Money on the Left

Abstract

Money on the Left Kate Siegfried Money on the Left podcast. Hosted by William Saas, Maxximilian Seijo, and Scott Ferguson. Podcast audio, 2018–2021, https://moneyontheleft.org/podcast/. The Money on the Left podcast explores money as a key tool in the fight for a more just world. Hosted by Scott Ferguson, William Saas, and Maxximilian Seijo, Money on the Left features discussions with humanities scholars, economists, activists, and legal experts to explore topics including debt, money, monetary imperialism, the relationship between art, labor, and money, gender and labor, predatory finance, race and money, and contemporary political struggles. Through such discussions, Money on the Left aims to “reclaim money’s public powers for imaginative intersectional politics.”1 Although discussions hosted by Money on the Left explore a wide range of topics, the primary theoretical framework engaged is modern monetary theory (MMT). As an economic framework that positions money as a public good, MMT offers innovative resources for solving pressing social, political, and economic issues from a perspective rooted in social justice. Given Money on the Left’s robust and dynamic engagement with money, the podcast performs a key tenant animating MMT: that money is an object that requires sustained cultural, economic, and political engagement to understand its role in society as it exists, as well as its potential role in the becoming of a new world. This approach is a departure from that generally taken in neoclassical economics in which money is understood as a neutral technology that merely operates at the beckoning call of other economic forces. From this perspective, money is not understood as an object worthy of focused attention on its own terms because it has nothing unique to reveal about the operation of finance. Rather than taking money for granted as a finite and private resource, those engaged in MMT approach money from a neochartalist perspective in which money is [End Page 131] understood as a tool for public power without any inherent limit.2 In essence, rather than asking if we can afford public goods such as universal health care, a jobs guarantee, universal child care, or a Green New Deal, MMT assumes that affordability is not at issue (and in fact, that to use affordability as the primary rhetorical framework through which to argue over potential implementation is immoral).3 Instead, this shifts the argumentative framework to questions surrounding implementation and how to best address existing public needs. Indeed, in the first episode, the hosts describe MMT as a framework that demonstrates “that money is always and everywhere a boundless public utility, as well as a deliberate cultural, political, and ecological project,” rather than figuring “money as a politically neutral commodity invented a long time ago.”4 It is important to note that such an approach not only demonstrates the social function of money, but also opens new doors for exploring the utility of money in resolving the specific ways austerity and scarcity presently animate public life.5 By positioning money as a public utility, Money on the Left and MMT more broadly raises the fundamental question of who the public is, a conversation that rhetoricians should unboundedly engage as this is also a fundamental line of disciplinary inquiry. As MMT debunks financial assumptions regarding the affordability of public services, the primary questions at hand become who are these services for and how will they be implemented. For example, if universal health care were implemented, would it only be available to citizens of the United States, or would it be available to all people living within the confines of the country? Questions such as this are brought to the foreground as MMT opens new rhetorical frameworks by shifting the argumentative structure from affordability to implementation. As demonstrated by the conversations hosted on Money on the Left, questions of policy implementation, as made possible through the use of money as a public utility, are political at heart and cut to the essence of who counts in a just society. For example, one episode of Money on the Left features a discussion about the music industry with Alex Williams, who is an economist, musician, and the producer of Money on the Left.6 The discussion hinges...