Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Projects
    • Corporate Taxation in a Globalised Era
    • US Election 2020
    • The Transformation of Work
    • The Coronavirus Crisis and the Welfare State
    • Just Transition
    • Artificial intelligence, work and society
    • What is inequality?
    • Europe 2025
    • The Crisis Of Globalisation
  • Audiovisual
    • Audio Podcast
    • Video Podcasts
    • Social Europe Talk Videos
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Shop
  • Membership
  • Ads
  • Newsletter

The Promise Of Fiscal Money

by Yanis Varoufakis on 6th September 2017 @yanisvaroufakis

TwitterFacebookLinkedIn
Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis

Western capitalism has few sacred cows left. It is time to question one of them: the independence of central banks from elected governments.

The rationale for entrusting monetary policy fully to central banks is well understood: politicians, overly tempted during the electoral cycle to create more money, pose a threat to economic stability. While progressives have always protested that central banks can never be truly independent, because their autonomy from elected officials increases their dependence on the financiers they are meant to keep in check, the argument in favor of removing monetary policy from democratic politics has prevailed since the 1970s.

Setting aside the political controversy, central bank independence is predicated on an economic axiom: that money and debt (or credit) are strictly separable. Debt – for example, a government or corporate bond that is bought and sold for a price that is a function of inflation and default risk – can be traded domestically. Money, on the other hand, cannot default and is a means, rather than an object, of exchange (the currency market notwithstanding).

But this axiom no longer holds. With the rise of financialization, commercial banks have become increasingly reliant on one another for short-term loans, mostly backed by government bonds, to finance their daily operations. This liquidity acquires familiar properties: used as a means of exchange and as a store of value, it becomes a form of money.

And there’s the rub: as banks issue more inter-bank money, the financial system requires more government bonds to back the increase. The growing inter-bank money supply fuels demand for government debt, in a never-ending cycle that generates tides of liquidity over which central banks have little control.

In this brave new financial world, central banks’ independence is becoming meaningless, because the money they create represents a shrinking share of the total money supply. With the rise of inter-bank money, backed mostly by government debt, fiscal policy has become an essential factor in determining the quantity of actual money lubricating modern capitalism.

Indeed, the more independent a central bank is, the greater the role of fiscal policy in determining the quantity of money in an economy. For example, in the eurozone, Germany’s tight fiscal policy is creating a shortage of bunds (German government bonds), which is limiting both the European Central Bank’s capacity to implement its quantitative easing policy and commercial banks’ ability to produce more inter-bank money. Money and government debt are now so intertwined that the analytical basis for central bank autonomy has disappeared.

Of course, any attempt to bring treasuries and central banks back under one roof would expose politicians to accusations of trying to get their grubby hands on the levers of monetary policy. But another response to the new reality is available: Leave central banks alone, but give governments a greater say in domestic money creation – and, indeed, greater independence from the central bank – by establishing a parallel payments system based on fiscal money or, more precisely, money backed by future taxes.

How would fiscal money work? For starters, it would “live” on the tax authority’s digital platform, using the existing tax file numbers of individuals and companies. Anyone with a tax file number (TFN) in some country receives a free account linked to their TFN. Individuals and firms will then be able to add credit to their TFN-linked account by transferring money from their normal bank account, in the same way that they do today to pay their taxes. And they will do so well in advance of tax payments because the state guarantees to extinguish in, say, a year €1,080 ($1,289) of the tax owed for every €1,000 transferred today – an effective annual interest rate of 8% payable to those willing to pay their taxes a year early.

In practice, once, say, €1,000 has been transferred to one’s TFN-linked account, a personal identification number (the familiar PIN) is issued, which can be used either to transfer the €1,000 credit to someone else’s TFN-linked account or to pay taxes in the future. These time-stamped future tax euros, or fiscal euros, can be held for a year until maturity or be used to make payments to other taxpayers. Smartphone apps and even government-issued cards (doubling as, say, social security ID) will make the transactions easy, fast, and virtually indistinguishable from other transactions involving central bank money.

In this closed payments system, as fiscal money approaches maturity, taxpayers not in possession of that vintage will fuel rising demand for it. To ensure the system’s viability, the Treasury would control the total supply of fiscal money, using the effective interest rate to guarantee that the nominal value of the total supply never exceeds a percentage of national income, or of aggregate taxes, agreed by the legislature. To ensure full transparency, and thus trust, a blockchain algorithm, designed and supervised by an independent national authority, could settle transactions in fiscal money.

The advantages of fiscal money are legion. It would provide a source of liquidity for governments, bypassing the bond markets. It would limit the extent to which government borrowing fuels inter-bank money creation, or at least force financiers to tie up some of their inter-bank money in the closed, domestic fiscal money system, thereby minimizing shocks from sudden capital flight. And, by competing with the banks’ payment system, it would reduce the cost of fees customers currently pay.

Indeed, owing to the blockchain technology, fiscal money constitutes a fully transparent, transaction-cost-free, public payment system monitored jointly by every citizen (and non-citizen) who participates in it.

Fiscal money is politically attractive as well. Governments could use any slack in money supply to top up the FTN-linked accounts of families in need, or to pay for public works, making it appealing to progressives. And conservatives should be encouraged by a system that promises significant tax relief for those who help the government create fiscal money, without impinging on the central bank’s role in setting interest rates.

The potential transnational advantages of fiscal money are also significant. For example, fiscal money would have helped Greece resist our creditors’ encroachments in 2015, and it was at the heart of my plan for dealing with a predatory bank holiday enforced by the ECB at the end of that June. Today, it would give Italy, France, and other eurozone members much needed fiscal space, and possibly provide a foundation for a revamped eurozone with interlocking domestic fiscal euros, rather than parallel currencies, playing a stabilizing macroeconomic role. And then, perhaps, it could become the basis for a New Bretton Woods, functioning like an overarching clearing union of many different fiscal money systems.

Republication forbidden. Copyright: Project Syndicate 2017 The Promise of Fiscal Money

TwitterFacebookLinkedIn
Home ・ The Promise Of Fiscal Money

Filed Under: Economy Tagged With: ProSyn

About Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, is leader of the MeRA25 party and professor of economics at the University of Athens.

Partner Ads

Most Popular Posts

sovereignty Brexit and the misunderstanding of sovereignty Peter Verovšek
globalisation of labour,deglobalisation The first global event in the history of humankind Branko Milanovic
centre-left, Democratic Party The Biden victory and the future of the centre-left EJ Dionne Jr
Covid 19 vaccine Designing vaccines for people, not profits Mariana Mazzucato, Henry Lishi Li and Els Torreele
eurozone recovery, recovery package, Financial Stability Review, BEAST Light in the tunnel or oncoming train? Adam Tooze

Other Social Europe Publications

US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era
The transformation of work
The coronavirus crisis and the welfare state
Whither Social Rights in (Post-)Brexit Europe?

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Read FEPS Covid Response Papers

In this moment, more than ever, policy-making requires support and ideas to design further responses that can meet the scale of the problem. FEPS contributes to this reflection with policy ideas, analysis of the different proposals and open reflections with the new FEPS Covid Response Papers series and the FEPS Covid Response Webinars. The latest FEPS Covid Response Paper by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, 'Recovering from the pandemic: an appraisal of lessons learned', provides an overview of the failures and successes in dealing with Covid-19 and its economic aftermath. Among the authors: Lodewijk Asscher, László Andor, Estrella Durá, Daniela Gabor, Amandine Crespy, Alberto Botta, Francesco Corti, and many more.


CLICK HERE

Social Europe Publishing book

The Brexit endgame is upon us: deal or no deal, the transition period will end on January 1st. With a pandemic raging, for those countries most affected by Brexit the end of the transition could not come at a worse time. Yet, might the UK's withdrawal be a blessing in disguise? With its biggest veto player gone, might the European Pillar of Social Rights take centre stage? This book brings together leading experts in European politics and policy to examine social citizenship rights across the European continent in the wake of Brexit. Will member states see an enhanced social Europe or a race to the bottom?

'This book correctly emphasises the need to place the future of social rights in Europe front and centre in the post-Brexit debate, to move on from the economistic bias that has obscured our vision of a progressive social Europe.' Michael D Higgins, president of Ireland


MORE INFO

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Renewing labour relations in the German meat industry: an end to 'organised irresponsibility'?

Over the course of 2020, repeated outbreaks of Covid-19 in a number of large German meat-processing plants led to renewed public concern about the longstanding labour abuses in this industry. New legislation providing for enhanced inspection on health and safety, together with a ban on contract work and limitations on the use of temporary agency employees, holds out the prospect of a profound change in employment practices and labour relations in the meat industry. Changes in the law are not sufficient, on their own, to ensure decent working conditions, however. There is also a need to re-establish the previously high level of collective-bargaining coverage in the industry, underpinned by an industry-wide collective agreement extended by law to cover the entire sector.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2020

All chapters of Social policy in the EU: state of play 2020 consider the consequences of the unfolding public-health crisis. Contributors were asked not only to analyse key developments in the EU social agenda during 2019 but also to describe the initial Covid 19-driven EU and domestic policies between January and July 2020. The European Social Observatory (OSE) has again worked closely with the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and renowned scholars to draw up this edition. We aim to contribute to the debate among policy-makers, social stakeholders and the research community, while providing accessible information and analysis for practitioners and students of European integration. This year’s Bilan social complements the 20th-anniversary issue of the ETUI’s Benchmarking Working Europe, a state-of-the-art analysis of the impact of the pandemic on the world of work.


FREE DOWNLOAD

Eurofound advertisement

Industrial relations: developments 2015-2019

Eurofound has monitored and analysed developments in industrial relations systems at EU level and in EU member states for over 40 years. This new flagship report provides an overview of developments in industrial relations and social dialogue in the years immediately prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. Findings are placed in the context of the key developments in EU policy affecting employment, working conditions and social policy, and linked to the work done by social partners—as well as public authorities—at European and national levels.


CLICK FOR MORE INFO

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Find Social Europe Content

Search Social Europe

Project Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

.EU Web Awards