How new is Modern Money Theory?

Let me tell you a story...

In the US Civil War Abraham Lincoln was running out of money to pay the troops. He went to the Rothschilds and other bankers who would happily lend him the money at an interest rate of 24% to 34% ...

which was going to put the Union side in debt to the banks forever. Abe was smart and issued the Greenback instead, a dollar created by the government for the interest free use of the population. In his own words...

"The government should create issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers ...

...The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied...

The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration...

The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power. "(Senate document 23, Page 91. 1865)

How did the banks react?

The Rothschilds were outraged. From the Times of London in 1865

"If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost....

It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedence in the history of the civilised governments of the world...

The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe."

So there we have it. MMT is the democratic solution to funding our civilisation, but it is hated by ...

the banks, monarchs, authoritarians and all those who want to use debt as a tool to maintain their dominance at your expense.

MMT is far from being a theory, it is a battle tested (literally) alternative to debt and austerity based economies.
#MMT

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The plot thickens.

Despite being widely reported on the internet, the quotes I found have led to charges of apocrypha, so I did some more research.

The following is considered by multiple sources to be historically accurate...

Lincoln did introduce the Greenback- a government created money.
He did believe the ability to create money should be under democratically elected government control
The Democrats at the time mostly rejected the idea of a national bank and preferred private banks issuing gold ...

Lincoln, as a Whig, firmly defended a principle of a national bank. n.b. Lincoln stood as a Whig for a state assembly seat in New Salem, Illinois.
Lincoln did indeed defend the provision of a sound currency for the benefit of the citizens of the republic ...

Lincoln did promote the provision of a sound currency for the benefit of the citizens of the republic.
“No duty is more imperative on that government, than the duty it owes the people, of furnishing them a sound and uniform currency,” he said in 1839. https://bankingjournal.aba.com/2018/02/lincoln-and-the-banks/

Lincoln and his treasury secretary, Salmon P. Chase did find the cost of the Civil War unsupportable and sought funding from large commercial banks in New York. The banks wanted to cover their risk by charging very high interest rates, figures between 20% to 36% are noted ...

and it would be a strange bank indeed that did not want to cover its risk in war time. As it became clear that these banks did not have the reserves to meet the governments needs, Lincoln sought international finance before turning to a fiat currency...

In the formation of the national bank, the sole issuer of the Greenback currency, Lincoln did indeed seek to provide a system of money creation for the benefit of all...

"The national system," Lincoln declared in this State of the Union message of 1864, "will create a reliable and permanent influence in support of the national credit and protect the people against losses in the use of paper money." https://www.occ.gov/about/who-we-are/history/founding-occ-national-bank-system/lincoln-and-the-founding-of-the-national-banking-system.html

So despite a question over the quotes I used, the core message remains the same. MMT's description of money creation is not a new theory, and the benefits of a democratically controlled currency in the service of the population have been proven historically.

On the Rothschilds and other banks.

Wisely the Rothschilds decided not to support either side of the war.
Other financiers were less risk averse, for example, Jay Cooke, a Whig congressman, worked on the national bank project and increased his own wealth significantly ...

in the process.
On the European front, and particularly in London, there were multiple concerns over the US national system. One of the substantive reasons for this concern was that British sympathy for the sides of the Civil War broke on strictly class lines...

The land owning wealthy aristocracy favoured and lobbied for the Confederacy, the working and middle classes supported the Union. So there was a very real motive for the British ruling classes to find covert ways of defeating the currency that saved the Union...

So despite the British governments official stance of neutrality serious attempts were made by the British, more specifically London financiers, to break the US currency. This included counterfeiting on a massive scale....

Finally, I reject the assertion of antisemitism on my behalf made by some. Anyone who has followed me for any length of time will be aware this is not in any way an accurate characterisation.