Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 102

Merkel’s Comeuppance is Europe’s – and the World’s – Misfortune – Project Syndicate op-ed

JOHANNESBURG – One of the most common mistakes European leaders make in interpreting US President Donald Trump’s hostility toward America’s traditional allies, or the alacrity of his administration’s efforts to blow up the international order, is to assume that all of this is unprecedented. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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The Open Letter sent to me in 2015 by Paolo Savona & Giulio Tremonti, two former Italian ministers, on reforms to the EU that they considered necessary

Rome, July 24, 2015

To Yanis Varoufakis and Dominique Strauss-Khan

Dear Yanis, dear Dominique,

There is a place on earth that represents Europe’s very roots: Greece. Let us begin there.

Athens, April 28, 1955. Albert Camus’ conference on “The future of Europe”.
On this occasion, participants agreed that the structural characteristics of European civilization are essentially two: the dignity of the individual; a spirit of critique.

At that time (1955), human dignity was a focus of much debate in Europe.

Nobody doubted, however, the European “spirit of critique”. There were no doubts about the rationalist, Cartesian, Enlightened vision, which was agent and engine of continuous progress on the continent, as much in terms of technical-scientific domination as for political, social and economic domination.

Today, more than half a century later, we might well invert these two: human dignity is widely appreciated throughout Europe, albeit challenged by dramatic problems generated by immigration; it is the force of reason in Europe that no longer underlies continuous progress.

Why is this so? What happened?

It was not some shadowy curse that descended upon the continent. It was not some evil hand that sowed our fields with salt. So what did happen?

Just as the dinosaurs died off because an asteroid slammed into the planet, so was dinosaur Europe struck by 4 different phenomena. Each was revolutionary even when taken alone, but all together, one after another, they proved enough to cause an explosion, an implosion, paralysis: enlargement, globalization, the euro, the crisis.

And that is not all. During the process of political union, we took a wrong turn at one point. We failed to unite that which could be and needed to be united (such as defense). Instead, we united that which did not need to be united (for example, the size of vegetables).

This is why, in Europe today, it is not “more union” that we need. What we need is to propose, discuss and design new “articles of confederation”.

Dear Yanis, dear Dominique, we agree on the fact that life and civilization cannot be reduced to mere calculations of interest rates; we agree that today, in Europe, it is not the technicalities that need changing but the political vision. History teaches us that in order to reach our goal we must change what is inside people’s heads or – at the very least – admit that mistakes have been made. We agree that the piazzas of protest are to be avoided, but that we must find a new road, down which we can all walk, regardless of our country or political party of origin.

Paolo Savona, Emeritus professor of Political economy

Giulio Tremonti, Senator of the Italian Republic

 “L’avenir de la civilisation européenne – entretien avec Albert Camus”, Union Culturelle Gréco-Français, Athènes 1956.

New York Magazine – Interviewed by Felipe Ossa: “Yanis Varoufakis Has Some Ideas About How to Save the Future”

Much of the world was introduced to Yanis Varoufakis in early 2015, when, as Greece’s bold new finance minister (he rode a Yamaha to work and tabloids touted his sex appeal), he led negotiations with the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund to restructure the country’s crushing load of government debt. To many, he was a leftist hero standing up to the heartless eurocrats in Brussels. But then the eurocrats won. After failing to reach an agreement — Varoufakis viewed the terms of the austerity measures as overly punitive and counterproductive — he resigned in a July 2015 blog post in which he vowed to “wear the creditors’ loathing with pride” and quit the governing Syriza Party.
Varoufakis, 57, has since become a vocal critic of politics in the European Union and a torch bearer for progressive ideas across the continent.
This March he launched a new party in Greece — where the conservative media continue attacking him as a narcissist and relentless self-promoter — MeRA 25, which aims to restructure Greece’s debt yet again and reverse some austerity measures. The country, he says, is turning into a desert of human capital, as the young emigrate to flee an E.U.-imposed “debt bondage.”
The U.S. edition of Varoufakis’s book, Speaking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works — and How it Fails, was just released. It sets out to demystify some of the major economic issues of our time for readers of all kinds, including 14-year-olds.

I spoke to Varoufakis over the phone last week. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

So, in what ways does capitalism work and in what ways has it failed?

Capitalism has liberated us. It has generated incredible new technologies and wealth — I love the idea of a robot doing all the chores. But at the very same time, out of the same kind of proverbial production line, it has generated the most spectacular horror and depravity. It’s remarkably contradictory.

Speaking of robots: Your daughter is 14. What sort of jobs do you think will be available for her generation?

My greatest worry about my daughter is that increasingly her generation is being divided into two lumps, two groups of people. Those who will be doing more demeaning jobs, being the appendices of some kind of digital system, so they become part of that machinery in a way that resembles Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. And the second group who are beginning their lives as interns struggling to acquire a profile that at some point in life they’ll be able to sell to the highest bidder, of some large corporation, maybe for the highest salary but always living their working lives in a state of precarity and a state of angst.

Grim. 

I think that’s how many young people view things today.

So what’s one way to improve young people’s lot?

A universal basic dividend. We need to face up to the fact that [corporate] profits are increasingly produced socially; a result of cooperative, collaborative large-scale projects, many of them financed by the state and state institutions and many of them generated surreptitiously by each one of us. Every time you search something on your Google engine, you’re contributing to the capital of Google. A part of their shares [would] be contributed to a public growth fund so that we can produce a universal basic dividend, distributed to members of society that have contributed — maybe inadvertently — to the production of that social capital.

At least at the initial stage, you can say to [these companies]: Every time you have an IPO or you raise new capital, you take, say, 10 percent of the shares and you deposit them in a public equity fund.

Until we’re prepared to do that, we’re not going to find what it takes in order to stabilize this destabilizing process.

But is that at all feasible?

There’d be resistance from the ExxonMobils, the General Motors, the older corporations, but the newer big tech companies, I think some would support the idea. I know Bill Gates would.

Why not universal basic income — just ensuring everyone gets a check from the government?

My proposal is a counterpoint to universal basic income. It’s very difficult in today’s environment to convince a blue-collar worker who’s working day and night and is very insecure about his job that you’re going to tax him to give money to someone to sit home and watch television. [Also it would] jeopardize the existing welfare state.

The idea of universal basic dividend is we’re saying “Forget taxes”; this has nothing to do with taxation.

How would this work across borders? Apple is U.S.-based. Would Europeans get a dividend too? 

It would give us a fantastic opportunity to do what we have to do anyway: greater collaboration across borders. So instead of having trade wars, which Trump seems to think in his infinite wisdom we need now, we collaborate. Let’s say the European Union authorities and the American authorities agree that the distribution of Google shares among two equity funds — the American and the European —should be pro-rata in proportion to the revenues of Google in Europe and the United States. This might sound utopian. But I’d refer you to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 which designed the postwar financial system, where the degree of collaboration and cooperation achieved was much higher. There was political will and some more far-sighted politicians.

Unemployment remains stubbornly high in parts of Europe, in particular in Greece. Why has the U.S. managed to generally keep it lower over the last couple of decades?

The main reason is that [in the States] you have a Federal Reserve that is within its remit to adjust the money supply to achieve full employment. We don’t have that in Europe; [the European Central Bank] has only a mandate for price stability. You [also] have a federal budget which plays a massively important recycling role. You have an economy like California and you have an economy like Missouri; it’s like having Germany and Greece in the same economy. But you have Social Security payments in Missouri that are funded by taxes raised in San Francisco.

What about the argument that tighter labor-market regulations are partly to blame for higher unemployment in some European countries? 

I would never deny anyone the right to humiliate themselves with such hypotheses.

Think of Greece as the laboratory of neoliberalism. Greece is now more flexible in terms of its labor markets than Bangladesh. We have effected in the last eight years measures and policies that would be a neoliberal or libertarian’s wet dream. We have a 60 percent reduction in social security payments, 48 percent reduction in state pensions. We have abolished … collective bargaining, so unions are cosmetic, they play no role in setting wages. Libertarians would expect a massive boost in employment [and the] eradication of youth unemployment. Instead: What has happened? We have a great depression, we’ve lost 28 percent of nominal GDP, similar to what happened in the United States in 1929 and one in two families has no members that work.

When you look at Trump, what do you see?

Trump has to be seen as a symptom of the failure of Barack Obama.

He’s trying to use the exorbitant power of the American financial system in order to put the brakes on a process that weakens the global position of the United States. He’s using stealth and deliberate strategies of generating instability, engendering fear amongst friends and foes in Europe and in China and in the rest of the world. For example: pulling out of the Iran deal had nothing to do with weapons or Iran, it was a way of trouncing Angela Merkel and showing to the Germans that he can order German companies out of Iran and back into the United States against the edicts and wishes of Germany.

Confrontation could possibly yield short-term benefits for some American corporations and for American power, but in the medium- to long-term it’s going to destabilize the world in which Americans are going to have to live.

What failure of Obama’s are you talking about? 

Remember that Obama would never have won if not for the 2008 collapse of the financial sector. He rode into the White House on a wave of consternation and discontent. And after having won the presidency he immediately appointed the very same people who were responsible for the exuberance and extravagance of Wall Street: Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers.

He became the plaything of forces beyond his control, of Wall Street, and of those whom he had just bailed out. The anger turned against him … and in the end he had people who voted for Obama in 2008 voting for Trump in 2016. The banks had to be bailed out, but the bankers didn’t.

The most ironic and ridiculous sight, speaking as an outsider, is the Democratic Party blaming the victory of Trump on Russia and Facebook. From where I stand, this is one of the most laughable claims I’ve never heard.

So what should you have done differently in Greece?

I [shouldn’t] have trusted my own prime minister and my own colleagues and cabinet because our defeat was a result of their capitulation. This is the greatest regret. I don’t hold grudges against creditors, against my opponents in the European Union, and the International Monetary Fund — they were doing their job.

I put all my energy into extending [the negotiations] by three months so as to give creditors and our side more space during which to find an honorable compromise. The creditors were simply not interested in compromise … what they were interested in was to overthrow or crush our government, but that was not all. I was hoping that that three-month period would have been used by our side as well, to steel ourselves for any confrontation. I should not have struck the deal, I should have forced things to a head, in the first four weeks. Had we done that we would have been far more united, the creditors would not have made use of the three-month period to divide and rule over us.

What if that had meant pulling out of the euro — a Grexit —which many pundits believed would have been catastrophic for the Greek economy, leading to runaway inflation, a sharp rise in the cost of imported goods and even steeper unemployment?

We’d be better off today if we had. Getting out of the euro was not my preference, but what we now have — the extension of our debt bondage within the euro and a great depression that’s foreseeable for the next decade — is certainly the worst possible outcome.

You recently started a new party in Greece, MeRa 25. The platform includes restructuring the national debt and to tie repayments to growth, cut taxes on small businesses, and end austerity by allowing the government to run a smaller budget surplus. What do you hope these, and your other proposals, will accomplish?

End Greece’s great depression. Imagine in the United States, if you hadn’t had a New Deal in 1933. Imagine that the crash of 1929 produced a Great Depression beyond a decade. Imagine the state of this nation. This is the state of Greece today. I wish I didn’t have to start a new party — it’s the last thing in my life that I want is to be part of the political game. [We’re a] tangible and credible alternative to a process of desertification of the country as the young are leaving it.

Which country’s economic management do you admire the most right now?

China.

That’s not the answer I was expecting.

I would never admire a dictatorial communist party. But you asked me about economic policies. The economic policy pursued by Beijing has been exemplary.

How so?

In 2008, we owe [the fact] that the great recession that hit the United States did not become a great depression to two factors: one is the Fed printing all this money — not that they used it as they should — and the second is China.

They intentionally inflated their existing credit bubble, creating a lot more private debt, lifted their investment levels to unprecedented levels, on purpose, to replace the lost exports due to the global recession by local investment spending and therefore to buy enormous time — a decade — for the European Union and America, to get their act together. Of course, we didn’t.

And then when that bubble started bursting, around 2013, they were very smart in the way that they deflated without bursting it. And then when the recession was beginning to be smelt in the air they boosted their bubble again in 2015, that’s what stopped the American economy from going into a double-dip recession.

So they’ve been very skilled at managing their macroeconomy in a way that has been very beneficial to the rest of the world.

But isn’t at least some of this possible because they could ram their policies through in a way you couldn’t in a democracy?

As a committed democrat I would never agree to this, that’s my line and I’m sticking to it!

I think it is perfectly possible in well-functioning democracies to have smart policies that stabilize a macroeconomy. You had it in the United States in the 1940s and the 1950s, even in the early-to-mid 1960s.

You don’t have that now because of the toxic after-effects of the period of financialization and of the discontent following its collapse. But I will never concede the point that you need to have a dictatorship to make things work.

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President Mattarella of Italy: From moral drift to tactical blunder

I concede that there are issues over which I would welcome the Italian President’s use of constitutional powers that (in my humble opinion) he should not have.(*)  One such issue is the outrageous policy of the Lega and the promise of its leader, Mr Salvini, to expel five hundred thousand migrants from Italy. Had President Mattarella refused Mr Salvini the post of Interior Minister, on the basis that he rejects such a monstrous project, I would be compelled to support him. But, no, Mr Mattarella had no such qualms. Not even for a moment did he consider vetoing the formation of a 5S-Lega government on the basis that there is no place in a European country for scenes involving security forces rounding up hundreds of thousands of people, caging them, and forcing them into trains, buses and ferries before expelling them goodness knows where.
No, Mr Mattarella vetoed the formation of a government backed by an absolute majority of lawmakers for another reason: His disapproval of the Finance Minister designate. And what was this disapproval based on? The fact that the said gentleman, while fully qualified for the job, and despite his declaration that he would abide by the EU’s eurozone rules, has in the past expressed doubts about the eurozone’s architecture and has favoured a plan of euro exit just in case it is needed. It was as if  President Mattarella were to declare that reasonableness in a prospective Finance Minister constitutes grounds for his or her exclusion from the post!
Let’s face it: There is no thinking economist anywhere in the world who does not share a concern about the eurozone’s faulty architecture. And there is no prudent finance minister who does not have a plan for euro exit; indeed, I have itr on good authority that the German finance ministry, the ECB, every major bank and corporation have plans in place for the possible exit from the eurozone of Italy, even of Germany. Is Mr Mattarella telling us that only the Italian Finance Minister is not allowed to imagine having such a plan?
Beyond his moral drift (as he condones Mr Salvini’s industrial-scale misanthropy while vetoing a legitimate concern about the eurozone’s capacity to let Italy breathe in its midst), President Mattarella has made a major tactical blunder.
In short, he fell right into Mr Salvini’s trap. The formation of another ‘technical’ government, under a former IMF apparatchik, is a fantastic gift to Mr Salvini.
Mr Salvini is secretly salivating at the thought of another election – one that he will fight not as the misanthropic, divisive populist that he is but as the defender of democracy against the Deep Establishment. Already last night hescaled the high moral with the stirring words: “Italy is not a colony, we are not slaves of the Germans, the French, the spread or finance.”
If Mr Mattarella takes solace from the fact that previous Italian Presidents managed to put in place technical governments that did the establishment’s job (so ‘successfully’ that the country’s political centre was destroyed), he is very badly mistaken. This time around he, unlike his predecessors, has no parliamentary majority to pass a budget or indeed to give his government a vote of confidence. Thus, he is forced to go into elections that, courtesy of his moral drift and tactical incompetence, will return an even stronger majority for 5S-Lega, possibly in alliance with the enfeebled Forza Italia of Silvio Berlusconi.
And then what Mr Mattarella?

 

(*) It is my view that indirectly elected Presidents (i.e. Presidents not elected by the people) cannot legitimately deny a parliamentary majority the right to choose the cabinet. This is the fundamental difference between a presidential and a parliamentary democracy. For a democracy to be run as presidential, the President must have a direct mandate from the people. The Italian President, in this sense, should not have the powers vested in him by the Constitution. And, even if he has, he has no moral or political legitimacy to use it in order to dictate economic policy.

 

Does capitalism make us happy? On THINK AGAIN: A Big Think podcast – 26 MAY 2018

Yanis Varoufakis – Happiness, Inc. – Think Again – a Big Think Podcast #149

Jason GOTS: As the Wu-Tang Clan once put it: “Cash moves everything around me… Get the money. Dollar dollar bill, y’all.” I grew up not wanting to believe this. All the stuff that seemed worth having was hard to put a price tag on. But under global capitalism, there’s a lot of hard, sad truth to it. As an American child of the 1980s, I absorbed the message “find yourself!” “Follow your passions!” But there are powerful economic forces at work, shaping our lives and opportunities.
My guest today experienced this in the most intense way imaginable, wrangling with the European Union over the economy of his country, Greece, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown. He saw firsthand what a house of cards global capitalism can be, and what can happen to the ones on the bottom. Yanis Varoufakis is Greece’s former finance minister and the author of two recent books: Adults in the Room and Talking to My Daughter About the Economy.

Surprise conversation-starter clips in this episode:

Slavoj Zizek on the problem with happiness
Steven Pinker on why there are no libertarian countries

About Think Again – A Big Think Podcast: Since 2008, Big Think has been sharing big ideas from creative and curious minds. Since 2015, the Think Again podcast has been taking us out of our comfort zone, surprising our guests and Jason Gots, your host, with unexpected conversation starters from Big Think’s interview archives.

You’ve got 10 minutes with Einstein. What do you talk about? Black holes? Time travel? Why not gambling? The Art of War? Contemporary parenting? Some of the best conversations happen when we’re pushed outside of our comfort zones. Each week on Think Again, we surprise smart people you may have heard of with short clips from Big Think’s interview archives on every imaginable subject. These conversations could, and do, go anywhere.

Come talk to us on Twitter: @bigthinkagain

Τα θύματα της Γάζας καταδεικνύουν μια άλλη εξωτερική και ενεργειακή πολιτική – ΕφΣυν 19 ΜΑΗ 2018

Κάποτε βλέπαμε σκηνές όπως οι πρόσφατες από τη Γάζα και νιώθαμε αποτροπιασμό, θεωρώντας τους εαυτούς μας συμπάσχοντες με τους Παλαιστινίους. Σήμερα, έχουμε απολέσει το δικαίωμα σε αυτή την αθωότητα δεδομένου ότι οι κυβερνώντες μας, η δεύτερη κυβέρνηση του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ (που συνεχίζει απροκάλυπτα την πολιτική Σαμαρά και σε αυτό τον τομέα), έχουν καταστήσει την Ελλάδα συνέταιρο εκείνων που βρίσκονται από την άλλη μεριά του «φράκτη», εκείνων που χειρίζονται τα μη επανδρωμένα αεροπλάνα και τα μυδράλια που σπέρνουν τον θάνατο στους άοπλους διαδηλωτές της Γάζας.

Ως γνωστόν, η κυβέρνησή μας έχει υπογράψει πρωτόκολλο συμφωνίας για συνεκμετάλλευση των κοιτασμάτων υδρογονανανθράκων της Ανατολικής Μεσογείου με το Ισραήλ και την Κύπρο, καθώς και συνεργασίας στον «αμυντικό» τομέα με το Ισραήλ. Πρόσφατες είναι, άλλωστε, οι εικόνες του πρωθυπουργού να στέκεται χαμογελαστός δίπλα στον ακροδεξιό, βαθιά ρατσιστή, πολεμοχαρή, άξιο υπονομευτή της ειρηνευτικής διαδικασίας και ελεγχόμενο για διαφθορά από τις ισραηλινές αρχές Μπενιαμίν Νετανιάχου. Οταν αντιπαραβάλλουμε εκείνες τις εικόνες με τις νέες από τη Γάζα, η ντροπή είναι το μόνο συναίσθημα που μας αξίζει.

Το κυνικό αντεπιχείρημα είναι ότι η Ελλάδα, μια πτωχευμένη και χειμαζόμενη χώρα, δεν έχει την πολυτέλεια να προσπαθεί να βγάλει το φίδι από την τρύπα εκ μέρους των Παλαιστινίων, όσο και να νοιαζόμαστε για το δράμα τους και να συμμεριζόμαστε τον πόνο τους.

Σε μια εποχή που αντιμετωπίζουμε υπαρξιακή κρίση ως χώρα, λένε οι κυβερνητικοί εκπρόσωποι (σε αγαστή αρμονία με την τρόικα εσωτερικού), έχουμε ανάγκη τα δισ. των υδρογονανθράκων ώστε να βγάλουμε από επάνω μας τις αλυσίδες των δανειστών. Συνεπώς, οι ευαισθησίες για τους Παλαιστινίους αποτελούν (και αυτές!) «αυταπάτες» που η Κυβερνώσα Αριστερά απεμπόλησε εδώ και καιρό.

Είναι όμως έτσι; Ακόμα και να αποδεχτούμε το επιχείρημα υπέρ του συνεταιρισμού με εκείνους που προβαίνουν στην εθνοκάθαρση των Παλαιστινίων, θυσιάζοντας κάθε επιχείρημα υπέρ ημών που στηρίζει τις θέσεις μας διεθνώς σε κάποιο ηθικό προβάδισμα του Ελληνισμού (π.χ. στο Κυπριακό ή όσον αφορά τις θέσεις για την εθνοκάθαρση των Ποντίων), δεν είναι καθόλου προφανές ότι η ασκούμενη πολιτική θα αποφέρει τα οικονομικά οφέλη που μας υπόσχονται. Να το πω απλά: οι κυβερνώντες προδίδουν βασικές ανθρωπιστικές αρχές χωρίς καν να έχουν εξασφαλίσει ότι τελικά θα λάβουν τα τριάκοντα αργύρια!

Υπάρχει κάποιος στην κυβέρνηση που να κατανοεί πόσο επικίνδυνη είναι –και από οικονομικής πλευράς– η τακτική του συνεταιρισμού με τον Νετανιάχου την ώρα που καίγεται η Παλαιστίνη και που ο έτερος εταίρος του, ο Ντόναλντ Τραμπ, δυναμιτίζει τη Μέση Ανατολή καταργώντας τη διεθνή συμφωνία με το Ιράν; Είναι τόσο δύσκολο να δουν ότι στόχος του Τραμπ ήταν ο εξαναγκασμός των γερμανικών εταιρειών να αποσυρθούν από το Ιράν κόντρα στη βούληση της Ανγκελα Μέρκελ και με τρόπο που βαθαίνει το ρήγμα μεταξύ Παρισίων και Βερολίνου; (Ή μήπως αποφάσισαν να εκδικηθούν την καγκελάριο με αυτό τον ευφάνταστο τρόπο για τους συνεχείς εξευτελισμούς στους οποίους τους υποβάλλει από το καλοκαίρι του 2015;)

Δεν βλέπουν ότι τα εγκαίνια της αμερικανικής πρεσβείας στα Ιεροσόλυμα αποτελούν ηθελημένη προσπάθεια του Τραμπ να αποσταθεροποιήσει τη Μέση Ανατολή κόντρα στη βούληση και στα συμφέροντα της Ε.Ε.; Και αν οι κυβερνώντες μας τα βλέπουν όλα αυτά, κρίνουν πραγματικά ότι η συμμαχία με τους Νετανιάχου – Τραμπ είναι σήμερα η βέλτιστη στρατηγική επιλογή για την Ελλάδα;

Ακόμα και να είναι (που δεν είναι!), ακόμα και να μάθουμε να κάνουμε αυτό που κάνει δεκαετίες τώρα η Δύση (να αποστρέφει δηλαδή το βλέμμα από το διαρκές έγκλημα εναντίον των Παλαιστινίων), πόσο πιθανόν είναι να εκμεταλλευτούμε εν ειρήνη τους υδρογονάνθρακες της Ανατολικής Μεσογείου στο πλαίσιο αυτής της ένοχης λυκοφιλίας με την κυβέρνηση Νετανιάχου; Καθόλου, είναι η απάντηση, καθώς είναι παράλογο να πιστέψει κανείς ότι η Τουρκία θα κάτσει με σταυρωμένα τα χέρια όσο η συμμαχία Ελλάδας, Κύπρου και Ισραήλ αντλεί υδατάνθρακες νότια των τουρκικών ακτών αφήνοντας την Τουρκία απέξω.

Νομίζει κανείς σοβαρά ότι οι ΗΠΑ του Τραμπ ή το Ισραήλ του Νετανιάχου θα σταθούν αρωγοί μας, θα μας βοηθήσουν στην αποκλιμάκωση της έντασης στο Αιγαίο, το Κυπριακό, το προσφυγικό κ.λπ. μπροστά σε μια έξαλλη Τουρκία της οποίας το σιδηρούν καθεστώς θα αφιονίζει τον λαό με το (όχι και τόσο ψευδές) επιχείρημα ότι «οι δολοφόνοι των Παλαιστινίων μαζί με τους Ελληνες εκμεταλλεύονται τον ορυκτό πλούτο νότια των ακτών μας»;

Οταν τη δεκαετία του 1970 ανακαλύφθηκαν κοιτάσματα πετρελαίου και φυσικού αερίου στη Βόρεια Θάλασσα, μεταξύ Σκοτίας και Νορβηγίας, οι δύο χώρες δεν κατέφυγαν στη Χάγη, ούτε και επιδόθηκαν σε τραμπουκισμούς για το πώς θα μοιράσουν τον νέο πλούτο μεταξύ τους. Με συνοπτικές διαδικασίες συμφώνησαν να τα μοιράσουν 50-50. Θα πουν κάποιοι (σωστά) ότι ήταν πολιτισμένες χώρες και γι’ αυτό έλυσαν το ζήτημα με πολιτισμένο τρόπο.

Θα πουν (σωστά) ότι τα καθεστώτα της Τουρκίας την καθιστούν επιθετική, αναξιόπιστη, προβληματική γειτόνισσα. Μα αυτός ακριβώς είναι ο λόγος που είναι ανόητο και επικίνδυνο να αφήνουμε την Τουρκία έξω από τη συνεκμετάλλευση των υδρογονανθράκων συμμαχώντας μόνο με το Ισραήλ σε μια περιοχή όπου οι εντάσεις αυξάνονται επικίνδυνα και που τα μόνα άλλα κράτη τα οποία παραμένουν εν λειτουργία και διατηρούν τη δυνατότητα να παρεμβαίνουν στην περιοχή (ιδίως μετά την κατάρρευση της πάλαι ποτέ υπολογίσιμης Αιγύπτου) είναι το Ιράν και η Τουρκία.

Η προφανής λύση που θα προτείνει το ΜέΡΑ25 στο εκλογικό μας πρόγραμμα εντός του Ιουνίου, και η οποία θα προήγαγε τα γενικότερα συμφέροντά μας (ειρήνη και εκμετάλλευση πόρων), είναι η πρόταση δημιουργίας ενός ευρύτερου συνεταιρισμού Ελλάδας, Κύπρου, Τουρκίας, Λιβάνου, Ισραήλ, Αιγύπτου και Παλαιστινιακής Αρχής. (Με ποιο άραγε δικαίωμα μένει απέξω ο λαός της Γάζας από τη μοιρασιά;)

Μόνο και μόνο μια τέτοια πρόταση από την Ελλάδα:

■ Θα αναβάθμιζε την εικόνα μας εντός της Ε.Ε. και παγκοσμίως, εμφανίζοντάς μας ως μία σώφρονα, εποικοδομητική, φιλειρηνική περιφερειακή δύναμη – αντί για μία ωφελιμιστική, οπορτουνιστική αποικία της Ε.Ε. που απλά θέλει να εισπράξει υπέρ των δανειστών της κάνοντας τα στραβά μάτια στις εντάσεις και στα εγκλήματα εναντίον των λαών της περιοχής.

■ Θα δημιουργούσε προβλήματα στον Ερντογάν και στον όποιον Ερντογάν, που επενδύει πολιτικά στην ένταση στις σχέσεις Ελλάδας και Τουρκίας, βοηθώντας την πλειονότητα των πολιτών της Τουρκίας (τα κυρίως θύματα τύπου απολυταρχισμού του Ερντογάν) να αποκτήσουν αντισώματα εναντίον του ανθελληνισμού που καλλιεργεί το εκεί καθεστώς ως αντιπερισπασμό στις καταπιεστικές και εκμεταλλευτικές πολιτικές του.

■ Θα ενίσχυε τους Ισραηλινούς συντρόφους μας, που νιώθουν αποτροπιασμό για την πολιτική του Νετανιάχου, και οι οποίοι θα μπορούσαν να βοηθήσουν με μια καμπάνια εντός του Ισραήλ που θα συνέδεε την υπόθεση των υδρογονανθράκων με την αναβίωση της νεκρής ειρηνευτικής διαδικασίας μεταξύ Ισραηλινών, Παλαιστινίων και Αράβων γενικότερα.

■ Τέλος, μια τέτοια κίνηση θα μας επέτρεπε, την ώρα που παρακολουθούμε τις ζοφερές εικόνες από τη Γάζα, να νιώσουμε ξανά αλληλέγγυοι με τα θύματα άνευ των τύψεων που τώρα μας βαραίνουν.

Γιατί δεν κάνει μια τέτοια κίνηση η κυβέρνηση; Φαίνεται ότι μιας ανήκουστης συνθηκολόγησης (όπως εκείνης της νύχτας του δημοψηφίσματος) έπονται άλλες πολλές.

*Γραμματέας του ΜέΡΑ25

On YouTube’s ‘The Young Turks’ (TYT), interviewed by Nomi Konst on Capitalism, Democracy and Crisis – 21 MAY 2018

Nomiki Konst (TYT Politics) interviews former Greek Finance Minister and Greek Member of Parliament Yanis Varoufakis. Get ‘Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism’ here: http://a.co/eXqqRNt

Is capitalism devouring democracy? At the Cambridge Forum, Massachusetts, 17th May 2018 – video

At the New School, discussing ‘Capitalism and the Present Moment in History’ with Will Milberg – 7 MAY 2018

On the day of this discussion/presentation, students and staff were occupying part of the New School as part  of a twin labour dispute: one regarding the cafeteria staff facing dismissal and partial re-employment under worse terns and a second dispute concerning low pay and lack of rights for student workers-TAs. It is in this context that I asked the New School’s authorities to begin the evening by giving the floor to two student representatives who would present their case.

Trump vs. Europe – Interview for The Nation podcast

Trump vs Europe: He’s threatening European banks and industries with sanctions. If they don’t cut off trade with Iran, they would be barred from American markets and transactions with American banks. We asked Yanis Varoufakis for his analysis—he’s the former finance minister of Greece who led the resistance to European Bankers demanding austerity—now he has co-founded DiEM25 an international grassroots movement that is campaign for the revival of democracy in Europe.