Other Schools of Thought

“It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used.”

The Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) crowd prides itself on fidelity to actual history. But Murphy shows how leading MMT guru Randall Wray completely distorts his discussion of two historical episodes in his college lecture.

Bob challenges the conventional wisdom around Triffin’s dilemma, arguing that persistent U.S. trade deficits aren’t necessary for dollar dominance—and that Ron Paul had it right all along.

In The General Theory, J.M. Keynes allegedly “discredited” Say‘s Law. Of course, Keynes actually debunked a straw man that was a caricature of what Say actually wrote. It‘s time to set the record straight.

Jonathan Newman joins Bob to explore the archaeological evidence for silver as money in ancient Mesopotamia, challenging Modern Monetary Theory and affirming Menger’s classic account of money’s market origins.

Patrick Newman joins Bob to discuss Simon Kuznets’ role in developing GNP and GDP metrics and Kuznets’ concerns over how government spending is accounted for in economic statistics.

By omitting mercantilism, Marx could attribute its exploitative practices—particularly colonialism—directly to capitalism, reinforcing his ideological critique.

This panel exposes flawed assumptions of Modern Monetary Theory, including the origins of money, government spending, job guarantees, entrepreneurship, and economic growth.

Was Keynesianism ever truly apolitical? In this rigorous lecture, Edward W. Fuller reexamines the IS-LM model through the lens of Keynes’s political writings and reveals how modern macroeconomics inherited not just a framework—but an ideology.

The philosopher Karl Popper was a strong critic of Marx, his system, and especially his reliance on historicism. Unfortunately, as David Gordon points out, Popper supported economic interventionism as a viable “third way” for social organization.