Don’t know why he wastes time criticizing him since JT doesn’t do anything wrong. Also really funny that him and other commenters are complaining about The Deprogram being like Chapo.
Upon deeper research, it turns out Day used to post on the subreddit to dunk on BadEmpanada, which is funny since Day himself has strong BadEmpanada vibes.
I like JT generally but I agree with Roderic here. In context, that video is just responding directly to the bullshit debt ceiling, but it’s limitations are built into the framework of trying to speak how capitalism fans understand. MMT is not just a small step or so but a major distraction in many ways.
Class power is hidden by MMT in both idea and in action. It’s usefulness will always be limited to a way which is less beneficial to the working class than to capitalists because it undermines/restructures nothing.
My point here is not that it’s ontologically wrong or so but that it’s a harmful distraction from better paths forward to win. I think there are some concessions which are worth fighting for, and these are all directly fought for. MMT is something one can argue for to reach those concessions, and possibly get some of them, but leads to only misunderstandings among the working class for HOW those concessions are won. Edit: my point about distractions is that not all concessions are distractions, only the concessions which aren’t directly related to any material gain. MMT is a method of getting concessions which I find entirely tangential to any real power
The bourgeoisie won’t give concessions, MMT or not, without the other much more important things to discuss and push for, like class struggle
he’s kinda right, MMT is just social democracy with a hat on. In fact, I don’t see how it’s even much different from Keynesianism that even Liberals almost universally accepted until the Neoliberal era of Reagan
He’s right, but JT’s role is selling baby leftists on Marxist topics. A big part of that is convincing people a better world is possible. Roderic is just an overzealous dick. Should save his energy for radlibs.
Lots of places in the world don’t require a baby succ stage and people just get trained in Marxism right away. Why can’t we just do that and skip the cringe stage?
Because we live at the center of the imperial world where the first step is even getting people to think about things like they are an imperial system, let alone how we in the imperial core are getting fucked by that imperial system.
That being said, Day is completely correct here. But that doesn’t mean that JT is wrong.
We’ve been trying the succ dem slow pipeline for 200 years in the West and it hasn’t worked. Maybe it’s time for a different strategy than slowly “waking” up Liberals with social democracy, because all evidence shows that most just remain social democrats
Critiquing =/= attacking. Marxists can and should critique each other.
This reads far more like an attack than a critique though.
Look I don’t know how useful or “good” is it to be extremely aggro on twitter/nitter like Roderic usually is, but he’s right.
I can never really fault him for it, it’s a dumb social media and there’s not much point to it if you don’t actually engage with people and are able to criticize what they say, especially when talking about influencial people with a platform. And yea, he’s very aggro, but his original response is not really directed at JP as a person, just angry and critical at the ideas he’s peddling, and for good reason.
JP’s reponse is a pretty typical one for western leftists. Criticism is seen as an attack, it is always reinterpreted in an individualistic lens. Attacking someone’s really dumb or dangerous idea is immediately rolled back with “woah there calm down maybe you could be civil” as if the person criticizing is being mean, rude, or violent, when often (as is the case here) that’s not the case. If you’re going to talk about political things and ideas like there, and someone tells you publically “This is completely wrong and dangerous what the fuck”, your response shouldn’t be “Why are you attacking me?”. Criticism is not a conflict, it’s not a fight, it’s not personal, and it is extremely important and necessary.
I think RD is being a bit too debatebroish with this. I just watched JTs video and didn’t really see anything wrong with it, I don’t think he’s presenting it as this end all be all solution, just as a tool to get us to communism. He also made it clear he’s aware that MMT would have severe limitations in a capitalist state.
I just watched JTs video and didn’t really see anything wrong with it, I don’t think he’s presenting it as this end all be all solution, just as a tool to get us to communism.
my understanding is MMT doesn’t work in countries outside the imperial core because they don’t have currency sovereignty. MMT theorists are basically describing the USA leveraging its dollar hegemony.
