Ep11: Johnny Akzam: "Money is an arbitrary representation of value"

Welcome to episode eleven of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with federal job guarantee advocate and third-year MMT activist, Johnny Akzam (Twitter/@JohnnyAkzam). In a race reminiscent of the 2016 presidential campaign, Johnny was a candidate in 2017 in Minnesota‘s first Congressional district. After years of being under democratic control, the local Democratic party put up a centrist candidate who worked in the intelligence community and Obama administration. Johnny was defeated in the primary, and the centrist was defeated by the Republican in the general. Despite the loss, the experience gave Johnny the opportunity to be interviewed by Joe Firestone on Real Progressives, where he discovered Modern Monetary Theory. Although new to him, MMT solved mysteries that he had been thinking about for many years. Specifically, he knew that something was wrong with the order of operations. Where does money really come from? Who really needs money from who? Johnny and I also discuss his advice for less experienced activists, his job guarantee advocacy organization, Fight For FJG, and how a local municipal government might answer the question, “if money were no object, what are the most important things you would do to help your community?“ #LearnMMT For an overview of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) with many reliable sources to learn more, here is a good place to start: On the web: My layperson intro with many expert sources listed at the bottom. On Twitter: My massive pinned tweet with expert sources and layperson tutorials. On Facebook: Follow this podcast :) The pinned post contains the above web-article. Please become a monthly patron of Activist #MMT We shouldn't have to beg, but we do have to beg. So it's not *that* we beg, but *who* we beg. I am choosing to beg you, my listeners, to financially support this show. $1 patrons are very much appreciated. Every little bit helps. Thank you. $5 patrons get exclusive access to episodes (generally) four days before they are released to the public, and exclusive "patron only remixes". $10 patrons get much earlier access to episodes – sometimes weeks in advance. To be clear, all episodes of Activist #MMT are free for all, forever. Patrons only get the opportunity to hear them before the public. Take a listen. If you like what you hear, thank you for considering becoming a patron of Activist #MMT (here: https://www.patreon.com/activistmmt). ✌️, ❤️, and #MMT 🦉