An MMT economist is someone who understands that the government picks the unemployment rate. And given that people suffer and die when involuntary unemployment is above zero, it makes sense to pick zero.

1/5

Therefore maybe the onus for making the case for the suffering-and-dying policy (the one where we make sure there will always be unemployed people to control prices) should not be on the advocates of the not-suffering-and-dying policy (the Job Guarantee).

2/5

Having a money system is government intervention, and implementing a Job Guarantee to make sure there is no residual involuntary unemployment as a consequence is as close to non-intervention as we can get, given we want government to be able provision itself*.

3/5

More here:

http://pileusmmt.libsyn.com/website/what-is-the-job-guarantee

https://pileusmmt.libsyn.com/mmt-podcast-ep-47-pavlina-tcherneva

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAIBER 

4/5

[*I hate to incur the wrath of libertarians, but surely even a “night-watchman state” needs to be able to provision itself, right?]

5/5