Kelton begins her explanation with a basic opposition with which many of us are likely familiar – that the government budget is not like our household budget because it is the issuer of its own currency. The aim of this review is to first summarize her basic argument, before turning to both its promise and possible points of tension with the various forms of progressive political praxis frequently debated in geography. While she never quite illustrates how a ‘people’s economy’ has been or might be born, she does elaborate on the policy implications of MMT. The deliberate choice of the word ‘myth’ in her title is apt: one of the strengths of Kelton’s work is how deeply it undercuts the mythos of austerity that has unnecessarily constrained government fiscal policy for so long. Kelton’s book is targeted to a broad audience-and appropriately so-as she colors the outlines of MMT with various diagrams, metaphors, and personal stories. Stephanie Kelton’s The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy provides an enjoyable and accessible (though often repetitive) condensation of the emergence of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) over the last twenty years or so, and what it means for the Left’s version of economic populism.
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