Peter Cooper — Melting Some Marx Into MMT

I have been meaning for a while now to explore potential connections between Marx’s theory of value and Keynes or Kalecki-influenced approaches to macro. This is a tentative testing of the waters. It may be the first in an indefinite series of posts, sprinkled throughout the future, on correspondence between the two theoretical traditions. Then, again, it might not be. At this stage it is not clear to me how far the exercise can be taken, or how useful it might be. I know that there has been some exploration of the connections between Keynesian and Marxian approaches in the academic literature. Massimo De Angelis (here is a sample paper) and Andrew Trigg are two names that come to mind. Any posts I do here will be more exploratory and elementary by comparison. The emphasis will be on connections of a macro nature between MMT and Marx’s value categories. One point of entry appears to be the ‘monetary expression of labor time’ (MELT), introduced by Alejandro Ramos Martinez (see chapter 5 of this link), and its connection with the Modern Monetary Theorists’ ‘value of the currency’.

heteconomist.com
Melting Some Marx Into MMT
Peter Cooper