I teach a fairly niche (but rapidly growing) area of economics called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). It has the potential to save the world.

When I say it can save the world, I mean that literally, because the current approach, called neoliberal economics, assumes unlimited growth and consuming unlimited resources. But the earth's resources are finite - and we are paying the price for not realising that.

Anyway, my point is this: when I opened my computer this morning I wrote down the following sentence. "When we learn we change ourselves but when we learn together we change the world."

It sounds trite when I read it back, but I it sums up what I'm trying to achieve with my MMT Substack. At its core, MMT tells us that it is not finances that are scarce, it is the world's resources: people, knowledge, raw materials, hospitals, factories and so on.

You probably don’t know this, but countries like the US and the UK issue their own currency: they can't run out. Finances are not scarce. That doesn't mean they can spend without constraint - because if you try to buy scarce resources you will push up their price (i.e. you cause inflation).

But what it means is that we can decide what are things we need to spend on that will save our planet and save ourselves. We can spend on the things that result in us living our best lives, making the best of our talents, we can spend on things that allow us the space to think and be creative.

We can have a wellbeing economy if we want one.

This knowledge helps you to hold your politicians to account: they are telling you lies when they say that there is no money left. They probably don't know they are telling lies - because they have no clue how government spending works - but nonetheless –  they are telling lies. It's up to you to enlighten them an up to you push them on to the right path.

When we learn we change ourselves. When we learn together we can change the world.