Response to Doug Henwood’s Trolling in Jacobin

Doug Henwood has posted up at Jacobin an MMT critique that amounts to little more than a character assassination.

道格·亨伍德 (Doug Henwood) 在雅各宾网站上发表了一篇 MMT 批评，其内容无异于人格诽谤。

It is what I’d expect of him in his reincarnation as a Neoliberal critic of progressive thought.

这正是我对他转世作为进步思想的新自由主义批评家的期望。

( https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/modern-monetary-theory-isnt-helping ).

（https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/modern-monetary-theory-isnt-helping）。

It adopts all the usual troll methodology: guilt by association, taking statements out of context, and paraphrasing (wrongly) without citation.

它采用了所有常见的巨魔方法：联想有罪、断章取义、在没有引用的情况下（错误地）解释。

According to Henwood, MMT is tainted by Warren Mosler’s experience as a hedge fund manager.

亨伍德认为，现代货币理论受到沃伦·莫斯勒作为对冲基金经理的经历的影响。

Beardsley Ruml (father of tax withholding and chairman of the NYFed, who argued correctly that “taxes for revenue are obsolete”) is dismissed because he was chair of Macy’s ( and Director of the NYFed—Macy’s still has a director on the NYFed) and because he argued that the corporate tax is a bad tax (his main arguments were later advanced by Musgrave&Musgrave , the textbook on public finance, by Hyman Minsky, and by me in the second edition of my Primer ).

Beardsley Ruml（预扣税之父、纽约联邦储备银行主席，他正确地指出“收入税已经过时”）被解雇，因为他是梅西百货公司的主席（也是纽约联邦储备银行的董事——梅西百货仍然在纽约联邦储备银行有一名董事），并且因为他认为公司税是一种不好的税（他的主要论点后来由海曼的公共财政教科书《Musgrave&Musgrave》提出）明斯基，以及我在我的入门书第二版中写的）。

Oh, Ruml must not know anything about either taxes or central banking because he was a corporate stooge.

哦，鲁姆尔肯定对税收或中央银行业务一无所知，因为他是一个企业傀儡。

Never mind that he was a New Dealer who helped to organize the New Deal plans for projects all over the country.

别介意他是一名新政官员，帮助组织了全国各地项目的新政计划。

And a PhD who authored several books and who was the Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.

他是一位博士，撰写了多本书，并且担任芝加哥大学社会科学系主任。

He must be an ignoramus when it comes to taxes and central banking because he does not adopt Henwood’s belief that the sovereign government of the United States must rely on the taxes that come from corporations and rich folk.

当谈到税收和中央银行业务时，他一定是一个无知的人，因为他不接受亨伍德的信念，即美国的主权政府必须依赖来自企业和富人的税收。

Such is the depth of Henwood’s argument against MMT.

这就是亨伍德反对现代货币理论的深度。

It amounts to little more than a series of baseless ad hominem attacks.

这只不过是一系列毫无根据的人身攻击。

I used to respect Henwood in his earlier role as editor of the Left Business Observer and indeed we enjoyed a good relationship, often corresponding on progressive issues.

我曾经很尊重亨伍德，当时他担任《左翼商业观察家》的编辑，事实上我们关系很好，经常就进步问题进行通信。

He disappeared from the scene some decades ago and I thought he had died.

几十年前他就从现场消失了，我以为他已经死了。

However, he reappeared recently as a troll arguing in blog commentary against MMT.

然而，他最近以巨魔的身份再次出现，在博客评论中反对现代货币理论。

His rants were largely incoherent and as we say in economics, orthogonal to anything MMT actually says.

他的咆哮基本上语无伦次，正如我们在经济学中所说的那样，与现代货币理论实际上所说的任何内容都是正交的。

He has apparently suffered the fate of many aging Marxists—after years of fighting the good fight against capitalism they realize they’ve accomplished little and decide to instead engage the progressives on the argument that all is hopeless.

他显然遭受了许多老年马克思主义者的命运——在与资本主义进行了多年的斗争之后，他们意识到自己几乎没有取得什么成就，并决定转而与进步派接触，认为一切都没有希望。

Apparently, Jacobin assigned to him the task of destroying MMT.

显然，雅各宾派给他摧毁MMT的任务。

My name is mentioned 17 times in Henwood’s article—I think that is more than anyone else.

亨伍德的文章中提到我的名字 17 次——我认为这比其他任何人都多。

The magazine is publishing the attack without any offer of a response.

该杂志发表了这一攻击事件，但没有做出任何回应。

That is quite typical when it comes to diatribes against MMT—dating all the way back to my first book in 1998 ( Understanding Modern Money —the first academic book on MMT.

当涉及到对 MMT 的谩骂时，这是非常典型的——可以追溯到我 1998 年的第一本书（《理解现代货币》——第一本关于 MMT 的学术书籍。

The editor of the main Post Keynesian journal published a critique of the book—by Perry Mehrling, someone with no Post Keynesian credentials–without giving me an opportunity to respond in the same issue, and then declined to even let me have a response in a later issue.

后凯恩斯主义主要期刊的编辑发表了对这本书的评论——作者是没有后凯恩斯主义资格的佩里·梅尔林——没有给我在同一期中做出回应的机会，然后甚至拒绝让我在下一期中做出回应。

This is the way academics has dealt with MMT from the beginning—any critique, no matter how groundless, will be featured and no response will be allowed.

这就是学术界从一开始就对待现代货币理论的方式——任何批评，无论多么毫无根据，都会受到关注，并且不允许任何回应。

And so it goes.

事情就是这样。

As Jacobin did not give me a chance to respond, I’m penning this for NEP.

由于雅各宾没有给我回应的机会，我为新经济政策写下了这篇文章。

These are my responses and none of the other MMTers Henwood has trolled in his piece should be implicated.

这些是我的回应，亨伍德在他的文章中攻击过的其他 MMT 人不应受到牵连。

I’m sure that all of them—Kelton, Tcherneva, Mosler, Tymoigne, Fullwiler, Dantas, Galbraith, and Mitchell—can defend themselves ably and with more nuance and respect than I can.

我确信他们所有人——凯尔顿、切尔内瓦、莫斯勒、蒂莫瓦涅、福尔维勒、丹塔斯、加尔布雷斯和米切尔——都能比我更巧妙、更细致和更尊重地为自己辩护。

Me, I detest trolls and I cannot hide my distaste.

我，我讨厌巨魔，我无法掩饰我的厌恶。

In any event, here are some of the topics I would address if I had been given a chance to respond.

无论如何，如果有机会回答的话，以下是我会讨论的一些话题。

Henwood and Jacobin align themselves against the new wave of activists who have embraced MMT and the Job Guarantee as integral to the Green New Deal program.

亨伍德和雅各宾反对新一波的积极分子，他们将现代货币理论和就业保障视为绿色新政计划的组成部分。

These new progressives want to tax rich people, too, not because Uncle Sam needs the money but because the rich are too rich.

这些新进步派也想对富人征税，不是因为山姆大叔需要钱，而是因为富人太富有了。

Henwood wants us to believe that Government needs inequality.

亨伍德希望我们相信政府需要不平等。

We’ve got to cater to the rich.

我们必须迎合富人。

They get to veto our progressive policies.

他们可以否决我们的进步政策。

If there weren’t rich folk, we’d never be able to afford a New Deal.

如果没有富人，我们永远负担不起新政。

We only get the policies they are willing to fund.

我们只得到他们愿意资助的保单。

If we actually did tax away their riches, government would go broke.

如果我们真的对他们的财富征税，政府就会破产。

As Kelton puts it, people like Henwood think money grows on rich people.

正如凯尔顿所说，像亨伍德这样的人认为富人会赚钱。

For far too long left-leaning Democrats have had a close symbiotic relationship with the rich.

长期以来，左倾民主党人与富人有着密切的共生关系。

They’ve needed the “good” rich folk, like George Soros, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Bob Rubin, to fund their think tanks and political campaigns.

他们需要乔治·索罗斯、比尔·盖茨、沃伦·巴菲特、鲍勃·鲁宾等“好”富人来资助他们的智囊团和政治竞选活动。

The centrist Clinton wing, has repaid the generosity of Wall Street’s neoliberals with deregulation that allowed the CEOs to shovel money to themselves, vastly increasing inequality and their own power.

克林顿中间派通过放松管制来回报华尔街新自由主义者的慷慨，允许首席执行官们向自己私吞资金，从而大大增加了不平等和他们自己的权力。

And they in turn rewarded Hillary—who by her own account accepted whatever money they would throw in her direction.

他们反过来奖励希拉里——根据她自己的说法，希拉里接受了他们向她提供的任何资金。

Today’s progressives won’t fall into that trap.

今天的进步人士不会落入这个陷阱。

“How ya gonna pay for it?” Through a budget authorization.

“你要怎么付钱？”通过预算授权。

Uncle Sam can afford it without the help of the rich.

山姆大叔无需富人的帮助也能负担得起。

And, by the way, they’re going to tax you anyway, because you’ve got too much—too much income, too much wealth, too much power.

顺便说一句，他们无论如何都会向你征税，因为你拥有太多——太多的收入、太多的财富、太多的权力。

What will we do with the tax revenue?

我们将如何处理税收收入？

Burn it.

烧掉它。

Uncle Sam doesn’t need your money.

山姆大叔不需要你的钱。

In reality, taxes just lead to debits to bank accounts.

事实上，税收只会导致银行账户被借记。

We’ll just knock 3 or 5 zeros off the accounts of the rich.

我们只会从富人的账户上删除 3 到 5 个零。

Of course, double entry bookkeeping means we also need to knock zeros off the debts held by the rich—so we’ll wipe zeros off the student loan debts, the mortgage debts, the auto loan debts, and the credit card debts of American households.

当然，复式记账意味着我们还需要将富人持有的债务清零，这样我们就可以将美国家庭的学生贷款债务、抵押贷款债务、汽车贷款债务和信用卡债务清零。

Yes, debt cancellation, too.

是的，债务取消也是如此。

The new breed of progressive politician—represented by Bernie and Alexandria—doesn’t need corporate funding, either.

以伯尼和亚历山大为代表的新一代进步政治家也不需要企业资金。

And they certainly don’t need Henwood’s scolding.

他们当然不需要亨伍德的责骂。