Ep 21: Ryan Mathis: There is nothing "natural" about society's laws

Welcome to episode 21 of Activist #MMT. Today is part two of my conversation with fifth-year MMT activist Ryan Mathis, who is a first-year law student at the University of Austin, Texas. At twenty-three years old, he is one of the younger members of the millennial generation. Ryan and I continue our conversation about changing our corrupt institutions. Then we turn to MMT and discuss the basics of the labor theory of value versus the state theory of money, and end with an in-depth discussion on the "natural"-ness of land ownership and society's laws. A full introduction can be found before part one. This is a special two-part episode with part one being released simultaneously on the podcast Historic.ly, and part two on my own Activist #MMT. #EARTHRISE April 22nd marks the 50th Anniversary of the Earth Day Network. Unless we make drastic changes, very quickly, we now face potential climate and societal collapse. I, Jeff Epstein of Activist #MMT, and my fellow podcast hosts Steven Grumbine of Macro and Cheese, Geoff Ginter of MMT Mondays, and Christian Reilly and Patricia Pino of MMT Podcast in the UK, we all join PhD economist Fadhel Kaboub and organizer and Australia resident George Topalides, for #MMT4EarthDay2020. This is a global effort to bring MMTers together with various environmental activist groups, in order to discuss policies that will actually help to prevent and mitigate the depth of the crises we face, and to do so in a way that does not hide behind or become sabotaged by economic falsehoods. On April 15th MMTers march online. On April 22nd, we all come together to #EARTHRISE. You can find out more at earthrise2020.org, and facebook.com/MMTEarthDay2020. #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. Also, the pinned post on Modern Monetary for Real Progressives contains a wealth of information. 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 🦉