Legal tender laws are likely more qualitatively significant than ability to pay taxes in of itself.<p>I&#x27;d be wary of the chartalist&#x2F;state theory of money, since it&#x27;s somewhat of a truism (state theory of money is correct for money chartered by the state). It tends to ignore that many local currencies have also emerged through different channels.<p>MMT as promoted by Mosler, Wray, Kelton and Tcherneva is also a syncretic and often uncredited mix of a variety of economic ideas, generally as a clout for the policy activism that its founders promote.