Great article! Your overall message really resonates with me as I find myself thinking more and more about how my community and others can build some level of sovereignty over food, energy, the commons, and housing to better weather the impending crises.
The one critique I would like to level at you is on the discussion of taxation and state initiatives for crucial public policy such as single-payer healthcare. States, alone, will not be able to enact a sustainable platform of major public investment. This is because they rely on either taxes or the federal government for funding. The federal government, on the other hand, is a sovereign currency issuer that has the power to fund anything it wants to. Without a robust federal funding program or hiking up taxes in a way that is extremely likely to induce capital flight- social programs that require large amounts of funding will fall apart. I do not say this to shut down discussions around improving our social programs, but rather to shift the framing of those discussions.
My perspective is heavily informed by Modern Monetary Theory. The most important lesson that MMT has taught me is that we can think very differently about what kinds of policies we can enable at the federal level using a fiat monetary system. These movements that are advocating for better social programs at the state level ARE extremely important, however, they cannot remain limited to the state level.
Great article! Your overall message really resonates with me as I find myself thinking more and more about how my community and others can build some level of sovereignty over food, energy, the commons, and housing to better weather the impending crises.
The one critique I would like to level at you is on the discussion of taxation and state initiatives for crucial public policy such as single-payer healthcare. States, alone, will not be able to enact a sustainable platform of major public investment. This is because they rely on either taxes or the federal government for funding. The federal government, on the other hand, is a sovereign currency issuer that has the power to fund anything it wants to. Without a robust federal funding program or hiking up taxes in a way that is extremely likely to induce capital flight- social programs that require large amounts of funding will fall apart. I do not say this to shut down discussions around improving our social programs, but rather to shift the framing of those discussions.
My perspective is heavily informed by Modern Monetary Theory. The most important lesson that MMT has taught me is that we can think very differently about what kinds of policies we can enable at the federal level using a fiat monetary system. These movements that are advocating for better social programs at the state level ARE extremely important, however, they cannot remain limited to the state level.