ceccatty, Pasolini, Gallimard, 2005)
Société de consommation [Consumer Society]: “The fever of consumption is a fever of obedience to an unspoken order. Everyone, in Italy, feels the degrading anxiety of being like the others in the act of consummation, of being happy, of being free, because that is the order that each one has unconsciously received and to which he “must” obey if he feels different. Never has difference been such a frightful fault, as in this period of tolerance. Equality has not, in fact, been conquered, but is, on the contrary, a “false” equality received as a gift.” (Écrits corsaires, Flammarion, 1976/2009)
Television: “[…] The responsibility of television is enormous, not, of course, as a technical medium, but as an instrument of power and as power itself. Because it is not only a space through which messages circulate, but is also a message-processing center. It constitutes the space where a mentality is realised which, without it, would not know where to house itself. It is through the spirit of television that the spirit of the new power concretely manifests itself. There is no doubt (the results prove it) that television is authoritarian and repressive, as no other means of information in the world has ever been.” (“Challenge to Television Leaders”, Corriere della Sera, December 9, 1973)
Urban: “Without ceasing to live in Rome, I can say that I lived outside the city. Gradually, this attachment became ideology and I came to travel frequently and to love the countries of the Third World, an irreducible earthly love.” (Interviews with Pier Paolo Pasolini, with Jean Duflot, Pierre Belfond Publishing, 1970)
Vampire: “The bourgeois – let’s say it with wit – is a vampire, who is not at peace until he has bitten the neck of his victim for pure, natural and familiar pleasure, to see her become pale, sad, ugly, lifeless, twisted, corrupt, worried, guilty, calculating, aggressive, terrorizing, like him. […] The time has come to recognize that it is not enough to consider the bourgeoisie as a social class, but as a disease; henceforth, to regard it as a social class is even ideologically and politically an error (and that even through the purest and most intelligent instruments of Marxism-Leninism). In fact, the history of the bourgeoisie – by means of a technological civilization, which neither Marx nor Lenin could have foreseen – is about to concretely coincide with the totality of world history.” (“Against Terror”, Tempo, August 6, 1969)
Wagner: “Who gave us – both young and old – the official language of protest? Marxism, poetry and the memory of the Resistance, which revives the thoughts of Vietnam and Bolivia. Why do I regret the official language of protest that the working class, through its bourgeois ideology, has given me? Because it is a language that never forgets the idea of power and is therefore always practical and reasonable. But are not pragmatism and reason the same gods who have made our bourgeois fathers mad and idiots? Poor Wagner and Nietzsche!” (Letter to Allen Ginsberg, October 1967)
XXe siècle [20th century]: “from a horizon of our century, / the entire neighbourhood … It’s the city, / buried in a festive glow, / – it’s the world. What cries, is what / ends, and starts again. What was / field of grass, open space, and which becomes / a courtyard, white as wax.”(“The crying of the excavator “, Poésies, 1953-1964, Gallimard, 1980)
Yeux [Eyes]: “Do not delude yourself. And you, with your schools, with your television, with your quiet newspapers, you are the great conservatives of a horrible order based on possession and destruction. Be happy, you who are happy only when you can stick a label on a crime. To my eyes, this is but one of the many operations of mass culture: being unable to prevent certain events, we find peace by manufacturing custom made drawers, that once filled, are closed immediately.” (Contre la télévision, Les Solitaires intempestifs, 2003)
Zealots: “I have always been astonished and even, to tell the truth, deeply indignant at the clerical interpretation of Christ’s phrase: Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what belongs to God: an interpretation in which is concentrated all of the hypocrisy and the aberration that characterised the Church of the Counter-Reformation. It passed off – however monstrous it may seem – as moderate, cynical, and realistic a statement by Christ which was clearly radical, extremist, and perfectly religious. In fact, Christ could in no way mean to say: please everyone, do not worry about politics, reconcile the advantages of social life with the absolute character of religious life, care for the goat and the cabbage, etc. . […] By posing this extremist dichotomy, Christ pushes and invites an eternal opposition to Caesar, even if it must be non-violent (unlike that of the zealots).” (“Nouvelles perspectives historiques : l’Église est inutile au Pouvoir”, October 6, 1974)