Monday, August 18, 2014

Philip Pilkington — Taxation, Government Spending, the National Debt and MMT

Phil discovers Beardsley Ruml.
The other day my friend Rohan Grey — a lawyer and one of the key organisers behind the excellent Modern Money Network (bringing Post-Keynesian economics to Columbia Law School, yes please!) — directed me to an absolutely fascinating piece of writing. It is called ‘Taxes For Revenue Are Obsolete’ and it was written in 1945 by Beardsley Ruml. Ruml was the director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank from 1937-1947 and also worked on issues of taxation at the Treasury during the war.
The article lays out the case that taxation should not be focused on revenue generation. Rather, Ruml argues, it should be thought of as serving other purposes entirely.…
Fixing the Economists
Taxation, Government Spending, the National Debt and MMT
Philip Pilkington

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good piece by Phil. WWII brought many western economists who had a more managerial and planning mindset to the forefront.