Michael Hudson : Round Table Discussion – The Word Economics Erased

Karl Fitzgerald hosts another Hudson Roundtable, opening the floor to Patreon supporters for questions drawn from Michael Hudson’s back catalogue.

This session moves from the Dutch central bank’s gold repatriation from New York to London, to Washington’s growing use of stablecoins to extend dollar reach outside the banking system, to the mechanics and political economy of debt cancellation. The through-line is economic rent: the classical distinction, developed by Smith, Ricardo, Mill and Marx, between value based on cost of production and the price paid above it.

Michael explains why that distinction organized nineteenth-century economics, why neoclassical economics erased it, and why recovering it matters for how debt cancellation, land taxation and home ownership statistics get discussed today. Topics covered Dutch gold repatriation and central bank trust in US custody Stablecoins and the privatisation of dollar hegemony Gold price manipulation and the limits of leased gold Currency sovereignty and the BRICS credit arrangement MMT, taxation and government money creation Economic rent: the classical concept and why it was erased Debt cancellation as wealth cancellation, and why it must pair with land taxation Distorted home ownership statistics in the US, Australia and Singapore Michael Hudson’s forthcoming book and the economics of independent publishing