Tenth Summer School in Political Philosophy and Public Policy

July 9 – 11

Democracy, Corporations and the Limits of the Market

University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.

https://10thsummerschoolbraga.weebly.com

I will be participating in the tenth annual summer school at Braga with Lisa Herzog, Abraham Singer, and Isabelle Ferreras.

My paper will be “Modern Monetary Theory and the Scale of the Firm”

Abstract

Modern Monetary Theory has become a recent focus of attention, partly because of its role in the Green New Deal, but it has provoked as much controversy from progressives as from conservatives. Going back to source, in the work of Minsky, MMT is both an account of the nature of money, an explanation of how sovereign monetary systems actually operate and a set of policy prescriptions. However, it would be a mistake to detach Minsky’s views of money – and his policy prescriptions – from his concrete proposals of institutional reform to put in place an economy centered on small and medium scale firms, a limited and robustly controlled financial sector, and geared towards full employment, mass consumption and low investment. This blueprint, it is argued, can be the basis for a Mill-in style defense of workplace democracy as a valuable associational form that can be left to the free choice of individuals who seek more, or less, autonomy respecting workplaces. However, a presupposition of that Millian approach is a commitment to full employment (via the state) and to policies that favor high employment over the technological replacement of labor.