A gross omission made by MMT - the elephant in the room - is US corporate capital's rule at home and abroad, which allows it to impose itself and its currency on the world. MMT compounds this weakness by presenting the obstacles nations face in establishing a sovereign currency largely as matters of political will, of choice. Ironically, this may explain MMT's popularity at home in the liberal-left milieu. Implementing full employment, national health insurance, free college education, and the Green New Deal are presented as choices politicians have not yet made because of their mistaken beliefs concerning the national debt. Just clarify that we do not need to raise taxes and need not worry about inflation and bingo! We have what we want.
The question remains, however, why the US debt has grown over $10 trillion in 10 years with almost no inflation. Is the MMT explanation accurate, that the sovereign nature of the US dollar gives it that power? No. Printing or creating dollars out of thin air, backed by nothing, does create inflation. In Why the US Can Keep Increasing its Debt and not Suffer Inflation we show how the US has been able to export much of it and take many of the new dollars of out circulation. This does result from the US position as sovereign, but not in the sense MMT uses.
[1] Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions 2018, p. 18-19
[2] The report notes in 2018 "the Central Bank of Somalia does not have a monetary policy framework"
[3] European Central Bank: The International Role of the Euro (June 2019), Box 1 Chart A
[4] ibid., Chart 26
[5] Ibid., Chart 2 and p.19ff
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