First, we never doubted each other's intentions. We both have a tendency to argue for argument's sake in us, but when we were just fighting to fight, it was fairly apparent. Second, we were very broadly aligned on essential goals and values. We wanted to make software that was a value to our customers and a viable company. Third, we shared a commitment to objectivity, subject to limits of knowledge. That is, we could dig in to understand that some ideas are better than others. As you might guess, it's in this space the battle royales took place.
If there is such a thing as a spectrum of dude archetypes, we occupy two decidedly dudeish and distinct slots. Tab's a fairly authoritarian conservative engineer type and I'm a non-Utopian libertarian physical scientist type. And while these are distinct, they're largely compatible for constructive collaboration.
One of the things that hammered a little humility into me was repeatedly being on the wrong side of Tab's intuition. He has an uncanny knack to put his finger on the critical clue or aspect of a problem. This prescience was usually revealed in a statement like "I don't know what it is or why, but I don't like it!" And while Tab certainly has things he likes, operationally, he works mainly with dislikes and things that don't register as dislikes. There is something deeply conservative about not letting your likes get the better of you.
So, for as much as I like fighting it out with Tab, I am irritated when I argue with people who lean too much on what they like and reject what they dislike. That is, they argue from ideology rather than reason. I've seen this in looking at critiques of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and it drives me nuts.
First, let me say I am not a proponent of MMT or any particular economic school. I'm not an economist, just someone broadly interested in the panoply of economies in across the globe throughout history. This is in no way a defense of MMT or policies advocated by MMT. I simply want to clear up mischaracterizations (as best as I can tell) I've see widely promulgated in critiques.
Second, we need to distinguish MMT from policy recommendations derived from MMT by its proponents. I think that the policies generate the animus, and the critics thus try to figure out how to invalidate the theory by whatever means. That said, the domain over which larger aspects of a theory is valid (or at least instructive) will limit what policies can be implemented effectively based upon said theory. With that said, let's take a look at some of the misconceptions of MMT.
The scope of MMT is, as far as I can tell fairly limited. It pertains to relatively well-run modern market economies in countries with sovereign fiat currency systems. On top of that, I think you probably have to add a relatively low level of foreign debt. If those preconditions don't exist, you're probably not talking about MMT. Warren Mosler cooked up a MMT "Grexit" strategy that would suggest my assumption about foreign debt is misplaced. I doubt that Greece could adopt a "when and if" foreign debt repayment strategy without some furious blowback from Germany and other EU creditors. But that's an experiment we can't just go out and run. Arguing that MMT applies around a Greek level of development or higher is not a critique of MMT, but rather a hypothesis about its domain of applicability.
Anyway, even if I've missed the mark a bit with the foreign debt, MMT is not a universal theory of economics, so if it doesn't explain the Great Depression or the Roman sack of Carthage, that in itself does not invalidate it as a theory. Most critics that I've read, however, grant what they would consider to be foundational truisms about MMT, but then go on to attack policies derived by MMT proponents. These take the form of "yes, a country never need default on debt issued in its fiat currency, but hyperinflation!" The problem with this sort of critique is asserting an inevitability without regard to other fiscal and monetary policies and the functioning of the markets. Yes, Venezuela (sigh) has mastered the fine art of hyperinflation, but Japan has kept a lid on things. Australia can probably experiment with MMT in ways the DRC or Somalia cannot.
A key insight of MMT, IMO, that many critics reflexively reject is the mechanism by which MMT-applicable governments pay for things: government issues debt to print money. The role of taxes is not so much to "pay for things" but take money out of the economy. People think that payroll taxes "pay for" Social Security. Do they? How do you know where a dollar paid into the Treasury came from when it comes out again? You can't know. Payroll taxes are a mechanism to use money from workers when needing to remove it from the economy via taxation. They're a story to tell. And so it goes with any Federal tax you can imagine (state and local taxes are different because those governments don't issue their own currency, of course). Taxes are a tool for policy. Now, there are plenty of fights to be had about how to pull money out of the economy to keep things balanced, but those arguments need to be made transparently in light of how fiat currency governments actually pay for things. Gold standard and other constrained currencies (e.g., pegged to some other currency) cannot work in the same way, so again, the policies that work in one domain don't apply in others.
You don't have to read very deeply or very wide in MMT literature to see that its serious proponents do not offer it as a panacea. MMT doesn't have anything to say about size of government relative to the economy, size of debts or surpluses, etc. MMT does not suggest governments can just print their way to full employment with no consequences regardless of other considerations, although policy suggestions for government-guaranteed full employment is what critics often latch on to as it's widely reviled by many conservatives and libertarians.
Would these critics hate it if such a policy actually worked? That is, the government could guarantee full employment without causing undue inflation and a sustainable economy? Around these edges you find motivated reasoning. Many would, of course, continue to hate it for their dogmatic devotion of their economic and political religions. It's very hard for people to change their minds, even in the light of evidence, absent a form of religious conversion.
Reflexive hatred of a idea, partially formed, foregoes possibility. What if the government guarantee of full employment didn't require additional government employees? What if it entailed tax cuts? There are, of course, bogus notions that can be dismissed out of hand. And, of course, good intentions and noble goals don't necessarily result in good policies and outcomes. But, well-intended people working openly, honestly, and seriously should be considered openly, honestly, and seriously. If people look to take down MMT, well, OK, but do so on the merits, not knocking down strawmen stood up in remote and irrelevant fields.
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