MMTers need to check their privilege. Chapter 7: "'Check Your Privilege': MMT's Privilege Position and Economic Destructionism," by Joshua Mawhorter. MMTers point to the United States as the monetary sovereign par excellence. Kelton: "When a country issues its own nonconvertible (fiat) currency and only borrows in its own currency, that country has attained monetary sovereignty." But Mawhorter asks a question MMTers rarely consider: How did the US achieve this privileged position in the first place? "MMT gained intellectual traction in wealthy countries—wealthy in production, with a stronger record of respecting free trade, property rights, and sound money." - p. 166 Mawhorter argues that the US attained this status through centuries of capital accumulation, private investment, and relatively sound money—not by following MMT's prescriptions. And there's another problem. MMT's chartalist theory claims that money originates with the state, particularly through taxation. But American colonial "governments could only get people to accept paper money substitutes because there was a preexisting link between the paper and the commodity money." - p. 168 MMT takes for granted the very economic institutions and accumulated wealth that its policies would undermine. This brings us to the Mawhorter's most important point: capital doesn't automatically sustain itself. As Mises put it, "Capital does not reproduce itself." - quoted on p. 172 Capital goods must be maintained, replaced, and accumulated through saving and investment. Diverting resources toward present consumption (see Patrick Newman's chapter) can create the appearance of prosperity while actually consuming the economy's capital stock. Mises called this economic destructionism. MMTers pay lip service to the fact that the government cannot print real resources. But they ignore how monetary expansion, taxation, and government spending can distort economic calculation, discourage capital accumulation, and waste productive resources. MMT "is a theory of unacknowledged privilege built atop foundations it would destroy." - p. 183 What happens to the dollar's privileged position if those foundations are gradually eroded? Read the full chapter here: mises.org/library/book/anti-…